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Old 09-22-2012, 06:48 AM   #30
Leaters

Join Date
Oct 2005
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448
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ok, as for the "women's stuff crap", let me explain. here we had a lady who called all Asian women "subservient" without knowing anything about their life, just because she suspects they are obviously different from Western / US life models and ideals. if that's the kind of attitude someone carries around, well, then the idea behind is nothing short of crap. the idea as she interprets it, that is. the idea that makes her feel superior, and feel pity for people living in other self-sustaining cultures without an attempt to figure out how that culture works. I would accept someone passing judgement after gaining some insights, though.
I don't think anyone who has been to Thailand for a while at least would call women subservient. there are anomalies, there are paths of exploitation (show me a place without these controversies and then I withdraw my comments I promise), but women in general are not oppressed and are not forced to take a back seat all the time. they just don't find it demeaning to run a household, raise kids, god forbid cook a good meal for their families - besides working really hard.
and I would say crap to anyone any day who says to a full-time mother and wife that she should readjust her priorities and "realise herself" instead. sometimes realising youself comes through trying to realise the full potential of those around you, be it your students, kids, husband. Thais don't lead isolated, solitary lives, they keep connected to their families, support their kids, support their parents, help them any way they can. and there is nothing inferior about that. it's not subservience. it's realising you are not alone, that you are a link in the web.
Betti

Very interesting, here is the comment from my friend:

This is an excellent comment and one I totally agree with. As a sociologist and researcher into gender relationships for over 20 years, and a regular traveller to Thailand and the Far East, I too have seen into the subtleties of Thai culture. But it has taken me years to do so and there is still much I need to learn. Thai culture, especially its gendered dynamics, is certainly not what it appears on the surface and we do a great injustice to the women of Thailand if we simplistically presume them to be all oppressed and subjected to a patriarchal, misogynistic culture.

The issue is really one of choice. Does the woman have the cultural and social capital necessary in order to make 'free' choices in her life? Does she have the economic basis and family support to choose whether or not to have a family, be a housewife, go to university, have children or stay childless? If she is condemned to a life of poverty, sexual oppression, male abuse, and the worse constraints of traditional gender values, then she has little choice. In which case we cannot say she is free to choose. Her choices are serverly limited, if pretty much non-existent. However, at the same time, this same woman may well not feel subected to oppression, she may likely feel that her sense of being feminine, a woman, is reinforced precisely because it is bound up in this cultural and economic straightjacket.

At this point we can see that the only way out for such women, indeed all women, is education. With education, especially post16 education, comes freedom to think and act 'outside the box'. Education ushers in emancipation, or at least its possibility. This is the way forward for Thai women, as it is for women everywhere.
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