Women in Thailand

As it's International Women's Day, I thought I'd write a little about women in Thailand.

In the land of smiles, members of the fairer sex are still mostly in low paid jobs, despite often having reasonable levels of education - but at the moment, the economy is mainly expanding in areas like construction and telecoms, which women are rarely qualified to work in. So they are caught, as in many developed countries, in the low paid service industry (take a look at the Asian Development Bank briefing (PDF) for more info).

As a result many ladies go into prostitution, which is rampant, and for some reason, is tolerated by wives in Thailand. I think it's to do with the fact that Thai wives are basically expected to serve their husbands and "make their dreams come true". There's also a tradition of gigs, basically mistresses, but apparently Thai wives prefer that their husbands go to a massage parlour rather than have a regular gig. Although teenage girls are getting their own back on the boys, by having a boyfriend and a male gig!

As a result, HIV and AIDS are a real problem, and most of the development agencies point out that this isn't going to get any better until the status of women improves.
Of course there's also a lot of exploitation and trafficking of women, with many young girls in the North, particularly from minority ethnic groups like Thai hill tribes and the Burmese, being sold into sexual slavery. They are particularly vulnerable as they often don't have national identity cards, and are often sexually exploited by traffickers, who are often members of Thai police and immigration authorities themselves (see this report (PDF) from Physicians for human rights and UNESCO work on trafficking).

Many Thai women want to marry farang (Caucasian foreign) men, as they see them as more considerate to their needs and have a better financial position than Thai men. I've noticed that things we consider gentlemanly behaviour in the west, like holding doors open for a woman to pass, seems to be much rarer among Thai men. But Western guys in Thailand often become more like Thais, and are not very faithful to their Thai brides, as they get constant attention from beautiful Thai girls trying to woo them (even if the guy is really old and ugly), as well as from prostitutes.

Farang women aren't in a great situation in Thailand either. The constant availability of Thai girls mean that Western men are in short supply, and Thai men very rarely dare to chat up a farang. It means that even the most beautiful Western girl normally struggles to keep a faithful boyfriend, and many relationships break up very early on. Also many of the Western guys have sadly left their morals back in the West, and and so many have visited a lot of go-go bars and brothels, which isn't very appealing for most women, particularly bearing in mind the HIV/AIDS risks. As a colleague at work noted, as far as the few men that haven't slept around too much go, girls become "like piranhas"...