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3.5.1 Women

Most regular Thai participants indicated they feel that women citizens are not treated equally

with men. This opinion was held by more younger Thai participants than older ones.

Younger women were more animated in discussing this topic. In Thai society, they explained,
there remain conservative, patriarchal, cultural expectations, in everyday life. Women shared that
they are pressured to dress conservatively, overlooked for career opportunities, and pushed to

take on responsibilities that were expected of women in past eras.

“If there are male and female children in the house, people will give more importance to

male than female. They would praise male over female.”
- Female, 18-39, Northern Region

“Well, there is no equality. For men, they can go out having a night-out, and women can’t
go out for a night-out. Why is that? It’s like people would assume that such outgoing

women have bad behavior, or that such women aren’t nice and won’t focus on school.
Furthermore, the sanitary napkins, which are now classified as luxury products. I mean, if
given a choice, women would not want to bleed by choice.”

- Female, 18-39, Northern Region

“Women are excluded from some jobs, which sometimes we can do better than men.”
- Female, 18-39, Central Region

“Discrimination by race, bull[ied] about appearance, division of work, monks, and nuns are
ancient beliefs in Thai society that are not acceptable to be a nun. In fact, every religion
teaches everyone to be a good person. Likewise, why can’t women be ordained as monks?”

- Female, 18-39, Western Region

“I think that Thai citizens are led … by the past generations, which discourages us to think

outside the box, such as equality. They try to keep us in the box of tradition, in which they
want us to stay, with the old perspective.”

- Female, 18-39, Lower Northern Region

26 Citizen Attitudes and Priorities
for Strengthening Democracy