TACOMA, Washington — Women throughout history have experienced subjection due to traditional beliefs within patriarchal societies. In Thailand, these beliefs hold women to very limited positions and they often go unnoticed in the public eye. The culture surrounding activism groups, in turn, tends to only see men as leaders and not women. If a woman held a leadership position, she would not be supported in that role and would instead face many challenges. However, women are starting to see that they can create better solutions for these problems at hand by promoting women’s rights in Thailand through activism.
Activism Groups Fighting for Women’s Rights in Thailand
- Buddhist spiritual practices support healing and transformation. One of the root causes of women’s disempowerment within Thailand is the patriarchal Buddhist culture that surrounds everyday life. Women are denied access to certain texts and religious teachings due to intersectional suffering. Although they can become monks, most choose not to due to underlying reasons. Instead, many become nuns and are, thus, separate from spiritual practices among men. However, spiritual practices among women are common and are not as highly regarded as the monks that have access to more information and are a central part of Buddhist culture. Because of this, nuns have always remained quietly in the background. Conditions are improving for these women, but more needs to be done to ensure total inclusion in everyday spiritual life.
- Women’s labor activism is going against the concept of “the third world woman worker.” Constituting the primary workforce, women often work jobs that are little to no pay in grueling conditions. The stereotypical “woman worker” imagines a nimble-fingered and patient worker who does not speak out about any injustices. Obedient and respectful toward authority, these “women workers” are everything a man would want in an employee. Non-governmental organizations are starting to rise up and go against these stereotypical renderings by encouraging women to regain their voices and autonomy. By mobilizing union members to support labor-related goals, these organizations provide women with the tools and vocabulary to assert their rights in the workplace. So much so, that oppositional labor politics have emerged out of these practices to allow better employer/employee relations.
As these groups gained momentum, and more women began participating throughout the years, new organizations emerged out of the previous ones. Men’s roles started shifting as women began to regain their power, and development toward equality was finally starting to see the light of day.
Emergence of Equality
In September 1995, almost 100 women from Thailand, along with 30,000 activists across the globe, participated in the Fourth World Conference for Women. The one thing on these women’s’ minds was clear: Striving toward the achievement of gender equality. From this conference, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was birthed. Being “the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights,” the Declaration made commitments under 12 critical areas of concern. Reaching worldwide visibility, the Beijing Declaration’s progress has increased the funding and collaboration of women’s activism movements, and big changes have been made throughout individual countries. Living conditions for women have improved drastically, women are now able to hold positions within political office, gender-based violence has become more protected under the law and women are now guaranteed more equality than in the past. However, no country has succeeded entirely.
In 2015, just as this platform was turning 20, the Asian and Pacific Conference on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment came together to review its progress throughout the years. The conference addressed critical issues concerning gender equality while outlining the progress and challenges of the Beijing Declaration.
The Asian and Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment was adopted to both reaffirm the details of the Beijing Declaration and outline priorities for the next 10 years. Acceleration of these commitments was to be the top priority of this new declaration.
The Fourth World Conference and Women Activism in Thailand
Before the Fourth World Conference, the Thai Grassroots Women Forum was established in order to ensure the participation of Thai women. The statement of this forum worked toward the improvement within all aspects of women’s lives. Health care, violence against women, labor laws and women’s groups were addressed in this forum.
In regards to health care, women must be given information concerning their reproductive health, they must have control over their own bodies and occupational health services must be provided by the Thai government. Violence against women must be regarded as a human rights violation, and appropriate help and protection must be given to those women that experience violence. Women laborers must be involved in policy-making decisions, the right to organize workers’ unions, the right to nighttime work, the right to collective bargaining, the right to occupational health and the protection of labor migrants. Women must have equal opportunities to participate in governmental committees and organizations, on every level and women’s groups must be supported.
More recently, on International Women’s Day, a call for a Women’s Global Strike was made by more than 200,000 women in Asia and the Pacific, where continual systemic injustices have been occurring. Women continue to be taken advantage of through cheap labor, where their work is “unrecognized and undervalued.” Working women gathered on this day, both to represent their community coming together and to show the world that without women, the economy would plummet. These strikes are a reminder that, 25 years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted, the promises have not been kept and the demands of women have continually not been met. Resistance and mobilization will continue happening until the government will recognize women as forces that ought not to be reckoned with.
Looking Ahead
All of these movements and laws have been supporting women, both in the workplace and elsewhere. Continuation of these organizations is a vital form of equality in Thai culture to ensure further women’s rights in Thailand. There is still much work to be done, but women everywhere have been fighting for their rights like none other. The day will come when these women can finally have equal opportunities as the men that have overruled them in the past, but, until then, the fight must go on.
—Natalie Whitmeyer
Photo: Flickr
