%0 Journal Article
%T Embodied shame and gendered demeanours in young women in Sri Lanka
%A Asha L. Abeyasekera
%A Jeanne Marecek
%J Feminism & Psychology
%@ 1461-7161
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0959353518803976
%X In South Asia, shame is valued as a virtue and a means of social control, particularly for women. For Sri Lankan women, shame (l£¿jja-baya) denotes modesty, purity, innocence, and self-effacement. For unmarried girls, sexual improprieties¡ªrumoured or real¡ªthreaten loss of respectability and jeopardise a girl¡¯s marriageability and her family¡¯s honour. We investigated the dynamics of shame and norms of propriety in adolescent girls¡¯ lives by re-analysing a subset of interviews of daughters and mothers (N£¿=£¿24 pairs) collected in a prior study of nonfatal suicidal acts. Many such acts took place after girls were accused of violating norms of propriety. Other such acts served to ¡®blame and shame¡¯ wrongdoers. Girls and their mothers reported further that public knowledge of a suicide-like act sullied a girl¡¯s reputation because onlookers ascribed sexualised meanings to it. We point out the incommensurability between parents¡¯ goals and aspirations for their daughters¡¯ educational and occupation attainments and the rigid demands for respectable comportment to which they must conform
%K Sri Lanka
%K shame
%K sexual respectability
%K l£¿jja-baya
%K suicide-like acts
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0959353518803976