Declining incomes and ageing villages mean that women are likely to be the mainstay of families and communities in the small-scale fisheries in Southeast Asia. In the last few decades, attention on and analysis of women in fisheries and aquaculture have changed tremendously, especially in Southeast Asia. In the 1990s, just talking about women’s role in fisheries was considered to be new. Later on, women in the fisheries network emerged with the leadership of the Mekong River Commission, and Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries symposiums started to be organized. However, the discussion was mainly around gender division of labour. ‘Women do fish’ was the focus of many of the studies and articles during that time. The perspectives based on political economy that discussed the rights of women to resources as well as to decision making came much later. Our better understanding on what it means to be women fishers or women’s experience in fishing communities, and how women and men would be affected differently from conservation policies, trade policies, as well as through climate change, had to wait nearly a decade to reach the mainstream.