World Wide Wave

14 Oct 2013

Hong Kong: Old and young divided

LISTEN TO PODCAST NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:57 — 35.7MB)

There’s a divide between the young and the old.

So notes Dr Peter Robinson, from Melbourne’s Swinburne University and author of the book Gay Men’s Relationships Across the Life Course

In his study of gay men in Hong Kong, Dr Robinson found that men under 31 were almost universally in favour of the idea of gay marriage; whereas those above 51 were less convinced.

“The older men I think were heavily influenced by the feminist ideology of the ’70s which seriously queried marriage as an institution that was oppressive of women.”

Dr Robinson is a Sociologist and his research interests include ageing, sexuality, and social justice. His first book, The Changing World of Gay Men won The Australian Sociological Association’s inaugural Raewyn Connell Prize in 2010.

As a former British colony, Hong Kong, where homosexuality has been decriminalised since 1991, is fairly liberal. You can even change your gender on legal documents except for your birth certificate.

Still, Dr Robinson points out that “there are problems in Hong Kong. The special status that family has [and] the desire not to let down parents.”

And marriage and civil unions are still not available to same-sex couples.

Launch by the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG of Dr Peter Robinson’s Gay Men’s Relationships Across the Life Course (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) on 25 September 2013 at the Penang Room, Library, Hawthorn campus, Swinburne University of Technology. Left to Right: Andrew Morison, Fil Djordjevic (hidden), Joe Jackson, Michelle Slattery, the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG (with book in hand), Peter Robinson, and Ashlie Rich. Photograph by Cindy Ogwayo, Web Publishing and Engagement Officer, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences

Learn more about this evolving country on W3JOY’s Hong Kong webpage.