ABSTRACT
By focusing on the women in Da Shu village and their subtle but significant domestic politics, this chapter argues that village women are active agents in frequently reclaiming aspects of their personal autonomy and developing their social and political capital within the village and its surrounding area. This chapter concludes by discussing the reflexivity of village women and their transgressions against the hegemonic patrilineal and patriarchal colonial discourses and institutions. The general objective of this discussion is to show that women’s domestic existence is never a wholly domesticated one but rather contains elements of radical self-articulation and subversive actions. To borrow a more precise notion from feminist discourse, there is much “patriarchal bargaining,” that is, women’s engagements with the sexist circumstances under patriarchy in the creation of their own strategies.1
