Buddhist Orthodoxy on Women
 

The Buddha allowed “full ordination” of women with conditions

    Sisters must always bow to brothers, serve them (regardless of seniority)
    Sisters cannot remain without a brother alone during rainy season.
    Sisters must wait for brothers to appoint the Sabbath and preach the sermon.
    Sisters must report to whole community what happened during the rainy season.
    Sisters must do penance for wrong doing to both orders (i.e. to brothers and sisters)
        not  just to her order.
    After period of initiation, sisters must seek ordination from both orders.
    Sister shall not censure brothers.
    Sisters cannot speak to brothers (but brothers may speak to sisters).
 

These seem gender unjust, but were decreed by the Buddha in order to make the ordination of women less threatening to men (216) and to ensure their protection within and without of the Sangha (community).
 

Note also that although the Buddha established women’s ordination (bhikkhuni)
There are not ordained women in Thailand, only mae ji who lack official recognition and support;
 

They live in the temples
are expected to “renounce worldly concerns”
(thus, they don’t need society's support)
and enjoy very low social status,
are socially marginalized and undereducated (224);

they shave their heads
wear white robes
and follow 5 or 8 precepts
(without formal ordination) (222)

Women’s Five woes:
 She must leave her family at marriage;
 She must suffer the pain of menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth;
 She must always work hard taking care of her husband;
 

Men should have sympathy with women in these and share the suffering (mentally – note that compassion is one of the supreme values in Buddhism) and **take care of women during their pregnancy and childbirth since these are the mutual responsibilities of both sexes (218)

Well-matched couple:
 Faith, virtue, generosity, goodness and wisdom

Women bring 5 strengths to a marriage:
 Attractiveness, wealth, virtue, vigor and the ability to bear children (sic)

Duties of husbands
 Must be courteous towards his wife, not despise her, be faithful to her, hand over authority to her, provide her with necessary adornments;

Duties of wives
 Must order household well, show hospitality to relatives, demonstrate fidelity, take care of husband’s wealth, be industrious (219)
 

In other words, husband and wife are jointly responsible to each other.
 

Sexual Ethics of Buddhism
The motive, not the act itself, must be ethical (220)
Must be for mutual spiritual growth

Sex based in “animal passion” or based purely on physical pleasure is evil (220)

Special place in Buddhist hell for adulterers, rapists and other sex criminals

Birth control traditional thought of an interference with karma, tended to discourage it;
        But tacitly recognized as necessary in contemporary Buddhist societies (220)

Abortion viewed as an abomination, against the precept against killing a living being (220)
        although exceptions for when woman’s life is endangered, rape
        Bhikkuni help heal women who have been raped, had abortions (221)

Homosexuality – main problem with it is deceit (221)
    Over-riding rule: that no one be harmed or deceived

 
Gender Relations/Women’s Status in Traditional Thai peasant culture
Matrilineal, consanguine family structure

    Man moves in with wife’s family – giving women “financial independence”
    (i.e. from her husband, not her family/father)

    – authority passes from father-in-law to son-in-law – note men have power but it is by
    virtue of their relationship to the women

Marriage partners choose each other, marry for love

Youngest daughter stays and cares for parents then inherits the family home

Women control the purse strings
Generate family income by marketing the family produce (224)
    – EXCEPT where large harvests of rice
    – there men control the money (note influence of trade, foreign organizations)

Women have a voice in village government and often represent their families at council (224)
 
 

Women in Contemporary Thai Society
Can’t view women in third world in isolation from the 1st world;

Women’s status is a product of a long history of exploitation, unequal terms of trade, dependency relationships (225)

First world as the controlling center (or core)
    third world as periphery (former colonies, neocolonial independent states) (225)

Women exploited by global economic structures AND indigenous males

Women in Industry (electronics included)
Multinational corporations prefer unmarried, childless young women as pliable workforce

Pregnancy test routine (226)

Keep hiring and training new young teens rather than raise wages of senior women workers.

Earn SUBSISTENCE level wages (226); rotating shifts, long irregular hours, short lunch breaks, going to the bathroom a “privilege (226)

Ruin women’s health within few years
 Electronics companies require perfect vision, but most women need glasses after only a few years on the job spent looking through microscopes up to nine hours a day attaching thin wires to silicon chips (226)
 

Prostitution
Influences of economy, sex, class, race, military and imperialism (227)

Growth of mass prostitution linked to entrance of Western powers and their armies (227)

Yet prostitution in Thailand was (legal?) taxed under King Rama I (1782-1809)

Under Japanese occupation, Japanese at first brought their own women (bonded servants) but as Japan prospered, 1920s banned Japanese women from prostitution in occupied territories

Prostitution legalized by Thai government in 1934 “Prevention of Venereal Disease Act” requested that prostitutes be registered so they could receive medical care (or just tested??) (228)

WWII 50,000-70,000 Korean “comfort women” kept in sexual slavery near the Japanese fronts; most killed during the war or at surrender

US wars in Korea and Vietnam
 R and R centers in Okinawa, the Philippines, Thailand
 Parasitic culture of bars, hotels
 Estimated 500,000 prositutes in Saigon during Vietnam War

Up to 70,000 GIs visited Thailand annually during the war
 The typical range of dancing, entertainment, hospitality, sex for sale

Prostitution in Thailand made officially illegal in response to UN in 1960s

Racist element:
sex industry encourages stereoptypes of Asian women as exotic, alluring, docile, sexually available, sexually skilled

Women feel responsibility toward their parents (filial piety); work to send money home (229)
Eldest daughters sold off to settle gambling debts, buy more cows (229)
Daughters submit as family duty (note: some women become mae ji out of similar sense of family obligation; to pay family’s spirituals debts 232)

NGO for Thai prostitutes EMPOWER (229)
Educating public that prostitutes are major force in economy; want to form prostitutes’ union

Tourism
Asia’s comparative advantage:  beautiful beaches, low-wage service workers, and beautiful sexualized women

Most hotel industry foreign owned; 40-75% of profits leave the domestic economy