[chuecaloversvvp]

just a stray thought - is that law still in effect that says a man who rapes a woman will not be prosecuted if they get married?

[inhitoemits]

Thai Women’s Day (ÇѹʵÃÕä·Â): August 1

August 1 each year marks as Thai Women’s Day started from 2003, the National Council of Women, public and private women organizations hope that the celebration of Thai Women’s Day will encourage all social sectors to recognize the importance of women and to collaborate in development of Thai women.

According to the speech of Her Majesty the Queen in 2003, Thai women should realize 4 important roles as
1. Mother
2. Housewife
3. To maintain Thai lady’s identities
4. To keep on self improvement

In 2008, Her Majesty the Queen granted the permission to use the cattleya ‘Queen Sirikit’ orchid as the symbol of Thai Women’s Day.

Nowadays, Thai women are prominent in almost every economic sectors, societies, government officials and politics.

1949: The first female member of Parliament
1976: 2 female ministers were appointed
1982: The first female president of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET)
1993: The first female provincial governor (¼ÙéÇèÒÃÒª¡ÒèѧËÇÑ´)
2006: The first female governor of Bank of Thailand (¼ÙéÇèÒ¡ÒÃầ¡ìªÒµÔ)

The celebration of Thai Women’s Day 2009 with the theme: ¾ÅѧÊÃéÒ§ÊÃäì ÊÙè͹Ҥµ·ÕèÂÑè§Â×¹ (creative power for sustainable future) between July 31 to August 6, 2009, the activities are mainly held in the Government Public Relations Department.

July 31, 2009: HRH Princess Sirindhorn presided over the opening ceremony of Thai Women’s Day and gave the awards to women from across the country for their contribution to the nation at the auditorium of the Government Public Relations Department.

August 1, 2009:
HRH Princess Somsavali will preside over the exhibition of 47 Thai female artists at Siam Paragon.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will give a keynote address at Ban Manangkhasila in Bangkok.

August 2, 2009: HRH Princess Patchara Kittiyapa will preside over the ceremony of Thai female youth awards and also she will give a special talk at JW Marriot, Bangkok.

August 3, 2009: Discussions hosted by the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and financial business group at the building of the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

A special talk “º·ºÒ·ÊµÃÕä·Â ¡Ñº¡ÒâѺà¤Å×è͹àÈÃÉ°¡Ô¨” (role of Thai women and economic drive) by the female Governor of Bank of Thailand.

Panel Discussion “¼ÙéË*Ô§ÂؤãËÁè ãÊèã¨àÃ×èͧà§Ô¹ æ ·Í§ æ” (modern women interested in financial management) by the female President of the Stock Exchange of Thailand and 3 leading women from financial institutions.

Discussion on “¹Ñ¡ºÃÔËÒÃË*Ô§ä·Â 㹺·ºÒ·¼Ùé¹Ó” (Leading Women) by 4 leading business women.

[inhitoemits]

Poll: Thai women play more important role in society

BANGKOK, 31 July 2009 (NNT) – A Suan Dusit poll finds that people think Thai women play a more important role in the society but they are still taken advantage of by men.

The poll, conducted by Suan Dusit via SMS from 20 to 29 July 2009, shows most of the respondents or
32.11% think Thai women nowadays have more leadership and capabilities.
27.45% say they are smarter and more outspoken.
21.32% say Thai women should be well-mannered and preserve Thai traditions.
10.29% think they should support His Majesty the King’s Sufficiency Economy philosophy while
8.83% think they should be aware of threats more.

As for problems encountered by Thai women, most of the respondents say Thai women are taken advantaged of by men while
20.90% think women are sexually harassed.
17.89% say existing laws fail to fully protect women and
16.38% say women are still inferior to men.
15.31% think most Thai women have domestic problems and are cheated on by their husbands.

In addition, most of the respondents say they want Thai women to be more womanly and conservative.
21.17% say they should show other people what they are capable of while
17.58% say they should be treated equally to their male counterparts.
16.44% want women to be self-reliable and
14.56% want them to express themselves more.

[brraverishhh]

I think it is funny, We have got Women's day.

I make my days as wonderful as It could be whether it is a bad day or not, Just be positive and keep optimistic but still considered to be careful .

[inhitoemits]

Force to get more female interrogators
Writer: LAMPHAI INTATHEP
Published: 3/08/2009 at 12:00 AM

More women interrogators are joining the male-dominated police force to work with women and child victims of crime.

Amnuay Nimmano, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said the force had 8,000 interrogators at police stations across the country but only 137 of them were women.

About 70 women interrogators would join their ranks in about three years when the first batch of women police cadets graduate from the Royal Thai Police Academy, he told a recent seminar organised by the Foundation for Women.

Discussing the role and importance of women officers, Pol Maj Gen Amnuay said 128 of the 137 women interrogators worked for Metropolitan Police Division 1-9 in Bangkok.

The others are in Songkhla (four), Chiang Mai (three) and Chon Buri (two).

Most women work at major police headquarters for safety reasons, he said.

Pol Maj Gen Amnuay said few women were interested in police work because they believe it is mainly for men, and because it offers poor welfare benefits.

The force used to have more women interrogators but many had left for better-paid jobs elsewhere. Higher pay could make the job more attractive for women but a request for a special allowance had been turned down, he said.

Pol Maj Gen Amnuay said each police station should have at least one policewoman to deal with crimes involving women and child victims.

Many women and children who are victims of violence and sexual crimes avoid telling police because they do not want to be embarrassed by probing questions from male interrogators, prosecutors or judges, he said.

Pol Lt Wilaiwan Thumnanok, 28, told the seminar the victims felt more comfortable talking to women interrogators.

Pol Lt Jaruwan Churasri, 28, the only woman interrogator at Don Muang police station, said the justice process lacked sensitivity towards sexually assaulted women and children.

"It is better to have at least one woman involved in the process and, if possible, all officials handling sexual cases should be women," she said.

[pataagusata]

Geez... just noticed that i Groan from Pailin - for what??

Can't you have a joke on these forums anymore without someone complaining? I think i also made some fair points there in that post. Instead of folk groaning like this, perhaps they should contribute to the thread. Hate to say it, but seriousness like this on these forums is going too far.

[sarasaraseda]

Richard said that if we groan we weren't supposed to follow up with a comment, so I didn't.

I'm happy to now, though. I didn't read your words as joking, perhaps that is a risk one takes in the written form? So you had a bad experience with the cops and now you're blaming women for that bad experience? Come on....it was a positive article about women, do we have to bungle everything up with how violence against women is a joke?

[pataagusata]

So you had a bad experience with the cops and now you're blaming women for that bad experience?

What bad experience have i had with cops? And where am i blaming women for that experience?

[domeffire]

Geez... just noticed that i Groan from Pailin - for what??

Can't you have a joke on these forums anymore without someone complaining? I think i also made some fair points there in that post. Instead of folk groaning like this, perhaps they should contribute to the thread. Hate to say it, but seriousness like this on these forums is going too far.

I agree Steve. Your last sentence is so true

[domeffire]

I thought these cartoons by MJB and Farmer in the Pattaya Mail today were quite humorous.
( I'm risking the dreaded groan here I think)

http://www.pattayamail.com/current/cartoons.shtml

[sarasaraseda]

When i get harassed by some naughty women and file a complaint with the cops, they just laugh at me and tell me to "Go away you lucky man". Unfair! And how come a woman can pinch a man in the private area and get away with it - and not vice-versa? Just for clarification, Steve, that is the post to which I was referring.

I'd like to address these comments that the forums are too... whatever...serious now? All I did was groan. I didn't like what I read and so I groaned. I didn't put the groan button there. I'm not the first to use the groan button. I didn't pick a fight. I didn't ask that everyone agree with me. People have thanked you for that post... my groan doesn't have any more power than the thank yous.

If I disagree....why is it now treated with the weight that these forums are too serious?

[pataagusata]

If i can't have a bit of a joke on this forum anymore, then i shan't be hanging around here posting anymore.
Groaning like that just puts people off participating in forums these, and this forum has become very quiet as it is.

[chuecaloversvvp]

lots of things have been happening putting people off.

[andrekuper]

I feel for women, because the expectations off them can be high. A child would love his or her mother to be nice and plumpy so its nice a warm in her arms. A lover wants her to be sexy at one time and real elegant and respectable at the other time. Relatives want a woman to look a virgin all-through and even almost after marriage. The stranger would want the woman to be more friendlier and ready to speak. A husband wants her to be a good cook, cleaner, housekeeper and presentable to relatives and shy. The priests want her to look morose as if she is carrying the burden of the world and not flying around with happiness.

All because she has no role in global trade...except when she is allowed to sell herself.

[inhitoemits]

Thai Women in National and Local Politics (20/08/2009)

Although women have had greater involvement in politics in recent decades, they still make up a minority in both local and national politics. As Thailand will hold local elections nationwide next month, more women have been urged to contest in the polls.

Since the term of 3,474 Tambon (Subdistrict) Administrative Organizations ended in July 2009, the Election Commission of Thailand is scheduled to hold the elections of the Tambon Administrative Organizations simultaneously across the country on 6 September 2009.

The Tambon Administrative Organization is responsible for looking after local people at village and subdistrict levels. The chairperson of the organization serves as the head of the administrative team in charge of economic and social development, proposing budget allocations, and reporting its operations to the Tambon Council.

Members of the Tambon Council serve as legislators and are also in charge of monitoring the operations of the Tambon Administrative Organization. More importantly, they should be the voices of the people and make proposals to the administrative team for easing problems, in response to the needs of the people.

Local elections are important for the promotion of democracy at the community level, as they provide opportunities for people to directly elect their own representatives to protect their interests. Apart from improving the living conditions of communities, local representatives are also responsible for preserving local culture and traditions.

Statistics compiled by the Gender and Development Research Institute in 2008 show that 4 percent of more than 7,000 chairpersons of the Tambon Administrative Organization were women, and female members of the Tambon Council accounted for 13 percent, out of over 86,800 members across the country.

One of the strategies under the Women’s Development Plan during the implementation of the 10th National Economic and Social Development Plan, 2007-2011, calls for the promotion of women’s participation in national politics and administration.

The strategy seeks to increase the number of female senators and members of the House of Representatives by twofold during the period. In order to achieve this, women need to have better political skills and stronger networks.

The 2001 general election saw the female membership of the House at only 9.5 percent.

In the 2005 general election, female MPs accounted for 10.4 percent of the House members.

After the 2006 general election, female MPs rose to 11.34 percent.

The results of the latest general election in Thailand on 23 December 2007 show that female MPs under the constituency system accounted for 12 percent, and under the proportional representation system, they accounted for 8.8 percent.

As for the Senate, female senators accounted for 16 percent of the Senate in 2008, an increase from 10.5 percent in 2006 and 10 percent in 2000.

Thailand PRD

[inhitoemits]

The feminist prince

August 27, 2009
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas
The Nation

Remembered as the Father of Thai History, Prince Damrong Rajanupab (ÊÁà´ç¨¾ÃÐà¨éÒºÃÁǧÈìà¸Í ¡ÃÁ¾ÃÐÂÒ´ÓçÃÒªÒ¹ØÀÒ¾, June 21, 1862 – December 1, 1943) was also the man who gave Thai women the vote - and long before most of their Western counterparts

Prince Damrong Rajanupab is remembered as the "Father of Thai History", but his lesser-known role as an early Thai feminist was recently revealed by a foreign scholar at a seminar on "The Role of Women in Village Electoral Politics: A Historical Perspective".

Though historians mark 1932 as the year Thai women were granted suffrage, the seminar revealed they were first given the right to vote several decades before Siam became a constitutional monarchy.

It was Prince Damrong who instituted suffrage for Thai women under the 1897 Local Administration Act, which made Siam the first major country in the world in which women and men achieved the vote on an equal basis and without any record of controversy, says Katherine A Bowie, an American professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The professor traced the subject of her research paper -- "Gender and Politics: The Case of Thailand" -- back to King Chulalongkorn's reign.

"I was shocked when I learned that Thai women could vote as early as 1897," she said. "My mother is Swiss and I was in Switzerland in 1970 when my relatives were debating whether women should have suffrage. So I was aware of the wider history of women's voting rights.

Though the 1897 Act stipulated that only men could serve as village or sub-district heads (kamnan), it also made Thailand one of the first countries in the world to grant women voting rights, she said.

Four years before, in 1893, New Zealand granted the vote to women, but only following an extended political struggle -- and long after men could vote, the professor said.

And countering theories that the prince copied the law from the British colonial administration in Burma, the anthropologist pointed out that Burmese women at the time had no right to vote.

Instead she suggested that Prince Damrong's palace upbringing had exposed him to hundreds of women with a wide variety of roles and abilities, so he saw no reason why females shouldn't have their say at the ballot box.

The prince also encountered foreign females at the court, Bowie added, among them Anna Leonowens, members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and American missionaries.

The WCTU was a movement for women's suffrage, while Leonowens, hired to teach the princes and princess in the palace from 1862-67, was an outspoken advocate for women's suffrage in Canada.

However, Bowie warned it would be too easy to conclude that the prince - Interior Minister at the time -- included suffrage in the 1897 Act because of these foreign influences.

"As a Thai, he had confidence in women's abilities at every level, from the village to the court."

In the same year as his Act, for instance, he had seen Queen Saovabha serve as Siam's first female regent while her husband, King Chulalongkorn, was away in Europe.

"I became interested in understanding more about Prince Damrong and the view of women in the court," said the anthropologist.

Historical records show that most foreign visitors to the Kingdom at the time viewed women at court as sexual subjects, but the anthropologist offers a different perspective.

"Rather than viewing them as a means to serve the sexual fantasies of rulers, I suggest that Thai court women were very powerful and provided important links to the village matri-lines."

A brief consideration of the role of Queen Saovabha, other court women, and ordinary village women provides evidence of their strong political positions in a predominantly matrilineal society -- and the inner palace was in effect the hub of political education, Bowie noted.

She did not agree with many feminist scholars who portrayed Thai women historically as "politically disadvantaged because the rules of the game are set up by men who dominate the political process"; and "suffering from low self-esteem, a lack of confidence in understanding national and global issues, and a sense of inability to communicate, lead and manage people".

The anthropologist also disagrees with Khunying Supatra Masdit, the prominent female politician who stated that, "In our history, Thai women have not been directly involved in politics because it has been the norm that household matters are women's matters while national matters are men's matters."

"I would like us to rethink the relation between gender and politics," said Bowie, who spent years in the 1970s and '80s researching rural development in Chiang Mai province. She returned there in 1995 and observed a kamnan election that opened her eyes to women's hitherto invisible role beyond their right to vote.

She found that women played an important role not only in mobilising votes for candidates, but also in their efforts to heal divisions both within and across their villages to achieve harmony.

"The kinship system is an important factor for [any discussion on] gender and politics in a village," Bowie said. "Women tend to reject the role of community leader in favour of working calmly for the greater benefit of the community."

However, she sees plenty of other gender issues that need further discussion in Thailand.

"For example, women are not allowed to be ordained as bhikkhuni [female monks]," she said.

[inhitoemits]

PM: Govt gives recognition to Thai women

BANGKOK, 16 September 2009 (NNT) – The government plans to push forward gender equality by encouraging women to play a bigger role in society, according to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

This morning Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva presided over the opening ceremony of the 2009 Thai Women Forum. The event is organized by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry in order to brainstorm ideas from all sectors for the development of Thai women. In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Abhisit talked about the unfortunate existence of gender inequality, including unfair treatment and limited access to services as well as the violation of women rights. Despite the fact that women are playing more prevalent roles in society, all sectors in society still need to help in facilitating gender equality.

According to the prime minister, the government will formulate strategies and policies allowing women to have more participation in education, public health and professions. At the same time, legal constraints and other limitations will be amended to promote gender equality. He stressed that powerful figures in society would play vital roles in this issue.

BANGKOK, 16 September 2009 (NNT) – The Social Development and Human Security (SDHS) Ministry has organized the 2009 Thai Women Forum to brainstorm ideas from all sectors for development of Thai women within the next three years.

Speaking at the event, SDHS Minister Issara Somchai admitted that Thailand still had many urgent issues associated with women ranging from violence, education to poverty. The forum then is expected to formulate strategies for the next two to three years to handle problems as well as to create gender equality for the well-being of Thai women. According to the minister, the 2009 Thai Women Forum is organized on the mark of the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Joined by many countries, Thailand took part in the adoption of the declaration during the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, China on 15 September 1995.

Many leading women in Thai society are currently attending the event, including SEA Write-award winning author and movie translator Jiranan Pitpreecha, Thanpuying Sumalee Chatikavanij and former Prime Minister’s Office Minister Khunying Thipawadi Meksawan, among many others. The event is taking place in Muang Thong Thani.