Petula Sik Ying Ho
Biographic Data
| ID | 3692909 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Petula Sik Ying Ho |
| GIVEN NAMES | Petula Sik Ying |
| FAMILY NAME | Ho |
| SIGNATURE | HO P S Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hong Kong |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 120 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Seeking Love and Justice Amid Hong Kong’s Contentious Politics
Hong Kong women activists’ understanding of love and justice has shaped, and been shaped, by their political engagement under changing circumstances through two phases of mass protest: in 2014 and 2019. This article is focused on the sentiments of love and justice and how they evolved over time, from the peaceful protest of the Umbrella Movement in 2014 to the violent confrontations of 2019 in the context of the rise of ethno-nationalism. This sh…
A Feminist Snap
Connection at the price of collusion
This article explores the politics of emotions around the recent Hong Kong protests, from the Umbrella Movement in 2014 to the Anti-extradition Movement in 2019–2020. The aim was to articulate the tensions faced by Left-leaning intellectuals in the current political climate in HK, and propose a constructive, ethical and intellectually-acceptable way forward. The recent writings of prominent scholar Ip lam-chong were critically reviewed from an hy…
Locating sexual politics and gendered lives
This special issue brings together 11 articles on gendered lives in East Asia written by East Asian scholars. Despite recognition of this region’s economic ascendancy and increasing awareness of it
Women Doing Intimacy
This book offers a comparative study of the lives of young adult women and their mothers in Hong Kong and Britain, focusing on on a range of topics including: mother-daughter relationships; romantic, sexual and marital relationship trajectories; and the imagined futures of daughters.
Understanding the Meaning of Conformity to Feminine Norms in Lifestyle Habits and Health
Background: Gender roles impact different spheres of life and lead women to behavioral patterns and lifestyle habits associated with femininity, generating important differences between men and women in health. The present study analyzed relationships between conformity to the feminine norms and different lifestyle indicators: Educational level, marital status, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, sleeping hours, social support, and physical…
Travelling conversations
In this short article we draw on our personal experience as sexuality scholars to consider what is at stake in attempting to globalize sexuality studies. In so doing we reflect on what we have learnt from collaborating across cultures and discuss some of the barriers to correcting the western/northern dominance of this and other fields, from western theoretical hegemony to the constraints of working within authoritarian regimes. We also suggest s…
Talking Politics, Performing Masculinities
Sex With Chinese Characteristics
This article examines the changing contours of Chinese sexuality studies by locating recent research in historical context. Our aim is to use the literature we review to construct a picture of the sexual landscape in China and the sociocultural and political conditions that have shaped it, enabling readers unfamiliar with China to understand its sexual culture and practices. In particular, we focus on the consequences of recent changes under the …
Speaking against Silence
Social movement researchers have investigated how personal relationships and emotional attachments are implicated in activism, but less attention has been given to the ways in which activism affects personal lives. This article addresses this issue, drawing on interviews and focus groups with Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement's active participants, bystanders and opponents to explore its consequences for family life. While those who were not involved…
A tale of two societies
This article explores the challenges and opportunities for methodological innovation arising from an exploratory, cross-national, qualitative study of women's lives in Hong Kong and Britain. We begin by briefly outlining the aims of our study and its original research design, based on life history interviews with young adult women and their mothers in each location. We then turn to a discussion of how this was modified as we recruited participant…
Contextualising transformed intergenerational relationships in China
Recent studies indicate that a shift from the notion of filial piety to a contract of reciprocal care characterises the changing intergenerational relationship in Asian societies. Using women’s experience of dealing with the parent–child relationship during their mate selection process as an example, this article seeks to further examine transformed intergenerational relationships in China. Findings of the study show that when contextualising the…
Pray the gay away
Recognition and respect for sexual minorities in Hong Kong is still a contested area. Public sexual identity politics in Hong Kong has been framed by traditional Chinese gender ideology and imported Christian beliefs which are profoundly negative. Focusing on the interpersonal relationships in three spheres of life, the research adopted the sociological perspective of personal life and the feminist geographers’ idea of spatialization of identity …
Mothers, daughters and sex
In Western sociology, much has been made of the impact of rapid social change on sexual lives over the last half century, represented as a consequence of modernity and often as a story of progress, or, in Weeks’s (2007) words, ‘the world we have won’. The ‘world’, however, generally means the Western world. This article is based on comparative qualitative research in Britain and Hong Kong, and explores how the sexuality of young women is managed …
The seven-year struggle
In the Second Quarter of 2013, there have been 11,017 one-way permit holders who have entered Hong Kong, a daily average of 121 persons. Among these, 43.3% are migrant women aged 25–44. The main sources of stress for these new arrivals are often described as financial burdens and their poor living environments. Little has been said about the challenges they have to face as second-class citizens, their status in their first seven years in Hong Kon…
Introduction to the special section - Remapping the erotic
Sex work in China’s Pearl River Delta
We develop the concept of sexual capital through examining cases of female sex workers (referred to as xiaojies in Chinese) in the Pearl River Delta, a highly industrialized region of south China. We explore the properties of sexual capital and the conditions that allow them to function. Xiaojies employ sexual and body practices to develop different ‘currencies’: those of bodily beauty; sexual values, knowledge, practices and skills; performance …
Researching with a broken arm
After an accident, the author and researcher of this article had a period of serious contemplation and decided to take positive transformative action over the long year of her rehabilitation. Her broken arm highlighted her vulnerability as a researcher, but opened new doorways to navigating different methods of research, documentation and presentation of lived experiences. This injury was not only the means to draw attention and participation in …
Reshaping Tradition? Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Tradition and Modernity in Hong Kong and British Families
In debates on social change and personal life, modernity has generally been conceptualized in opposition to tradition, though some have pointed to the persistence of traditional values and practices within modern family relations. In this paper we seek to extend these debates beyond their largely Eurocentric context. Drawing on a comparative qualitative study of women and social change in Britain and Hong Kong, we argue for an understanding of th…
Sex and Desire in Hong Kong
The anthology provides an exemplary methodological model of community-based research through the authors' studies on sexual and erotic attitudes and practices of gay men and middle-aged women in Hong Kong over the last fifteen years. This collection focuses on issues that have major scholastic contribution to the field, namely, the voices of women on issues of sex and desire, and the investigation of multiple sex relationships among Hong Kong men…
Older Chinese men and women's experiences and understanding of sexuality
This study explored the meaning of sexuality for older Chinese people from diverse backgrounds and the role of traditional Chinese cultural values in shaping sexual expression. A total of 20 Hong Chinese elders were interviewed. Most reported a rigid definition of sexual behaviour, confining it to heterosexual sexual intercourse. Kissing, hugging and caressing were not considered 'sexual', and same-sex relationships were virtually absent from res…
Does Similarity Breed Marital and Sexual Satisfaction
This study examined the effect of socioeconomic-cultural homogamy on the marital and sexual satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese couples. Using a representative, territory-wide sample of 1,083 first-time married heterosexual couples, this study found that wives were generally less satisfied than their husbands with their marital and sexual relationships. Husbands were more likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were two to four years …
Squaring the (‘charmed’) Circle
This study explores how middle-aged married women in Hong Kong deal with their identity as “si-nai” and their life circumstances as they enter mid-life. The empirical data help elucidate the underlying assumptions of certain theorizations of heterosexuality, such as Gayle Rubin's critique of sexuality in terms of ‘good sex’ and ‘bad sex.’ The benefit of a life cycle approach should be recognized, in order to appreciate the situations of middle-ag…
Not So Great Expectations
The study explores the life of married women who are being described as having "good," "normal," "blessed" sexuality. The case of si-nais (housewives) in Hong Kong shows that we can never assume that married women (or any social category) are privileged by virtue of their status on the sexual hierarchy. The blessings of social respectability apparently enjoyed by these women may work to enable or hinder women's expression of their erotic desires …
Lost in Translation
This article questions our own use of language in representing, articulating, and communicating Chinese-speaking people's experiences associated with the words `sex' and `sexuality' in the English language. We notice that whenever the elite discourse fails to fully represent the lived experiences of `the people', their own utterances will demonstrate the creative and subversive potentials of the everyday language. Our research has transformed our…
Sex With Chinese Characteristics
This article examines the changing contours of Chinese sexuality studies by locating recent research in historical context. Our aim is to use the literature we review to construct a picture of the sexual landscape in China and the sociocultural and political conditions that have shaped it, enabling readers unfamiliar with China to understand its sexual culture and practices. In particular, we focus on the consequences of recent changes under the …
Negotiating Anal Intercourse in Inter-Racial Gay Relationships in Hong Kong
This article is about the experience of Chinese gay men in colonial Hong Kong, their relationship with Western partners and their sexual practices. The body of the colonized is a critical space where resistance against the subjection by the colonial intrusion is put up. As their agency and instruments of desire are actively claiming personal and interpersonal space, the forces of colonial domination are met with subversive resistance. It is in th…
Pray the gay away
Recognition and respect for sexual minorities in Hong Kong is still a contested area. Public sexual identity politics in Hong Kong has been framed by traditional Chinese gender ideology and imported Christian beliefs which are profoundly negative. Focusing on the interpersonal relationships in three spheres of life, the research adopted the sociological perspective of personal life and the feminist geographers’ idea of spatialization of identity …
Does Similarity Breed Marital and Sexual Satisfaction
This study examined the effect of socioeconomic-cultural homogamy on the marital and sexual satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese couples. Using a representative, territory-wide sample of 1,083 first-time married heterosexual couples, this study found that wives were generally less satisfied than their husbands with their marital and sexual relationships. Husbands were more likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were two to four years …
Speaking against Silence
Social movement researchers have investigated how personal relationships and emotional attachments are implicated in activism, but less attention has been given to the ways in which activism affects personal lives. This article addresses this issue, drawing on interviews and focus groups with Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement's active participants, bystanders and opponents to explore its consequences for family life. While those who were not involved…
Reshaping Tradition? Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Tradition and Modernity in Hong Kong and British Families
In debates on social change and personal life, modernity has generally been conceptualized in opposition to tradition, though some have pointed to the persistence of traditional values and practices within modern family relations. In this paper we seek to extend these debates beyond their largely Eurocentric context. Drawing on a comparative qualitative study of women and social change in Britain and Hong Kong, we argue for an understanding of th…
Beyond the vagina–clitoris debate—From naming the genitals to reclaiming the woman's body
Not So Great Expectations
The study explores the life of married women who are being described as having "good," "normal," "blessed" sexuality. The case of si-nais (housewives) in Hong Kong shows that we can never assume that married women (or any social category) are privileged by virtue of their status on the sexual hierarchy. The blessings of social respectability apparently enjoyed by these women may work to enable or hinder women's expression of their erotic desires …
Talking Politics, Performing Masculinities
Mothers, daughters and sex
In Western sociology, much has been made of the impact of rapid social change on sexual lives over the last half century, represented as a consequence of modernity and often as a story of progress, or, in Weeks’s (2007) words, ‘the world we have won’. The ‘world’, however, generally means the Western world. This article is based on comparative qualitative research in Britain and Hong Kong, and explores how the sexuality of young women is managed …
Contextualising transformed intergenerational relationships in China
Recent studies indicate that a shift from the notion of filial piety to a contract of reciprocal care characterises the changing intergenerational relationship in Asian societies. Using women’s experience of dealing with the parent–child relationship during their mate selection process as an example, this article seeks to further examine transformed intergenerational relationships in China. Findings of the study show that when contextualising the…
Beyond Virtual Carnival and Masquerade
This article documents the brief history of cyber marriage on the Chinese Internet and shows how in-game marriage, with its game codes and marriage regulations, turns out to be the most visualized, institutionalized, and heteronormative form of cyber marriage, by exploring the game players' gender performativity, especially the gender swapping of male gamers. This study sheds light on Chinese youth subculture under the influence of new media and …
A tale of two societies
This article explores the challenges and opportunities for methodological innovation arising from an exploratory, cross-national, qualitative study of women's lives in Hong Kong and Britain. We begin by briefly outlining the aims of our study and its original research design, based on life history interviews with young adult women and their mothers in each location. We then turn to a discussion of how this was modified as we recruited participant…
Money in the Private Chamber”
This article reexamines the assumptions of the feminization-of-poverty thesis by investigating the perceptions of Hong Kong Chinese women regarding old age and the women’s strategies for dealing with old age and retirement. It challenges the assumptions of a male-centered model of retirement planning and highlights the significance of women’s definitions of wealth and poverty. It shows that retirement planning cannot be separated from women’s pra…
Locating sexual politics and gendered lives
This special issue brings together 11 articles on gendered lives in East Asia written by East Asian scholars. Despite recognition of this region’s economic ascendancy and increasing awareness of it
The seven-year struggle
In the Second Quarter of 2013, there have been 11,017 one-way permit holders who have entered Hong Kong, a daily average of 121 persons. Among these, 43.3% are migrant women aged 25–44. The main sources of stress for these new arrivals are often described as financial burdens and their poor living environments. Little has been said about the challenges they have to face as second-class citizens, their status in their first seven years in Hong Kon…
Squaring the (‘charmed’) Circle
This study explores how middle-aged married women in Hong Kong deal with their identity as “si-nai” and their life circumstances as they enter mid-life. The empirical data help elucidate the underlying assumptions of certain theorizations of heterosexuality, such as Gayle Rubin's critique of sexuality in terms of ‘good sex’ and ‘bad sex.’ The benefit of a life cycle approach should be recognized, in order to appreciate the situations of middle-ag…
Violence and Desire in Beijing
In Mainland China, there is a lack of public awareness of and systematic research on dating violence and incest. This article fills a gap in the research in this area by examining a woman's lived experience of father-daughter incest and dating violence. The article adopts the standpoint of third-wave feminists and highlights women's agency and resistance to abuse. Meng Xi, the subject of the case study in this article, is regarded as a "survivor"…
Negotiating Anal Intercourse in Inter-Racial Gay Relationships in Hong Kong
This article is about the experience of Chinese gay men in colonial Hong Kong, their relationship with Western partners and their sexual practices. The body of the colonized is a critical space where resistance against the subjection by the colonial intrusion is put up. As their agency and instruments of desire are actively claiming personal and interpersonal space, the forces of colonial domination are met with subversive resistance. It is in th…
Beyond the vagina–clitoris debate—From naming the genitals to reclaiming the woman's body
The (Charmed) Circle Game
The purpose of this study is to capture the lived experience of eight men and women with multiple partners in Hong Kong. By investigating their ways of coping with social and moral pressures, the study aims to explore the tension between proper masculinity/femininity and personal desires which often result in the trespassing of what is socially defined as ‘good’, ‘normal’ and ‘natural’. Their selective appropriation of cultural norms and gender i…
Lost in Translation
This article questions our own use of language in representing, articulating, and communicating Chinese-speaking people's experiences associated with the words `sex' and `sexuality' in the English language. We notice that whenever the elite discourse fails to fully represent the lived experiences of `the people', their own utterances will demonstrate the creative and subversive potentials of the everyday language. Our research has transformed our…
Violence and Desire in Beijing
In Mainland China, there is a lack of public awareness of and systematic research on dating violence and incest. This article fills a gap in the research in this area by examining a woman's lived experience of father-daughter incest and dating violence. The article adopts the standpoint of third-wave feminists and highlights women's agency and resistance to abuse. Meng Xi, the subject of the case study in this article, is regarded as a "survivor"…
Money in the Private Chamber”
This article reexamines the assumptions of the feminization-of-poverty thesis by investigating the perceptions of Hong Kong Chinese women regarding old age and the women’s strategies for dealing with old age and retirement. It challenges the assumptions of a male-centered model of retirement planning and highlights the significance of women’s definitions of wealth and poverty. It shows that retirement planning cannot be separated from women’s pra…
Beyond Virtual Carnival and Masquerade
This article documents the brief history of cyber marriage on the Chinese Internet and shows how in-game marriage, with its game codes and marriage regulations, turns out to be the most visualized, institutionalized, and heteronormative form of cyber marriage, by exploring the game players' gender performativity, especially the gender swapping of male gamers. This study sheds light on Chinese youth subculture under the influence of new media and …
Squaring the (‘charmed’) Circle
This study explores how middle-aged married women in Hong Kong deal with their identity as “si-nai” and their life circumstances as they enter mid-life. The empirical data help elucidate the underlying assumptions of certain theorizations of heterosexuality, such as Gayle Rubin's critique of sexuality in terms of ‘good sex’ and ‘bad sex.’ The benefit of a life cycle approach should be recognized, in order to appreciate the situations of middle-ag…
Not So Great Expectations
The study explores the life of married women who are being described as having "good," "normal," "blessed" sexuality. The case of si-nais (housewives) in Hong Kong shows that we can never assume that married women (or any social category) are privileged by virtue of their status on the sexual hierarchy. The blessings of social respectability apparently enjoyed by these women may work to enable or hinder women's expression of their erotic desires …
Older Chinese men and women's experiences and understanding of sexuality
This study explored the meaning of sexuality for older Chinese people from diverse backgrounds and the role of traditional Chinese cultural values in shaping sexual expression. A total of 20 Hong Chinese elders were interviewed. Most reported a rigid definition of sexual behaviour, confining it to heterosexual sexual intercourse. Kissing, hugging and caressing were not considered 'sexual', and same-sex relationships were virtually absent from res…
Does Similarity Breed Marital and Sexual Satisfaction
This study examined the effect of socioeconomic-cultural homogamy on the marital and sexual satisfaction of Hong Kong Chinese couples. Using a representative, territory-wide sample of 1,083 first-time married heterosexual couples, this study found that wives were generally less satisfied than their husbands with their marital and sexual relationships. Husbands were more likely to be satisfied with their marriages when they were two to four years …
Sex and Desire in Hong Kong
The anthology provides an exemplary methodological model of community-based research through the authors' studies on sexual and erotic attitudes and practices of gay men and middle-aged women in Hong Kong over the last fifteen years. This collection focuses on issues that have major scholastic contribution to the field, namely, the voices of women on issues of sex and desire, and the investigation of multiple sex relationships among Hong Kong men…
Introduction to the special section - Remapping the erotic
Sex work in China’s Pearl River Delta
We develop the concept of sexual capital through examining cases of female sex workers (referred to as xiaojies in Chinese) in the Pearl River Delta, a highly industrialized region of south China. We explore the properties of sexual capital and the conditions that allow them to function. Xiaojies employ sexual and body practices to develop different ‘currencies’: those of bodily beauty; sexual values, knowledge, practices and skills; performance …
Researching with a broken arm
After an accident, the author and researcher of this article had a period of serious contemplation and decided to take positive transformative action over the long year of her rehabilitation. Her broken arm highlighted her vulnerability as a researcher, but opened new doorways to navigating different methods of research, documentation and presentation of lived experiences. This injury was not only the means to draw attention and participation in …
Reshaping Tradition? Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Tradition and Modernity in Hong Kong and British Families
In debates on social change and personal life, modernity has generally been conceptualized in opposition to tradition, though some have pointed to the persistence of traditional values and practices within modern family relations. In this paper we seek to extend these debates beyond their largely Eurocentric context. Drawing on a comparative qualitative study of women and social change in Britain and Hong Kong, we argue for an understanding of th…
Mothers, daughters and sex
In Western sociology, much has been made of the impact of rapid social change on sexual lives over the last half century, represented as a consequence of modernity and often as a story of progress, or, in Weeks’s (2007) words, ‘the world we have won’. The ‘world’, however, generally means the Western world. This article is based on comparative qualitative research in Britain and Hong Kong, and explores how the sexuality of young women is managed …
The seven-year struggle
In the Second Quarter of 2013, there have been 11,017 one-way permit holders who have entered Hong Kong, a daily average of 121 persons. Among these, 43.3% are migrant women aged 25–44. The main sources of stress for these new arrivals are often described as financial burdens and their poor living environments. Little has been said about the challenges they have to face as second-class citizens, their status in their first seven years in Hong Kon…
Contextualising transformed intergenerational relationships in China
Recent studies indicate that a shift from the notion of filial piety to a contract of reciprocal care characterises the changing intergenerational relationship in Asian societies. Using women’s experience of dealing with the parent–child relationship during their mate selection process as an example, this article seeks to further examine transformed intergenerational relationships in China. Findings of the study show that when contextualising the…
Pray the gay away
Recognition and respect for sexual minorities in Hong Kong is still a contested area. Public sexual identity politics in Hong Kong has been framed by traditional Chinese gender ideology and imported Christian beliefs which are profoundly negative. Focusing on the interpersonal relationships in three spheres of life, the research adopted the sociological perspective of personal life and the feminist geographers’ idea of spatialization of identity …
A tale of two societies
This article explores the challenges and opportunities for methodological innovation arising from an exploratory, cross-national, qualitative study of women's lives in Hong Kong and Britain. We begin by briefly outlining the aims of our study and its original research design, based on life history interviews with young adult women and their mothers in each location. We then turn to a discussion of how this was modified as we recruited participant…
Travelling conversations
In this short article we draw on our personal experience as sexuality scholars to consider what is at stake in attempting to globalize sexuality studies. In so doing we reflect on what we have learnt from collaborating across cultures and discuss some of the barriers to correcting the western/northern dominance of this and other fields, from western theoretical hegemony to the constraints of working within authoritarian regimes. We also suggest s…
Talking Politics, Performing Masculinities
Sex With Chinese Characteristics
This article examines the changing contours of Chinese sexuality studies by locating recent research in historical context. Our aim is to use the literature we review to construct a picture of the sexual landscape in China and the sociocultural and political conditions that have shaped it, enabling readers unfamiliar with China to understand its sexual culture and practices. In particular, we focus on the consequences of recent changes under the …
Speaking against Silence
Social movement researchers have investigated how personal relationships and emotional attachments are implicated in activism, but less attention has been given to the ways in which activism affects personal lives. This article addresses this issue, drawing on interviews and focus groups with Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement's active participants, bystanders and opponents to explore its consequences for family life. While those who were not involved…
Sociology (29 works) · Gender Studies (24 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Law (13 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Human sexuality (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (9 works)