Discussing Gender in Thai Society

Is it wrong not to always be glad ?
No, its not wrong - but I must add
How can someone so young
Sing words so sad?

Sheila Take a Bow, The Smiths

I was going to write a blog about Bamboo, it's quite difficult to write about your child without writing a list of sentimental clichés, I will get down to it because life's a revelation at home with Bamboo and Dtock. I will also post more photos on my flickr site soon. I find myself wanting to be at home with them all the time and the the internet can wait (although I know it can't). School on the other hand is another story: let me get this out of my system and then hopefully we can all move on.

My highest level class is at the equivalent of lower sixth form in the UK, we've just covered a chapter talking about gender and the differences between men and women and how these differences can manifest themselves in culture and language. I then set the class the essay question for their end of term score: Are boys and girls treated differently in your home culture? Are they taught differently? Discuss similarities and differences in the ways boys and girls are treated.

The first piece of work I had to mark was this, all grammatical errors and syntax have been left 'unadulterated' to give the reader an authentic feel for the writer's raw originality, this is from one of the more gifted students (seriously).

In Thai culture, the family teach boys and girls differently. The boys mostly do anything with father and the girls mostly do anything with mother.

Most of Thai family think that the boys have to do anything with father because father is a man and they can teach the boys about how to be a gentleman. Father can teach the boys everything such as play football, ride a bicycle or do anything that the boys have to do.

Thai families think that if the boys mostly do anything with mother, the boys maybe homosexual or may be bisexual or may be deviate. Similarly, the girls mostly do anything with mother such as cooking, sewing, to iron clothes or how to be a good housewife or how to be a good lady.

So Thai family teach the boys and the girls differently. Because of a lot of reasons such as deviation, homosexual, how to be a good lady, how to be a gentleman etc. Most of Thai family give liberty to the boys and the girls but they also have rules for the boys and the girls to do anything in the right way and in the future, their boys and their girls will be a good gentleman and a good lady.

Panoopong Piroosawan.


I may call the Thais disorganised but when it comes to mind control they're geniuses. Nearly every essay contains myopic, chauvinist, nationalist rhetoric and sentiment. I wish I'd set the task how to make the perfect somtam.

Bob Dylan once said "Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges than in old age homes, there's really no difference." By that reckoning I'm in the business of mass genocide. And don't tell me you can't have genocide against your own race.

Take it East