CULTURE & DATING
Meeting and Accepting Modern Thai Women
Every now and then, I seem to find myself championing the rights of modern Thai women, if only because I am one and someone has to.
It should sound absurd. First, there are millions of Thai women around the world and I certainly don’t speak for all of them; and second, it’s awfully presumptuous of me to assume that the rights of Thai women need any championing in the first place.
Apparently, they do.
When a friend of mine shared that she was working on a piece about Asian women and modern feminism, I asked to be kept in the loop. After all, I was one of the few living and breathing modern Thai women she knew, and I found the topic interesting enough.
To say that the results of her research disappointed me is an immense understatement. Not only is there still plenty of misconceptions about Asian women and Thai femininity, a lot of discourse surrounding Thai women remains torn between debunking crude stereotypes and trying not to fall victim to plain old puritanism.
Which is why I find myself sharing my unsolicited opinion on the matter — at least, here in my little corner of the internet.
Subject: Modern Thai Women
To avoid preempting my friend’s report, I won’t go into too much detail on the research she’s done. However, I will discuss a few things I can’t help but notice every time the topic of Thai women is brought up.
Modern Thai women do not have to subscribe to Western feminism
While we share many advocacies with our Western sisters, particularly on women’s rights and female sexuality, what works for an average American woman doesn’t necessarily apply to a Thai woman, and that’s okay.
Satreeniyom, or “women’s rights” in Thai, has to account for the ever-present class disparity in our country, and not everyone has the luxury of embodying liberal feminism. A Thai woman who chooses to be a wife and a mother to support her family is not betraying her gender just because of the life she leads.
Modern Thai women are allowed to date foreign men.
For some reason, this persistent reputation of Thai women being exotic brides for wealthy foreign men refuses to go away, and I, for one, am tired of it.
If other women can enjoy the benefits of international dating and interracial marriages as a result of the world becoming more connected through modern technology, why can’t Thai women do the same? Why is it suddenly about money or morality when we dare to look outside our country for love?
Modern Thai women are neither prudish nor promiscuous.
If Asian women have ever won the lottery for anything, it’s likely a strange association with the Madonna complex.
On one hand, we are held up as the standard for a pure, virginal ideal of a woman who is innocent and beyond reproach — at least when it comes to her sexuality. The flipside of that is the image of Asian women, and Thai women in particular, as sex symbols that offer men pleasures beyond their wildest imagination.
Obviously, neither is true, and if you ever want to successfully pursue Thai women in the future, you need to disabuse yourself of that notion as soon as you can.
It’s an uphill battle, living as the legacy of a rich culture many people aren’t familiar with while struggling to define ourselves in this modern world, and we modern Thai women have our work cut out for us. All we ask is a chance to introduce ourselves on our terms, and be accepted on everybody else’s.
