‘Riding a buffalo to cross a muddy field’: heuristic approaches to feminism in Cambodia

I was sitting at a pavement café near the central market in Phnom Penh early in 2008, enjoying a kafé dteuk kok (ice coffee), when two men at a nearby table began to speak. ‘Look at that’, said one. ‘She might be the next President of the United States.’ His friend turned to the TV, where a beaming Hillary Clinton was displayed. ‘That’s okay,’ he said, ‘that will never happen here.’ And they laughed.