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THE GROWTH AND CHALLENGES OF WOMEN'S STUDIES IN THAILAND

What have been the forces and constraints structuring the late and slow establishment of women's studies as a field of scholarship in Thailand? This paper seeks to provide a historical and cultural context for understanding the distinctiveness of Thailand in the region of Asia, especially the unique combination of political, social and educational institutions that have militated against the emergence of a culture of critique. In particular, the presence of a system of bilateral and matrilocal kinship in traditional times high work participation rates among women in modern times in a rapidly globalizing economy have been selectively viewed as signs of an absence of a high degree of gender discrimination in Thai society. The paper examines the divide between the household – where women are often pivotal in the sustenance of their families – and a public political culture, where women's internationally renowned ‘pleasing personality’ is a critical ingredient in a complex structure of subservience. The paper also draws attention to the consequences of the Thai royal ruling class's more or less successful avoidance of colonization and the maintenance of a highly status-conscious if not feudal social order. The main break in an otherwise closely organized bureaucratic monarchical system came in the 1970s, when Thailand was drawn into the turbulent political upheavals in the region, led by left-leaning students. One of the outcomes of these struggles was the emergence of women activists and development workers located mainly in academic and bureaucratic institutions. By 1980 this resulted in the first efforts of Thai scholarship on gender issues by activists and interventions in the field of development by government bureaucracy. The demand to establish women's studies in certain universities followed in the 1990s, with small successes and many setbacks. At the same time, some of the first graduates of women's studies programmes who were already leaders have become significant defenders of women's rights, and more nuanced perspectives on gender are gaining ground.