Anne Lieberman was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship to study the role of women in Muay Thai in Thailand in 2010. That same year, Anne interviewed me as a participant while I was based in Bangkok. I thought I’d catch up with her to discuss her findings on gender and power in Thailand’s Muay Thai gyms.
Please explain the awarded Fulbright Fellowship.
The Fulbright Fellowship is a bilateral exchange program sponsored by the US Department of State in partnership with participating countries. Fulbright provides funding for a wide variety of education and research related programs around the world. Fulbright funds students, scholars, teachers, professionals interested in graduate study abroad, independent research as well as opportunities to teach in universities and in elementary and secondary schools.
In Thailand, there are several different kinds of grants, from English Teaching Assistants (ETA) to doctoral research grants. Four full grants are awarded every year for independent research or research and study grants.
I was awarded a grant to conduct my research and to enroll in an M.A. program at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
What is also interesting to me about the Fulbright program is that its inception was the brainchild of a Senator who was still reeling in many ways from the hatred and devastation of WWII. William J Fulbright (D-Arkansas) proposed the legislation that initiated the program, striving for “mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries in the world.” He argued – and won – that the US should sell its surplus ammunition and other military property in order to fund the program. So imbedded in the program’s beginnings is this idea of rebirth after war.
One of my favorite quotes from Fulbright is this one: “I’m sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he’d ever had a Fulbright to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.”
The man just so deeply believed in the power of exchange and building mutual understanding across cultures. He believed that this kind of exchange would build the foundation for a more just and peaceful society. (I’m not saying that it necessarily has, I just think – or the historian in me – is fascinated by his vision and the program’s trajectory.)
How were you able to connect with nak muay ying (female boxers) to discuss their experiences?
Connecting with nak muay ying – both farang and Thai – was one of the most difficult pieces of the research.
Let’s talk first about framework and making connections/introductions based on your framework. At the beginning, I really struggled with the framework because I personally didn’t want to do an anthropological study. (That’s not to say anthropology as a discipline isn’t good; it is when it is done well and with integrity). I didn’t want to go into the research doing only participant observation or interviews.
I wanted to try to connect with people on a more even playing field – through oral history. Oral history of course poses similar issues with interviewer/interviewee dynamics, but I felt that at the very least, it would be nak muay ying telling their stories instead of me trying to tell or interpret stories for them. Connecting with people took time. I wanted to establish a relationship with people before I sat down and did an oral history interview with them. But of course dynamics change depending on who is interviewing them, who else is in the room, if the interview has to be done through a translator, etc.
I remember when I first got to Thailand. My predecessor, a Thai American man, had gotten a grant the year before to study music and Muay Thai. He did really great ethnomusicology work. He said to me, “Anne. In Thailand, it’s not only about who you know, but who introduces you to who you know.” And he took me to some people and made introductions and initial connections which was huge for me to even begin my research. His position as a Thai American man opened certain doors for him and, by extension, me. As a white American woman, though, certain doors that opened for Rawi would be closed to me. Rawi made an interesting point to me early on as well.
He said that because I was not Thai, some people would say things in front of me that they would never say to another Thai person.
So as you can imagine, identity politics were constantly in play.
After Rawi connected me initially, I just stayed and trained in different Muay Thai gyms and talked to anyone who would talk to me. I interviewed promoters and gym owners too, because you never know what moment – what conversation – will hold an “ah-ha!” moment or another vital connection to a potential nak muay ying or piece of the overall narrative.
Were you able to find Thai women to speak to?
When I was in Thailand, it was incredibly difficult for me to try to find higher-level female fighters to connect with. It was of course harder to connect with the Thai fighters generally because often I would see them fight in Bangkok but they’d be from outside of the city, wouldn’t speak much English, and my Thai wasn’t good enough to go visit them on my own. In addition, the woman I had help translating for me was from a higher social class, so it could be an uncomfortable situation to discuss more sensitive issues when they were being translated through someone who is seen as “high so.”
I did find a few Thai women to speak to, but not nearly as many as I hoped to interview. The research that I did could use at least five more years. It’s such a long process! I feel like so much has changed even in the few years I’ve been away. Director Todd Kellstein released Buffalo Girls in January 2012, an entire documentary devoted to the stories of two eight year old nak muay ying.
Most recently, I’ve been floored by the emergence of and media coverage around Phetjee Jaa O. Mee Khu, the twelve year old nak muay ying who is fighting boys! Sylvie von Duuglus-Ittu has covered this really well on her blog, 8Limbs.US. I mean, in a country where women can’t fight in either Lumpinee or Rajadamnern stadium because their presence in the ring would, according to superstition, desecrate it and endanger the fighters – a young girl fighting a boy is shocking. Not only that it would happen, but that there would be so much interest in her and positive media coverage around it.
What were your findings?
Oh my! So much. I think that the piece I haven’t touched on is the most unexpected piece of the research I uncovered: the experience of the western woman living and training long term in Thailand.
I hadn’t expected to focus on western women as much as I did, but as I got to know more western nak muay ying and their experience with their male trainers, I realized it was an incredibly fraught and controversial issue. As I mentioned to Natalie in the Daily Muse piece, women experience a whole range of things – from sexual violence and rape to a consensual relationship with their trainers – but the point is that there is an expectation that western women will put out.
One of the things I want to highlight about the research is the fact that when you tell people the reality of what it’s like to train in Thailand as a western woman for an extended period of time (and there are always exceptions, of course), people don’t want to hear it.
They think you did something to entice certain behavior from trainers. Or they think that you’re lying. They think that you’re “ruining” Muay Thai for them.
These are the same people who tend to romanticize the life of a Thai fighter. It’s not sexy or fun to leave home at a young age, fight until you’re 23 (to 25 if you’re lucky) and then spend the rest of your life training dumb white people in a gym in Phuket who often disrespect you. Do some fighters love it? Sure. But there ain’t nothing sexy about being commodified like a racehorse.
And if you don’t think that’s true (not you, Laura, but you the MBSB audience) let’s talk linguistics. I’m not sure if you covered this on MBSB but I think you may have.
Often, when promoters and fighters speak about fighters they use the same classifier that they would use for animals.
What does that mean? It means that instead of putting fighters in the category of humanity, you disrespect them and classify them like animals.
But then there’s another side of it re: women in training. And we’ve spoken about this – which is that sometimes you have these incredibly uneven power dynamics where these foreign women will come in, have their young trainers think that they’re going to be together and will have a future – and then they up and leave back to their country. There’s a bitterness you feel from a lot of these relationships. So the complexity is just enormous.
After the interview on the Daily Muse, a woman reached out to me who had been training in Thailand for years and was happy about the article, and that so many of those issues were actually being spoken about. But she mentioned something really important. She said she felt like she was always hearing two conversations in the gym – what the trainers would say to the students and then what they would say to each other in Thai – often two entirely different conversations, one often more harsh than the other.
They knew she could understand but were totally confident she wouldn’t say anything. “It’s like I’m stuck somewhere in between Thai and Farang and fit nowhere.” When she said that, it struck me. It so well articulated that feeling of limbo you feel as an outsider. It’s this weird purgatory that we find ourselves in. We know too much to be fooled, but we’re always one step behind.
I also found that there was a population of trans* men (or beginning to transition) trans* men doing western style boxing. There is no real money for women in Muay Thai, so many would fight in western-style boxing bouts to make money. This is one of the biggest gaps in my research, this population of trans* men and lesbian women in Thailand who did Muay Thai or boxed.
What I have been thinking more and more about recently is the relationship between Muay Thai, sexuality/gender identification and protection: how perhaps the decision to take up a combat sport could relate to the increasing instances of violence against lesbians around the country and most certainly in more rural areas of the Thailand. Does or can Muay Thai give you a kind of negotiating power when you have no protection within your family, your community and certainly no legal protection under the law?
You were in a very interesting position.
In one regard, you were an academic in Thailand, a position which culturally holds a great deal of esteem and in another, you were a nak muay, which holds very little. The first allowed you to navigate the world of Bangkok’s highest classes and the latter, the world of some of Thailand’s lowest. In addition, you are a woman and a Farang. How did this all meld?
You have teased out one of the most bizarre – often awkward, hysterical, sometimes infuriating – pieces of my time in Thailand. Whenever I would tell people that I would be researching women in Muay Thai, people would laugh and say, “WHY? Do women even do that?” I was sitting in a language class one morning and my teacher said to me, “Wait. What? Women are supposed to be cooking. Not boxing.” He said it in a very playful, silly way and had the whole class laughing, but it was very clear he was not joking.
Once people were done making fun of me for researching Muay Thai period, they would then ask me if I knew about Nong Toom. That in and of itself is fascinating – ok, we know about that one trans* boxer, but “real” women don’t actually do that. That also killed me – that somehow the MtF trans* population (specifically traditionally male-bodied people making the transition to a traditional female-body) and the experience of that population in Thailand wasn’t “real” that they weren’t “real” women. What does that mean? They’re not biologically women? What makes a woman “real” or “fake”?
Those conversations, though, were not ones that I was willing to have with people because they were too exhausting. People don’t understand that although there is a visible trans* population in Thailand – specifically MtF or “lady boys” – does not mean that they are any less oppressed. It also doesn’t take into account the whole other range of gender and sexual expression that takes place in the country and that many of these populations face extreme violence (e.g. the Lesbian population).
Some people on the other hand found my research very interesting and were really happy that I was doing substantive research on Muay Thai. At a moment when a lot of higher-class Thai youth are doing martial arts like Karate and Tae Kwon Do, some people I spoke to where excited to hear that younger women around the country were participating in the sport.
In terms of navigating the “high so” dynamics and the Muay Thai world – this was difficult because I was often with a very high so crowd due to my connections at Fulbright. One of the most telling experiences for me regarding the class divide here was when my friends and I had an art opening at a gallery outside of Bangkok. I invited some of my friends from the gym to come because I wanted to extend the invitation but I also knew that there was a potential that it could be very uncomfortable. One of the young men who was a trainer came with the woman he was dating who I had become close with.
He was so visibly uncomfortable it killed me. And some of the women there were incredibly unkind to him and it made me so angry.
I didn’t know them, but their sense of entitlement and their disdain for him was so palpable it made me sick. I realized in that moment just how much he cared about his girlfriend to put himself in that situation with a group of high-so Thais.
Regarding the identity politics associated with being a white farang woman – ohhhh my. I don’t even know where to start. At the time I was researching, I wasn’t fighting yet, so I was seen as a very nonthreatening little sister type. Also, because my Thai got better, I understood more of the dynamics. One time a trainer said to me after I had a particularly ugly round on the pads, “He said, don’t worry, Nong Anne. You’re still doing well.” And I said, “but that was so ugly!” and then he explained to me on the spectrum of Muay Thai skill, women could only get so far – and that actually I was doing pretty well. That I think underpins a lot of the feeling about women in Muay Thai in Thailand. We can only be so good, so there’s no point in aiming too high.
For Thailand solo travel and safety tips, in addition to Thailand information you won’t find in traditional tourist guides, please visit my post Tips For Women Traveling To Thailand.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Great to have Anne’s research and story out there! A big fan.
There is only one significant issue with this for me: some of the narrative being told has a distinct emphasis on negative sexual experiences, almost as if these are near universal experiences, and if you come and train as a woman this is what you are going to face.
re: “women experience a whole range of things – from sexual violence and rape to a consensual relationship with their trainers – but the point is that there is an expectation that western women will put out.” …AND… “One of the things I want to highlight about the research is the fact that when you tell people the reality of what it’s like to train in Thailand as a western woman for an extended period of time (and there are always exceptions, of course), people don’t want to hear it.”
While it is super important to bring these realities to the fore – that when farong women enter a Thai camp they are often entering power dynamics they are blind to – these are not universal experiences, and the exceptions are not just exceptions to a rule. Thinking of 3 off the top of my head, my wife (safe guarded to some degree by my marriage perhaps), but also Melissa Ray and Anne Quinlan (who negotiated Thai camps long before farong were common) all seem to have had wonderful training and trainer experiences, much of it filled with respect. Some of this may be that these women are/were full time fighters who could be seen as assets for their gyms. Some of it may be the camps they found themselves in, and/or the line-drawing attitudes they took in those camps, but I think it is important to include in the spectrum of experiences a host of very positive ones, and to see these positive experiences as very possible.
In a larger sense I think there is a danger in trying so hard to strip away the colorful sometimes “delusive” beautiful surface of Thailand, that we may become too focused on the idea that only the ugly lies beneath. Often foreigners feel betrayed by the public and the private in this country. Thailand indeed is full of surfaces, and we need to look beyond them. But it is the weave of the above and the below that makes it what it is. And while women indeed have a very complex (and often lower) place in most Muay Thai contexts, women also can achieve a respect for their fighting in Muay Thai, in Thailand, they don’t easily do in the West.
Women experience all sorts of negative gender prejudice, lowered expectation and sexual pressure in western gym environments. The difference seems to really be that when we are in a culture we come from we know how to negotiate it to safeguard ourselves, while in Thailand or elsewhere we are more frequently put in a vulnerable position of trust.
ldf says
kevin-
in regards to your statement:
Some of this may be that these women are/were full time fighters who could be seen as assets for their gyms.
from my experience and by that, this includes a number of women i’ve discussed this with – that in itself wouldn’t be a reason for the discussed to not occur.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Thanks Laura. The problem with all this is that it is all highly anecdotal, and apparently many or even most of the anecdotes have not been told. I am only guessing at why Anne Quinlan (as far as I know), Melissa Ray and Sylvie had more or less superlative training experiences. I guess we can also add Iman Barlow as well, as she had nothing ill to say about her experiences as a woman when Sylvie interviewed her and asked.
My point about being a full time fighter mostly comes from my own experiences as a husband of Sylvie as I carefully watched the sexual dynamics develop (from afar). To be sure, a gym filled with young boys and older men is a testosterone zone, and things like clinching and pre-fight massages were almost nightmarishly complex line-walking. Sylvie is awesome with quietly drawing lines to overtures, but they still came in jokes and innuendo, and in fact still do. What did seem to happen though was that it took about 6 months of endless training basically out-training every one else in the gym, and 6 months of fights (about 14) before we saw what seemed to be a shift in attitudes to some degree. Sylvie seemed to be moving from long term “tourist” to “commercial product”, a fighter. This does not remove all sexual contexts, but it does seem to provide a focus when there is heightened energy. Her padwork became very different around the 5 or 6 month mark. It made us realize that if we had not passed through that threshold through her fighting we would have held a different understanding. They started making a “fighter” who they could bet on and could win purses. She grew less female focus.
So I’m not saying that all full-time fighters are immune from sexual pressure or prejudice, far, far from it. What I’m suggesting is that when you are a full-time fighter you have recourse to a point of focus that you might not otherwise have had. And I wonder if other full-time female fighters have experienced this same thing. It also makes me wonder if your own experiences may have been shaped in that you did not fight (much). When the Thais look at the farang that come through the gym – and there are a lot of them – they are genuinely mystified at why they don’t fight. They have seen them come and go for a decade, waves of them, but they still shake their heads, not quite comprehending what they are doing there. This is a job. You train, you fight. And you fight for money. When you stand outside of that path there can be genuine cultural disjunction (though I hear that in Bangkok gyms Muay Thai is now being taken up by some of the middle class for exercise).
The hardest thing about this picture though is that it is so incomplete. Anne L. was not really able to talk to Thai female fighters. We do not hear their stories. It feels like there are layers and layers. I just want to be aware when I’m judging another culture or the people in it that I keep a clean eye towards my own (including its negative). And where there are stark differences I seek to grasp them as widely as possible. There is no doubt that Muay Thai gyms are highly complex, extremely hierarchical commercial spaces that meld modernity with some of the oldest traditions in Thailand. Standing in that space is incredibly complicated – and I do think Laura that you’ve done an amazing job at cutting a keyhole into just why or how that may be.
ldf says
kevin,
again, your assumption is that all women have the choice of whether or not to fight fulltime. i trained fulltime, my trainers understood that i wanted to fight fulltime, however, getting women fights are not always a priority regardless of skills. women make less money. it all depends on the dynamics of the gym. where that gym is located. what sort of connections it has. loads and loads of things i’m not going to get into here, because again, this will take a ton of time. i’ll try to explain briefly, some of what can occur through my own experience:
0. first six months in san kampaeng. i was preparing to fight when i broke my back.
1. first gym in bangkok, upon my initial time there, i was told, ‘a woman never has and never will fight for this gym’. i stayed because the level of training made anything i had seen in chiang mai look amateur. that being said, i had incredible technical training in san kamphaneng, but upon my arrival, the second time, the gym was barely functional, hence bangkok and later buriram. (note: by the time the gym in san kampaneng was fully fucntional again, i was settled in buriram and wanted to wait to see if it would follow suit of other gyms in chiang mai, which is what i was trying to avoid my entire time in thailand.). note, this bangkk gym, is the gym i fought the queen’s cup for. i would have fought earlier, as i was preparing for a fight, but a trainer broke my hand (note: most likely on purpose).
2. i spent a year training fulltime with a private instructor at an abandoned gym. it was teh best traiing of my life but he wasn’t a promoter. i was offered possibly 3 fights (at current memory) from him during that time – 2 of which i was menstruating (i won’t fight when i am as i have little energy and my pain tolerance is way way way down), the last, i had a fever/flu.
3. by the last year or so of my training in buriram, i had lost much of steam/passion, also due to some distinctions within that gym (which i could have tolerated more if i had not had the experiences i had prior). so your assumption may actually apply to the last year, but that is it.
there are loads of other reasons girls don’t fight regularly.
i blasted through this response, but i hope you understand what i’m getting at.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
re: “your assumption is that all women have the choice of whether or not to fight fulltime.”
Hmm. I not sure where you get that at all Laura. I really didn’t talk about choice. I only suggested that whether one was a full-time fighter or not may affect experiences of training, and position within the gym. And it was only a suggestion based on our own experiences. And honestly in general I was not thinking explicitly of you – though your case is a very interesting one because of the depth of your writing and the uniqueness of your situation, and the fact that it made up a large part of Anne’s paper – but rather to the general subject of anecdotal reports of the experiences of women in Thailand.
ldf says
note: there are so many assumptions in what you write kevin…..
have you ever thought that sometimes sexual pressures and bullying are WORSE when women put up strict rules of conduct, however defined (blunt, polite, public, private, etc.)?
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
I’d love to answer this question, but I’m not sure I understand it. What do you mean “when women put up strict rules of conduct” – do you mean draw hard lines which are not to be crossed?
If so, most definitely it is possible. There are a lot of power dynamics going on, and as you know one has to be very sensitive in how to position oneself. And – as is the case with the rest of the world – there are good people and bad people, good combinations and bad combinations. It isn’t the case that Thais are just one way or another.
A perfect example was a trainer Sylvie was paired with when she first started at the gym this year. He was a trainer that though extremely knowledgeable only seemed to hold for women and had a – what to me was – extremely dominant to female power game. Somehow Sylvie found herself given over to him as “his” student in a very informal but still very strong way. Everything bordered on the questionable, but she really needed to learn. Additionally, he became quite verbally (emotionally) critical of her in a way that was pretty harsh to her constitution perhaps related to her unavailability. It seemed pretty apparent to me very soon that she just had to get away from this guy (even though he had lots of positives perhaps in other contexts). Nothing good would come of it at all, and if I wasn’t part of the equation it may have gotten more negative and controlling.
We figured out a way to get Sylvie over to other trainers, and then finally to the one we really hoped for, but gym politics were a careful navigation, you don’t want to be disrespectful or make enemies. I’d put it this way, if Sylvie hadn’t moved away from this situation, and I wasn’t around, it all would have been a big problem. But it would have been a big mistake to have concluding that training in Thailand was like “that”. It’s one of the possible pitfalls of training in Thailand if you are a woman. You may end up training with someone who has an agenda, and really won’t respond well if you try to exercise your self-determination. But this is also the case with gyms around the world. It is the fight game. The fight game draws all kinds of chauvinistic personalities, and many of them are not progressive towards women.
What our approach as been is that because we don’t see the internal power dynamics in gyms (or in other places in Thailand) which are very subtly expressed in looks and language, we took the entire gym as a place of checks and balances. And if there are people in there who are just not cool, there are probably others that keep them in culturally check (hopefully). So we just try to make an assessment of who is the most “good” and align ourselves with their power, and trust the Thai power dynamics to work themselves out. In a gym everyone is struggling for position, I suggest. Choosing who you align with can make a difference.
Buasri says
I have to say the more I read through your comments, Kevin, the more intolerable I find them. Clearly, you don’t get that your points “about being a full time fighter mostly comes from my own experiences as a husband of Sylvie as I carefully watched the sexual dynamics develop (from afar)” makes them pretty much invalid as your very presence there completely negates said dynamics? Not to mention that you are a man — I’m sorry but you think you can judge what it’s like to be a woman in sexually aggressive situations from being married to Sylvie? It’s preposterous. Most woman have had to deal with the complexities of power and sex their whole life — it is a big concern for many of us, especially when we’re single. Encountering these kind of power struggles in Thailand is not that out of the ordinary in a way — it’s just another situation to navigate. The difference is that here we need to learn a whole new set of rules relative to the cultural context of Thailand. Many of the things we know and the coping mechanisms we have developed regarding sex and power in the West will not apply here. We’ve got to figure out how to move through these new dynamics without making enemies and creating too much drama for ourselves or the gym. Most most of us don’t have our husbands there to help — which makes a WORLD of difference.
It’s frustrating to me, when a man (who doesn’t even train or fight muay Thai, I might add), comes into the mix, suggests the reports are all “highly anecdotal”, and insinuates that the accounts of 3 or 4 other women who talk publicly about their training in Thailand (but don’t discuss sexual dynamics) are more valid than or at least as more representative of, those of other women training and fighting here.
Consider for a moment how many women might not want to write about these issues because it’s already difficult enough being in a male dominated sport without calling more attention to the problems with gender. Also isn’t the point of Anne L’s research to collect the anecdotal accounts of women in Muay Thai gyms here and share her findings? Rather than being a personal account, as LDF’s is, it’s a collection of many different stories — which you yourself Kevin say is what needs to happen to get a more accurate image of gender and power in Thailand’s Muay Thai gyms?
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Buasri,
When you write: “Most woman have had to deal with the complexities of power and sex their whole life… it’s just another situation to navigate. The difference is that here we need to learn a whole new set of rules relative to the cultural context of Thailand. Many of the things we know and the coping mechanisms we have developed regarding sex and power in the West will not apply here. We’ve got to figure out how to move through these new dynamics without making enemies and creating too much drama for ourselves or the gym.
This is pretty much what I wrote previously (though more abridged):
“Women experience all sorts of negative gender prejudice, lowered expectation and sexual pressure in western gym environments. The difference seems to really be that when we are in a culture we come from we know how to negotiate it to safeguard ourselves, while in Thailand or elsewhere we are more frequently put in a vulnerable position of trust.”
re: “Also isn’t the point of Anne L’s research to collect the anecdotal accounts of women in Muay Thai gyms here and share her findings? Rather than being a personal account, as LDF’s is, it’s a collection of many different stories — which you yourself Kevin say is what needs to happen to get a more accurate image of gender and power in Thailand’s Muay Thai gyms?
me: 100%. There needs to be more and more of this. Anne’s research hopefully is just the beginning of this.
Buasri says
Hello again Kevin,
Yes I did write that “most women have had to deal with the complexities of power and sex their whole life . . . etc”, but to give that comment its full context you should include the first two lines — “I’m sorry but you think you can judge what it’s like to be a woman in sexually aggressive situations from being married to Sylvie? It’s preposterous.”
My point isn’t that women have had to deal with this issue from an early age — everyone knows that. My point, rather, is that most of us have directly experienced sexual aggression from men at some point, if not several times, in our lives. This is an incredibly sensitive issue which really isn’t helped by a male perspective — especially one that suggests that accounts of this conduct are exaggerated and misrepresentative.. I mean, really? Come on. Feminine power and sexuality have been in conflict since the dawn of civilization. Do you really think here in Thailand, in a male dominated sport, it’s going to be so different? And do you really think that your presence at the gym with Sylvie gives you an accurate assessment of those gender dynamics?
For some reason it seems you hold the bizarre conviction that LDF’s experience, those of the women in Anne Lieberman’s research, and the accounts of other women that have posted here on this site are blown out of proportion — that they are not representative of what it’s like to be a single woman training and fighting in Thailand. Then you (in my opinion) unfairly include the names and bios of a handful of successful muay ying — some of who also had partners (husbands/boyfriends) here with them while they were training and fighting, and none of who wrote or talked about this conflict — as evidence that Anne’s research and LDF’s account are disproportionate.
So by your reasoning, if it wasn’t talked about it didn’t happen. And all these other women (who have made known their negative sexual experiences training and fighting in Thailand) are putting too much emphasis on it.
Can you not see how your comments might be seen as offensive, given the gravity of the subject matter and your inability to truly understand a woman’s position in all this? I would think that if you did, you would have gracefully exited the discussion long ago instead of trying to speak with authority about something you have never and will never experience.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Buasri,
Re: “For some reason it seems you hold the bizarre conviction that LDF’s experience, those of the women in Anne Lieberman’s research, and the accounts of other women that have posted here on this site are blown out of proportion — that they are not representative of what it’s like to be a single woman training and fighting in Thailand”
Me: There is a significant misunderstanding here. These stories are indeed real and extremely important to be told. My point has been from the beginning that if indeed the full story of Gender and Power in Muay Thai gyms is to be told that story cannot be exclusively that of abuses. Indeed abuses are perpetually a risk, but there are also positive experiences, perhaps even empowering experiences that are possible for women in gyms in Thailand, and that in Thailand women MAY find avenues of empowerment as training fighters they cannot find in the West. My urge is that the full spectrum of possible female experiences be captured, if the picture is to be complete. The intent is not to paper over potential abuses, it is to put them in the context of the rest of what is possible as well.
ldf says
also is the assumption that farang males have a choice whether or not to fight. at my gym in bangkok, some farang men were allowed to fight, few did while i was there. males could not fight for that gym until they thought you were at a certain level – a level that i saw higher than other gyms that generally cater to westerners.
gen says
Hi There,
I’ Genna and I have been living in and training in Thailand for the past 6 months. I have been dabbling in martial arts for the last few years and decided at what seemed to be a early life stage crisis pick up and move to thailand. I am a very talented fighter, I have trained hard along side many of the male trainers BUT I have experienced intense emotions, emotions I did not expect nor would have felt if I was in a western country training. There are these sexual immature comments being made in Thai and english, comments about my looks, my clothes my body all the time. Something you would hear from 13 yr olds in Australia. Once I settled in, they seemed to have either grown tired or calmed down with the comments and it was business like usual. I was extremly frustrated and blown away by there ignorance and lack of equality in there social groups. Never did I notice male/female friendship groups or moral support. It was basically boys on one side girls on the other only interacting if they were related or dating. I was constantly quered if the male friend I was dinning, training talking too was a sexual partner. They just don’t seem to understand why we would be hanging out, what we were doing. I honestly don’t believe they have the social skills to interact and bond with the opposite sex on a deep and meaningful platonic level. Moving on from this now to the training of Muay Thai. I have always been into atheletes and have good gentics strong and lean which helps with muay thai, traits on a male fighter would be highly valued. Being a women were just admired on the outside and were there for the admiration of the male population. I think not. Anyways, training muay thai. My trainer is a very respectful trainer he has never made any sort of sexual remark and has shown me much respect. So much so that he actually won’t touch me at all, no stretching massage no pats or hugs things I often see him do to male students. As you could imagine that limits our training. I stay with him as we have amazing chemistry on pads I have fun and I am very curious about him. I just don’t understand him they way he thinks, feels the way he lives he’s so foreign.
Now to be fare, I would like to note that these warrior like men were basically sold from there familys to a gym and were thrown into a group home with older trainers and fighters in the same boat, they grew up with no women or mother figures around no one to tend to there wounds wipe away there tears when they lost and made sure they ate properly, they grew up around a bunch of has been fighters become trainers that now have drinking problems
And we wonder why they act they way they do.
This story is just begining, and I look forward to getting to know the male thai and discovering this unique yet well trodden path of Muay thai.
Buasri says
Nice post! As always, great to see women sharing their experiences on this forum. Thank you.
Here’s where I will disagree with you Kevin — though I do respect what you are saying — being a woman in this sport can be challenging in the West but of course it’s going to be more so here, where the traditions and the language and the fixed notions people have of farang all work to make the relationship more complex. I think that LDF’s posts and Anne’s research help to make us women aware of the pitfalls and situations we need to navigate carefully. I think most of us who come to Thailand and live here at the camps and train/fight for any length of time absolutely love culture and the experience, so we don’t need to be told about how great it is, but having some guidance as to what is really going on behind the surface, via shared experience, is invaluable.
It’s too bad you didn’t get to talk to more Thai women fighters, Anne. I would have been really interested in see that research. The Thai muay ying I know here (in Thailand) have such a remarkably different experience of the sport than we do as westerners that I think it would be enlightening for us all to understand it a little deeper in real terms and not glorified or romanticized.
I want to point out, for instance, that it is extremely common for young Thai girls to fight Thai boys when they’re growing up — up until the age of 13, 14 or so. It’s not just the “Phetjee Jaa O. Mee Khu’s” of Thailand but virtually every other young muay ying in the country. Actually just last week there was a debate on (Thai) radio about whether girls should continued to be allowed to fight boys. Some commentators maintain that it’s good for them to fight boys should they want to (which I agree as well) while others say we should take our lead from the West in regards to gender separation in combat sport. The government still is on the fence about it but I really hope they’ll keep it from becoming law — as do many women fighters here.
Just as I was writing this friend showed me a copy of today’s Muaysiam newspaper which has a full page feature on the subject. Apparently the bill passed and now it is illegal to have male vs female Muay Thai fights in Thailand. According to the article, however, Phetjee Jaa’s promoter is not paying any attention to the new ruling and will she will fight her next match on the 27th against a suitably matched male opponent.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Buasri, I’m glad to know your perspective. I certainly am not one that wants just pom-pom waving about how great Muay Thai is, and Thai culture itself – I do love it, but I also embrace that it is highly problematic. I can only go from my experience, the experience of my wife, and those we come in contact with though. Everyone has a valid experience, it is just the interpretation that is up for discussion, and what makes this difficult is that we own our experiences.
Part of my concern for the way that Thai sexual pressures are portrayed is that at least in one case we know of a woman who was coming to Thailand who was quite alarmed after reading several stories about how aggressive and even abusive the situation may become, sexually. There was genuine fear of rape or physical reprisal if one did not walk on eggshells – and this is a person who has been a fighter and in western gyms for much of her life, she knows how to handle herself. This was sad to me. It meant that somewhere along the line the attempt to get the “other side” of the story out had distorted reality to at least one sincere reader. Her fears were not warranted.
I also, first hand, have experienced some pretty extreme sexual pressuring of my wife in western contexts. Right in the middle of a lesson a very well-known trainer who is known for being able to train women fighters straight out asked Sylvie “Will you have an affair with me?” as they were across the room – despite not knowing her very well. He may have been just trying to play mind games, but this kind of thing is exactly what, in Thai contexts, would be considered out of bounds by a farang. But because this was in the west my wife and I just chalked it up to a guy “being a jerk”. Yes, there are real jerks in the fight game, and the west has its share.
As for being told how great Thai culture is, all I can say is that Thai Visa forum is filled with some of the worst, frankly racist (or Anti-cultural) talk I’ve ever encountered. Thais are so this, thais are so that. It seems that it is pretty common for farang after a lengthy time to change in their love for Thailand, as if it and its people have betrayed them. There is a lot of bitterness expressed in long-term farang, at least by my ear. Generally I find cultural pictures most insightful when the bright and the dark are mixed together. We come to understand the weave of what makes what what when we see that the bright relies on the dark, and that to some degree the dark has played its part in producing the bright.
We also need to understand – and I think a lot of people don’t get this – that when we enter a full working gym in Thailand we are entering into an already completely hierarchized space, a place that works according to definite and lasting high and low positions that are always being signaled in language, body and role. Injecting gender into this largely masculine space is only to complicate it. Add on top of this that we are entering work spaces. These are places of employment with very strong commercial interests. Coming to train at a Muay Thai gym is in some sense comparable to coming to “train” on a construction site in the west. It is a kind of tourism that produces all kinds of cross-signals and miscommunications.
This all being said, I think Laura’s writings have definitely helped shed a light on parts of Thai Muay Thai culture that has been invaluable. I just wish I could also glimpse the beauty and sheer wonder for the sport and its people that lead her to commit so much of her time there. I only see it in her very early writings, for instance the piece on her first fight which was one of the best written pieces on Thailand and fighting I’ve ever read.
ldf says
Hey Kevin,
With all due respect, please realize that when comparing your situation with mine, you are living a very different experience in muay thai. You are in one of the most Westernized cities in Thailand at a Western owned gym and not living at the gym. You are in an environment that has had much more, and by that, from what I know, at least a decade more, of interaction, thus understanding of Western culture and norms – this includes businesses, etc. surrounding the gym. You train in a gym where someone can speak English. You live in a city where Western movies and food is readily available. I’m not saying this to minimize your experience of muay thai, rather to point out, you are navigating a very different Thailand than I did for 3.5 years of my 4 in Thailand. The first 6 months were spent in Chiang Mai (San Kamphaeng). Despite living in Bangkok, where some of this is readily available, I wasn’t in an area that saw many if any Farang outside of the few that would come to the gym (and not consistently). I was the first woman in my gym’s history, of any ethnicity to fight for it, assuming what I was told was correct.
Also note, that by Sylvie showing up a the gym with her faen consistently, meaning you, it sets a completely different precedent. This is also true of being seen in the community.
I also am unaware of how well you both speak Thai. I didn’t not fully grasp what I currently have until I was in a position where I rarely, meaning for an indefinite amount of time (days? weeks?), speak English.
I can also tell from reading the way you are articulating your points, there is much for you to still understand about the subtleties of life in Thailand. This is not about being light or dark, positive or negative, it is about comparisons to Western environments and rationalizations that you use. I was there at one point as well. For me to further explain this, at this point, will take quite a bit of time and resources I prefer to use to write my next piece. I would have to go into quite a bit of subtleties, etc.
At this point, I want to thank you because I realize that there seems to be much room for understanding of my time in Thailand and that I perhaps have not been able to truly articulate what it was that I was getting at – it helps me realize what to discuss in the book I’m planning. And it provokes me to write it.
I continue to have a love of the art of muay thai and it is one of the reasons that I write what I do. If I can help people avoid what I may have unknowingly walked into, didn’t know how to identify and respond to, so that they can concentrate on their training, I have done my job. If my stories were only my own, I perhaps would not spend the amount of energy that I do relating them. I articulate what many others speak about but are not always apt to go public about. This is not to say it is the only experience, but there is a definite ripple of it in ex-pats in Thailand training, particularly single females. Anne discusses this in her independent research.
Like many things one may devote near ten passionate years of their life to, upturning every kernel of info and connecting patterns in an effort to understand, contribute, immerse oneself and transcend, the wonder wanes.
Between the romanticism of muay thai that pervades much of Western muay thai discourse and perhaps some of what one may find on this site, among other voices, I would be happy if there were some type of balance so people can make the decisions that best suit them.
I appreciate that you think highly of my past writing. I have amassed my notes and pertinent emails from my time in Thailand as notes for my book. Less the content on the site which will also be used as notes, I have approximately 1,000 pages of raw material to source from. I will have to revisit those times of past wonder in being true to the story. You’ll see much of it in my memoir. And you will also see much more dark, meaning of experiences that I’ve encountered, than dealt with on this site.
It pleases me to no end that Sylvie and many others have experiences that don’t reflect mine and others like me. This is what I suspect we all want/wanted in Thailand and again, it is for this reason that contributes to why I write what I do, so others can have information that I, and others like me, had to figure out on our own. If I had any of the info I share on this site, I would have made different choices and sooner. If in time my blog seems to be completely contradictory, even outlandish and perhaps perceived as a lie to the total farang female muay thai experience in Thailand, then my work (and others) has been done.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Laura, I fully appreciate that your experience is very different than ours, and in fact different than nearly every female who has trained extensively in Thailand, and even appreciate more that you have not only experienced it, but also written about it. And it is perfectly clear that what you experienced was a definite form of extreme experience based on how it has had lingering negative affects months and months after your return to the west. But know as well that as someone who has seen this unique slice of Thailand you have a kind of disproportionate role in the narrative in what the “real” (non-romanticized) Thailand is for the simple fact that there is almost no other writing on its subject from a female perspective. And that while you write from unique personal situations (for instance training one on one outside of a gym environment, and not fighting for a gym regularly, in a part of Thailand that did not know farang) you often write as if you are revealing something fundamental about Thailand to readers who have almost no other frame of reference.
Also some of your earlier writings expressed some things that caused me concern for your sensitivity to Thai culture, and your own expectations. Perhaps it was not fair, but long ago when you wrote about taking a Thai boxer up to your room, and the experience of the huge backlash against the act that followed – it painfully made me feel that you weren’t moving through situations with an eye towards what they might mean to someone other than you. Perhaps this wasn’t a fair judgement on my part, but we write what write, and as a reader long ago when I read that piece it really put me in a difficult place in terms of your narrative. I rejoice over and celebrate your writing. In so many ways Thailand is lucky to have such a powerful and gifted writer passing on sensitively experienced reality – and if you ever draw on those 1,000 pages of notes I would be the very first person in line to buy that book. But at times it feels like your expectations were quite western in scope. Adding to that is that you have expressed attitudes towards SEAsians since your return, that trouble me a little – to be honest. It makes for such a complicated mix.
I have no doubt that you are many times over more experienced in Thai subtleties than I am. And it is very true that Sylvie choose a very farang familiar gym so that she would not have to steer through so many complicated gender and power issues as another gym in another region would present. Sylvie would like nothing more than to train and fight heavily in an Isaan gym, but the opportunity was too complicated to achieve. Maybe one day. But things can be seen from this vantage point too. In the end all we can do is add voices (and experiences) to the mix, especially when so little has been written, and try to put these in dialogue with each other. I was just talking with Sylvie this morning about how remarkable and deep the misunderstandings are between Thailand and west, and how few people even have the experience and perspective to negotiate and translate them. The challenge seems to be even greater in the world of Muay Thai, and even greater than that in female Muay Thai.
Buasri says
One more thing I’d like to mention before I log off —
Gen’s statement “that these warrior like men were basically sold from there familys (sic) to a gym and were thrown into a group home with older trainers and fighters in the same boat, they grew up with no women or mother figures around no one to tend to there wounds wipe away there tears when they lost and made sure they ate properly, they grew up around a bunch of has been fighters become trainers that now have drinking problems” is not only hugely inaccurate in my opinion, but it’s a very worn and played out stereotype about Thai gyms and fighters that should really be dismantled and thrown away once and for all. It doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the complex social, professional and personal elements that contribute to the make up of a gym and its individual fighters.
While I respectfully disagree with Gen’s portrayal of the common Thai gym and its people, I do value her comments and her experience as a western woman training here in Thailand and moreover that she takes the time to share it with others. Another thanks to LDF for creating this forum for us all to share.
Buasri says
Lots of interesting points made, I think you’re right on with most things you say, Kevin, about ex-pats and Western gyms for instance. And it’s great that you share your wife’s love of and interest in Muay Thai.
I think the problem lies, in the fact that perhaps you’re not the intended audience of these articles. I on the other hand, find the posts totally resonant with my experiences here. I am British Canadian and came to Thailand to train and fight about 4 and a half years ago. What was supposed to be a month’s training turned into 2, then 3 and then 1 year and I’m still here now. My relationship to Thais and Thai culture has gone through so many incarnations that I can barely remember the mindset I had when I first came.
My journey has paralleled that of LDF’s remarkably as we were both single women who not only came to train and fight, but deeply immerse ourselves in the culture. So for me, for most of the first 3 years I was here, my only friends were Thais. I didn’t hang out with an ex pat crowd, never went to ex Pat bars or had any contact really with Western people or ideals, I lived firstly at a gym that had no farang and then out near my trainer and his wife in a Thai residential area with no foreigners. I should point out that this wasn’t some big thought out plan or anything, it just felt completely natural to do so. That said, it was like jumping off the proverbial deep end — having to learn Thai language (and to some extent Laos or Isaan dialect) while at the same time discern and navigate the cultural waters of both Thailand and the boxing world.
The Thailand you discover in this kind of experience is, as you can imagine, very different to the one your wife and other ex-pat boxers might have. LDF has always been on her own — while she was here she lived among Thais, spoke Thai and lived like a “low class” Thai person. By this I mean she lived like the boxers and trainers she worked with, who are considered to be among the lowest in the Thai societal hierarchy, as I’m sure you know. This shows her enormous respect for Thais and Thai culture — she undertook quite a deep and significant journey to truly understand the world she was living in here and not take anything at face value. A product of this journey, her posts reflect her profound inner process rather than a offer a general account of her life as a white woman boxer in Thailand. I think there are a good amount of blogs out there doing the latter, and they serve their own valuable purpose,
I have had so many of the experiences that LDF writes about — going to a small Isaan village with Isaan friends to realize the villagers have never seen a foreign woman before, having Isaan women treat me with low-grade hostility, feeling desperately alone at times while conversely finding a depth of acceptance and compassion in this country that I’ve never felt anywhere else.
In my opinion, part of that deeper discovery comes with being able to talk to your trainer, the fighters and their wives in their language and getting to know them outside of the context of the gym, as friends, as people. In my time here, I don’t think I’ve met anyone that got closer to the heart of Thai/Isaan culture than Laura has as a Westerner. Socially, foreign men have a decidedly privileged position here, so even if they’ve been married to a Thai woman for years, they haven’t experienced Thailand in a way that farang women has who spends a similar amount of time upcountry.
For me this was the biggest issue — I was more than willing to adapt to Thai culture 100 per cent, I gave it my all without really thinking about it or questioning it. I found it easy to do adapt in many ways, but with the gender issue it was very hard. The longer I spent here, to compromise my freedoms and truths as a Western woman was a tall order. How much do you let go? Where do you draw the line? If you are alone, with no other foreigners around to contextualize the experience, it becomes a metaphysical practice to try to find answers to these questions.
Given all that, i think LDF’s posts are probably most relevant to the women who are having similar experiences. For us, it’s the only place we discuss and reason what it is to be in this unchartered territory. I appreciate her brutal honesty as I know she’s going deep into the mire to reap the wisdom she knows is there while doing it without prejudice.
One final thought with regard to the friend who didn’t want to travel here because of what she read — I’m a little surprised. There are so many articles, blogs and posts out there giving alternate perspectives to LDFs, far outweighing hers in numbers. At the end of the day, if all of us believed everything we read without willing to find out on our own, we’d never leave our homes.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
Buasri, I certainly can feel Laura’s “inner” journey, in fact the inner of it is what makes it so amazing and special. And correspondently I can feel deep respect for your bravery as well, as both of you faced a remarkable immersion, as you put it. But the topic of exploration here was Gender and Power in Muay Thai gyms, and Laura’s experience came in large part outside of a gym (being taught alone in Isaan), and previous to that in a gym where she did not fight regularly. It doesn’t mean her distinct experiences aren’t part of the story at all, but they can be dialogued with, and contrasted with other experiences of other women who have trained (again, thinking of Anne Quinlan, Iman, Melissa Ray). That’s the way we build a picture.
And yes, immersion is the goal. Sylvie did a different kind of immersion. She wanted to experience Thai fighting as much as possible. Why as much as possible? Because this is the way every single Thai experiences the path of Muay Thai, beginning as a young boy or girl. For Thais fighting IS training, it is part of it. Sylvie basically has been a 12 – 14 year old boy in process this last year. It also is an unusual opportunity as many Thai gyms simply would not have let her do this, for a variety of reasons, some of which have to do with how farang fighters are managed. She in fact had to work hard to convince and prove that she wanted to do this. She has fought 28 times, possibly as much as any farang has fought in a year (as far as I know). It felt important to try to do it “the Thai way” instead of just accumulating techniques. In the year we have never seen a farang outside of the gym socially, we really have not much idea what they do other than pics on Facebook. Basically she trains, eats and sleeps. All the while she has seriously studied to read and write Thai, something most farang never bothered to do, because there is a written expression of Thailand that is simply different than that which is spoken. Hers is an experience path that surely presents a very unique view for a female fighter. For Sylvie this fight path has been personally liberating, and really to a high degree – and that isn’t because she does not daily face psychological and cultural barriers, because it is the barriers that have helped create the liberation I believe. This view can be added to those other views of other female farang in Thailand, again, so we can build a picture.
As far as other blogging Muay Thai voices of women training seriously in Thailand please do link me to them. I have looked and looked and looked and I can barely find a whisper out there. Even thoughful or substantive male voices are fairly rare. Perhaps we are missing someone, but other than Melissa Ray (who may or may not have retired, I’m not sure) and Natasha Sinbi (who we convinced and helped to blog), I can think of nobody else. Who am I missing?
I seriously embrace the reality of your and Laura’s Isaan experiences of cultural hierarchy, and of finding oneself on the low end in the shadow of prejudices. Thai culture is shot-through with hierarchies at every turn, many instances of which westerners are completely blind to, and Isaan may present even greater problems of understanding. But also I suspect that what is needed is the realization that Thai circumstances – even those in western friendly gyms – ARE deeply hierarchical, and that in entering them we should expect constant miscommunications of one sort of another, that gender positioning (especially as an unmarried older woman) could be quite problematic, and that our western expectations – in particular those of equality – may not serve us best in trying to decode what is happening. Perhaps what is most interesting is that when combining the experiences of Laura, yourself, and other female fighters, if the limitations of each is honestly discussed a strategy for other serious female fighters can be come up with.
sylviemuaythai says
I think that navigating a different culture is always difficult and can be treacherous at nearly every turn, especially when gender and sexuality are strongly disparate. I have incredible respect for western women who choose to live in Isaan, where being foreigner and a woman and interested in training/fighting Muay Thai is a path very unworn in those social paths. Due to my understanding and also my lack of understanding of all these complications and nuances and pitfalls, I have chosen to run on the paths that offer me the particular set of options that I am hungry for, namely training and fighting full-time.
I do not mean to undercut the depth of experience for you or Laura or any woman who lives in Isaan for an extended period of time, but I do caution against the argument that all the privilege that comes from being a white, middle-class, western woman can be fully discarded by choosing to “live as the low class Thais live.” While there are innumerate ways in which being white and female in a different culture can make social matters very difficult, it still carries with it very real privilege that is not the same as BEING a low class Thai fighter or woman or both. Living a simple life off of financial reserves is not the same as being poor.
And I agree wholesale that men and women experience Thailand differently, no matter where these persons find themselves. In a such a strongly hierarchical society it is dizzying to keep up with all the different ways in which age, skin color, gender/sex, class, education, social circles and more affect one’s position. I appreciate very much that my experience as a married woman is wildly different from that of a single woman and ALL women will appreciate the struggle with being respectful to and in a culture that is not always respectful to and of her, as a woman or as a foreigner or both.
I don’t doubt that Laura’s experiences and time in Isaan led her to find centers within the culture that you might be referring to when you say the “heart of Thai/Isaan.” I hope that this is explored in her book – I think that in her decision and/or compulsion to write about the more extreme experiences she faced there (the kinds of things that one MUST write in order to not break under their weight) a lot of the experiences which would explain love for a place or the familiarity that takes over when the exotic becomes common get left out. I think that might be what Kevin is getting at. Not that what is written should be undone, but that the courage it takes to share the horror might be balanced by what feeds the courage to continue on. I love that Laura writes about the aspects of being a stranger in a strange land because there is no other voice out there that I know of to break through the darkness that a lot of us face when coming to a foreign land with almost no map to lead us. To find someone else in that darkness and realize you are not alone is a balm for the many wounds we may accumulate in these experiences, but expression of our shared love for it is not any less important.
Lastly, I am perhaps defensive in my reading of the disparity in experience between being the only woman and only farang in a gym or a city or even a whole district and being in a fairly western-familiar area. While I chose my gym because it was familiar with western women and therefore I knew I could get many fights, I resent the notion that it is simple or comfortable or EASY to be in this setting. As the only westerner/woman in a gym there is certainly a broad range of difficulties, but one of them is likely not one of my most frequent obstacles which is to disassociate myself from the other farang and often the other women (which is painful to do, because I so much would love to have other women to train with) because their interests, behaviors and attitudes toward training are different from and sometimes pernicious to my own.
Buasri says
Blogging is about sharing your personal experience and at the end of the day it’ll resonate with some and not with others. That’s just it — personal experience — and anyone who is critical of what truth the writer finds along his/her journey and how it is presented is, in my opinion, standing on some very weak ground. The ground becomes considerably weaker if that person has absolutely no direct experience of what the author is writing about.
LDF’s posts are rich with content and while she discusses some negative sexual experiences at length I hardly think she focuses on them or gives the message that “if you come and train in Thailand this is what you’re going to face”, as Kevin charges. Likewise if I read Sylvie’s blog I wouldn’t expect to have the same experiences she has but reading about them would add to my overall perspective and developing picture of this particular subject.
I know I’m coming into the discussion a bit late — I get the sense you’ve both been commenting for a while and I have no idea what has already been said. I also didn’t know of you, Sylvie and Kevin, before reading this post so I spent some time looking through your website. I just want to say I am really impressed by the commitment you’ve made to train and fight here and document your experience. I’m sure it is a valuable resource for many and I look forward to hearing more about your journey.
I’m not clear if you are in your second now or if it is still your first, but in my cursory reading of your blog and your interactions with people, I get a sense that you are getting to know Thailand the way almost everyone does in that first year or two. Lots of positive experiences and rewarding interactions with kind people. The liberation that comes with being here, doing what you love to do. As Kevin has pointed out, LDF had them too and in the beginning she wrote about them. However, it must be said that longer you live here and the more proficient you come with the Thai language, that picture will almost certainly change. You will see things you didn’t before and you will become more and more aware of the enormous disparity between what’s being said and what’s really going on. The curtain will open a little and allow you to peak backstage. I think you’ll discover a whole new world at work and perhaps you’ll even have to carve out a whole new place for yourself in that reality.
That’s not to suggest you’re only seeing the positive experiences right now — it’s clear you both are aware of the complex dynamics of sex, money and class in Thailand. And by no means am I saying that you are blind to the less appealing side of Thailand by staying in a farang friendly gym. Similarly, neither LDF or myself even remotely posited “the notion that it is simple or comfortable or EASY to be in this setting” (i.e., a foreign woman in a Muay Thai gym that is more accustomed to Westerners). I think what LDF and I were trying to suggest is that Sylvie’s journey is extremely different (and that’s the key qualifier in all this I think) than that which you might have as a single farang woman upcountry. Namely, in a farang friendly gym, the Thais have become accustomed to dealing with westerners and will attempt to treat you according to their understanding of western social principals. In parts of Isaan and even parts of Bangkok for that matter, that lack of experience with foreigners means that you are sometimes walking into a minefield of pre-conceived ideas. A common one, for instance, is that all westerners are rich while another is that single western women are sexually promiscuous because they have sex for free (ie., they don’t need men to support them).
Similarly, as you both know and have commented, marital status will dictate how people will treat you to a large extent. Thai woman won’t see you as a threat if you have a husband, especially if your husband is very much a part of your life like Sylvie’s husband is. And men will of course behave accordingly knowing you are married. That’s not to say every guy becomes predatory when they know you’re single — that’s hardly the case. But it does shift the dynamics noticeably and my sense is that maybe you don’t fully grasp that because it’s so far out of your realm of experience.
Just to touch here again on Kevin’s critique of the emphasis on negative sexual experience — you assume that other woman fighters have not had similar experiences because they haven’t written about it — but perhaps they just choose not to. I certainly wouldn’t want to open myself up in that way. I think it would be very challenging and even painful to address comments that I had somehow asked for it by putting myself in that situation or suggestions that the experience was blown out of proportion (as LDF has). I will say that I’ve encountered similar sexual aggression here — once from a police chief in a small town who was close with my trainer. He had a gun, and though I didn’t really fear him using it, I was very alarmed that this was happening to me. I had never read or heard of other farang woman in Thailand facing this kind of predicament. Thai people, and in particular Thai men, had always been gentle and kind in my experience thus far. Does that mean I had done something wrong or that I was somehow responsible for it happening?
Finally, Sylvie’s cautioning “against the argument that all the privilege that comes from being a white, middle-class, western woman can be fully discarded by choosing to “live as the low class Thais live” — is totally senseless as no one anywhere within this forum has even suggested that, let alone argued it. It makes me wonder if you really understand what I am trying to say — and question why you both seem to want to minimize LDF’s account of her experience.
ldf says
To add to, yet, another of the many many many assumptions during this conversation (most of which I won’t even begin to address. I don’t want to write a lengthy essay discussing the assumptions embedded before I can even address the arguments presented)…………
Who said I was middle class? Who said Buasri was?
I certainly have never discussed my beginnings in life, the choices I made, the spaces I occupied throughout my pre-Thailand life…..???
Buasri hasn’t as well. In fact, I don’t believe anyone during this discussion has…..
Shall we continue to bring up points to arguments never made by assuming more?
sylviemuaythai says
You are right in that I am making an assumption about class, based simply on my understanding of who can afford to move to another country and live off of savings. I concede that I am also making this assumption based on being from the US, where people do not have much mobility at all unless they are somewhere within the broad range of middle-class. I completely own that as an assumption and I apologize for it being taken as an attack, but that’s not what I intended. I was meaning to point out that living among a class of citizens does not necessarily equate to the struggles and experiences of that class within the context of having the freedom to choose that lifestyle.
I’m not in any way trying to poke holes in anyone’s argument. I’m not aiming to argue at all. My intentions were and are to be part of a discussion on the subject and as a subject of women experiencing Muay Thai and Thailand. I don’t believe for a moment that we all have the same experience, or even that we should. Anne’s research mission was to allow women’s voices to be raised and heard and I had considered that adding my voice to this discussion was in that spirit and not at all in the spirit of who is correct or claiming to know something about Laura or Buasiri that anyone else doesn’t. I’m disappointed that my words have been taken with offense.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
re: “Who said I was middle class? ”
You seem to have positioned yourself as middle class, in fact almost ideally so. In your blog post:
http://www.milkblitzstreetbomb.com/thailand/re-entry-shock-feeling-like-a-foreigner-in-your-native-country/ – the feature image (a beautiful shot) is of lawns, parked cars, houses and shade trees, the caption of this photo (which seems to somehow represent your “home” or origins is ironically cast as “The Horror, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, 2012”. If in deed you are from a poverty class you didn’t really depict this in your writing, as you write:
“Currently, the Canadian city I spent, I believe approximately the first twenty-four years of my life in feels more alien to me than Thailand did the first time I touched down in Asia.”
Buasri says
Sylvie, my issue with all this is that you seem to have repeatedly misread my comments and defended yourself against points I never made.
Example — saying that I inferred that it was EASY to live in a farang friendly gym,, or suggesting that I believed the privilege that comes with being a single, white, middle-class female would be mitigated by living like the Thai fighters and trainers. As I said before, and will say again, I never once suggested that, let alone presented an argument to that effect (as you initially charged). In my opinion, you’d have to be pretty feeble minded to think that it would.
Yet in your latest response, regarding the assumption that LDF and I are middle class, you explain that you were meaning “to point out that living among a class of citizens does not necessarily equate to the struggles and experiences of that class within the context of having the freedom to choose that lifestyle.” — again, continuing to address an issue was never a point of contention.
Both you and your husband are apt to read the posts with certain preconceived ideas and so it becomes challenging to engage in an equitable discussion with either of you.
Let me attempt to give some clarity to my initial comment that LDF lived much like the Thais she trained with and developed relationships with other Thais in that socio-economic bracket. It was not to suggest she lost any of her privilege by doing so, but intended to show that perhaps she gained a deeper understanding of the culture, the people and the social dynamics at work in the community. Conversely, you and your husband’s views were formed by, among other things, living as a couple at a farang-owned gym where the trainers and fighters have long had experience with Westerners, and with you fighting full time for the gym. Both are valid perspectives but in my opinion, LDF’s has perhaps a little more integrity because of the conditions that formed it.
And for the record, I am not middle class. One of the big reasons I came here was that it had become too expensive to live in the West. I came to Thailand with a few hundred dollars and had no idea where it would lead me. I’m not saying that because I think it lends currency to my perspective, not at all — but rather to show that your assumption was erroneous, and that your reasons you state for this assumption are also limited by prejudices.
ldf says
Again, so many assumptions Kevin, with so much of what you write again. I do believe we’re using the same words but are completely speaking different languages.
Holz says
So many things to say on this subject and also on the comments that follow.
I have known Laura for a long time and find that she is quite perceptive of human behaviour especially when it comes to traits of emotional abuse.
I was very grateful for some of the very difficult situations Ldf has helped me through on my previous visits to Thailand, sometimes I find it hard to believe certain things are happening and equally cannot understand why.
Blogs like these are not intended to convey Thailand or muay thai in a negative light but rather raise awareness of certain behaviours and situations. Things that we may not be aware of when we arrive in Thailand. A blog such as this would have been invaluable for me had it been available upon my first visit to Thailand. There are so many mistakes I could have avoided had I been in contact with another experienced female expat. For example, knowing not to close the door when you have a thai male visit your room or even not let a thai male enter in the first place! such things we don’t even think about in the west are so controversal out here.
I first trained also in San Khampheng where I met ldf.
I had first trained another martial art in my home country where I suffered emotional abuse from my trainer there for a long period of time, being a teen at the time I did not understand what was going on. It came to my sixthteenth birthday and he declared his love for me to my mother(!) and that he wanted to leave his wife for me, completely disregarding how I felt at that age. I did not in any way encourage his behaviour.
After this I travelled to China where my instructor there decided to touch me up at first opportunity when we were alone.
I started to feel like there was something that I was doing to attract this behaviour from instructors.
When I trained in San Khampheng the trainers were much older and I felt respected me well, there was no sleaziness or strange behaviour that I had experienced before. There was some teasing from the young boys here and there but nothing I could not handle. Maybe it seemed this way as I did not yet understand the language but I certainly did not pick up on anything.
Unfortunately this gym was not functional at a certain point so I seeked training elsewhere.
On my first trip I trained in various areas from one extreme to the other.
I trained in a hill tribe camp, where I suspect they had only ever seen very few foreigners there. I’d imagine it was much like ldfs experience in Buriram maybe even more remote. I did not stay there long, one month, I could not handle the environment. The training was fine and I felt I could have become very good as there were proficient thai girls there.
I sometimes feel annoyed and weak willed because I could not perservere with the situation.
It was a very lonely experience, it was a trouble to even find somewhere to use the internet. The thais at the gym seemed quite intimidated and shy around me and no-one would really speak to me, I was just this strange thing in the gym, often comments were made when I was stood right there and I felt quite uncomfortable.
At this point I had a good grasp on thai language.
Each time I would go out, people would stare, want to touch me, make all sorts of comments, sometimes positive, sometimes downright rude. It did get to the point where going out would be a bit of a task that I didn’t wish to do.
The owner of my apartment/house would let themselves in whenever they liked and often bring friends round, question what I am doing “oh look the farang is cooking, she knows how to cook” they would exclaim and laugh. I felt like a zoo animal. I decided to leave and go down to the most touristy place I could think of.
I went down South and trained at a very touristy gym and in the end got very sick, due to stress and hormonal problems.
I had a lot of problems with a trainer there. He had a girlfriend upon my arrival and even when we were introduced the flirting started on his part(right in front of his western girlfriend).
I know it is normal for thai men to sometimes speak in a flirtacious manner with women so I just blew it off. He kept being persistant once his girlfriend went home and I was very stern and quite rude to him in fact, which made matters worse. He would pick on me in training and many of the foreigners would comment about it to me, they did not understand what was being said in thai but they could see what was going on.
I complained to the owner who had told me there had been many complaints of harassement from this trainer.
So I think being in a western touristy gym does not protect you at all, I found it was worse in ways here because I was expected to answer his advances, I was expected to be a slut on holiday.
One girl who I met over facebook asked me about my experience at this gym and what was the problem with the trainer there, SHE asked me for information. I told her, maybe in too much detail, and she quickly ceased contact with me, complained that she had a great experience there and I was ruining it for her. I do think it is of some significance to add that the girl is a lesbian and this may have resulted in a different experience for her, also a more accomplished fighter than myself. Regardless, she had asked me for information and when it was negative she didn’t want to hear it because she felt it tainted her memories.
I decided to give up on Muay Thai I was fed up. For one reason and another after I got over being ill I ended up taking up boxing again and realised how much I missed Muay Thai. I returned to Thailand for the second trip.
Again I went to a western gym, many foreigners there owned by a foreigner etc
One of the trainers decided to obsess over me here also, I had some problems here once he had realised I was not interested he would not train me anymore and I got ignored by him but I was still able to continue at this gym luckily.
I found my biggest mistake was trying to fit in with thai culture too much, trying to be too respectful, trying to live like a thai, hang around with thais etc rather than with other westerners. The problems I have had are unavoidable but I found are much greater when I was trying to follow this path.
These men seem to be drawn to it and it made me much more vulnerable, at time I was not sure what is right and wrong in the culture. An older lady would tell me one thing and I would repeat to my younger thai friends who would laugh at what she had said.
I think the best way is just to be a westerner, hang with westerners and just do farang things, for me I found less problems this way.
I left this western gym due to financial issues which did leave me in a vulnerable position I admit. I went to a thai gym, my Japanese friend introduced me there.
They promised free training, board and food if I was fighting regularly. I fought on the second day I was there and planned to fight again soon. I tried to give them my purse, however hints were made for me to keep it as I would be paying them for training. Eventually it came to and they asked me for ten thousand bhat for training in a very cunning fashion. I was very upset at how this had all happened and remember that clearly as I would have not got through this situation if I haden’t called Laura on that day.
Now comes to my third trip here, this time I am here with my boyfriend who is also training and fighting out here. I have returned to the western gym from my second trip. The trainers have changed (some new trainers) and I am enjoying the training. The way I am treated is so much different than before, I cannot stress this enough.
I still get some teasing here and there from the younger boys but nothing too bad.
I get treated with a lot more respect from the trainers and it seems as though they are interested to train me rather than have other intentions.
I notice the difference not only when I go to the gym but also when I go out. I don’t get stared at as much, I don’t get any crude comments, I will sometimes get smiles here and there especially when my boyfriend isn’t looking! (The second trip I was here one guy followed me home once because out of politeness I returned his smile).
I prefer not to go out alone without my boyfriend and I now understand why thai women are so afraid to be single and why they found it so amazing that I would travel to Thailand alone. When I go out alone I will sometimes get thai men try to talk to me, a lot of people mostly men are a lot friendlier in fact, they will attempt to say hello or engage me in other conversation, sometimes I think it is innocent but sometimes it turns into me being hassled.
I can see the same people the next day with my boyfriend and they will not even look my way or anything. It completely changes the whole experience.
I think the best way to avoid difficult situations like I stated before is to not immerse ourselves in the culture, with the people and to keep a safe distance, at least with women that is.
I would lastly like to point out to Kevin that he should not use other womens names in comments when trying to put forwards a point, lets let them speak for theirselves.
I personally know one of the girls mentioned and the comments made are not completely factual or true. Also please understand that not all girls are travelling and training alone, it makes a huge difference who you are showing up to the gym with regardless of whether you are single or not, it completely changes the dynamics and the experience.
Not everyone wishes to share their experience or just wishes to forget the negative aspects of their journey or turn a blind eye to it, which is a shame because by doing that we cannot help others avoid making the same mistakes as we have.
I would love to hear experiences from other women, positive and negative.
I wish other women would blog more or comment on these blogs and share their experiences.
For me certain issues aren’t as exaggerated as they used to be now I am here with a partner but I still see the same things go on with single girls in and out of the gym, it really upsets me when I see it happen and angers me also.
I also think it happens in particular to some girls more than others, one single girl in our gym I never see this behaviour aimed at her. She keeps a distance with the thais and is very stern, makes it clear that she won’t take any BS and I think the thais are quite intimidated. It is hard to know where to draw the line and whilst still being friendly with people. It is also hard to know what is acceptable and what is not, as what we would not think twice about back home can be a big deal out here.
Genna says
Holz,
Gosh I am literally in the same boat you have been. A single girl travelling alone in Thailand. Again not a problem back home but such a big deal here. I speak thai, not fluently but pretty well and I do understand what is going on. They always have some dodgy little motive, simple mind you but up to something none the less.
I am a very strong women and I speak my mind with no problem at all. I will even yell at them when they start playing up. But enough is enough I am exchausted with training twice a day and now I have to put up with their nonsense as well. Its great to know I am not alone and it is nothing I have done. Because its not me. Its them.
Thanks for sharing
ldf says
A lot has been revealed during this discussion.
I’ll be back to add more to this conversation when I can. The intent is to do so ASAP.
Much love to some of you.
To quote Holz,
I would love to hear experiences from other women, positive and negative.
Thanks to those of you who already have.
ldf says
It’s interesting. I’m late responding to this entire dialogue. I’ve waited in an effort to give Kevin’s comments my undivided attention. Now that I’m here, with much time to write, I’m left thinking….what for? Buasri and Holz did a wonderful job (thank-you) and for me to continue, as there is still much that could be addressed would at this point use up time I’d much prefer to direct towards other pursuits.
The only thing I suppose I can add is that, and this is directed to the general MBSB community reading this, Kevin is someone who has direct access to me, meaning he could have emailed all of this privately. Up until the moment I read his comments, which somehow diverged from the actual interview at hand and became directed at me; Kevin, Sylvie and I had been in email discussions reaching back before her website was built. My belief based on communication up towards recent months (perhaps even last month) was that we were all to support one another’s blog development. This is not to say we decided we must agree with one another and our perspectives were not open for public debate, but it does put forth that we were to respect one another. At this point, I find Kevin’s actions to be nothing short of concern trolling. The entire manner in which Kevin has conducted himself in this discussion has been manipulative, disdainful and horribly pretentious.
I also want to note that Kevin is no stranger to Anne Lieberman. Two days after this post went live, Sylvie posted on her Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu – Muay Thai Facebook page the following (dated April 24):
“Just had a Skype chat with the incomparable Anne Lieberman. I met Anne four years ago when I first came out to Thailand and she was here on a Fulbright Grant, researching women in Muay Thai. Always a great joy to talk to women who love thinking about Muay Thai and it’s innumerate facets with as much fervor as they enjoy practicing the art as well.”
That same day, Kevin posted in the above comments:
“And honestly in general I was not thinking explicitly of you – though your case is a very interesting one because of the depth of your writing and the uniqueness of your situation, and the fact that it made up a large part of Anne’s paper – but rather to the general subject of anecdotal reports of the experiences of women in Thailand.”
As Anne has never mentioned to me that my situation made up a large part of her paper either privately or addressed it publicly in her interviews, I can currently suspect only the following: the above statement is an assumption, a lie, a rumour, or something privately expressed to either Sylvie, Kevin, or to the both of them at any given point in time. Regardless of where the truth lies, to use this to fuel an argument that minimizes my work, thus as an extension publicly minimize Anne’s is grossly unethical as far as I’m concerned. I would also like to draw attention to the fact that using the names of other female fighters, assuming their experiences and speaking as any sort of authority without their consent in an effort to do the same qualifies as equally abhorrent.
I want to thank-you Kevin for giving us all the opportunity to get to know you better.
I also want to thank everyone for taking the time they have to add to the discussion.
Lastly, thank-you Anne Lieberman for graciously sharing your work.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
as to Anne’s work Laura: “Regardless of where the truth lies, to use this to fuel an argument that minimizes my work, thus as an extension publicly minimize Anne’s is grossly unethical as far as I’m concerned.”
I wrote Anne a long emailed response to the reading of her paper, much of it offering a critique of it similar to the one I offered in public here. She has repeatedly thanked me for both my emailed critique and my initial comments here, which she said appreciated. I have no idea what you mean by “unethical”.
Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu says
re: “As Anne has never mentioned to me that my situation made up a large part of her paper either privately or addressed it publicly in her interviews, I can currently suspect only the following: the above statement is an assumption, a lie, a rumour, or something privately expressed to either Sylvie, Kevin, or to the both of them at any given point in time.”
Not sure I follow you Laura. It is simply that I had read Anne’s paper many days before Sylvie Skyped with Anne. I posted my thoughts here as part of a general reaction to that paper (which was the subject of this blog post, but which you apparent had not read), At the very least several people got to express themselves on important and little talked about issues in the comments. That is a good thing. As things evolved I’ve spent a good portion of my comments praising your writing not only for its quality, but for it’s unique insight and bravery. But I also express my reaction to it as an invested and long time reader.. If that is trolling, so be it.
The only thing I have urged is for us to have a more complete picture, perhaps one that involves the largely un-discussed issue of commerce and the radical sort of tourism that Muay Thai training as a westerner involves, but also one that most certainly embraces every single story women have experienced. If there are women I have mentioned (and I mentioned Iman, Melissa Ray and Anne Quinlan) whose experiences are very different than those I have suggested as “positive” it is only because I have relied on what I have heard said. For Anne Quinlan I depended on Sylvie’s interview of her a few months ago (unpublished), for Iman I have relied on Sylvie’s interview of her, and for Melissa I have relied on her often repeated statement that at Eminent Air she has never felt treated differently as a woman – though I will certainly grant that she may have had many other experiences in many other contexts or possibly gyms.
Mostly though I speak as someone who has experienced the gym context from my own perspective – we each have them – with my thoughts coming out of extensive discussion of Sylvie’s experiences most of which occur without my presence. Sexual and power dynamics are something we discuss frequently, almost daily, actually, as they lots of attention. There is room for all accounts, even those of men.
laura smith says
Kevin, for the love of god have the grace to pick up on the cues. I think this conversation is over and it’s time for you to exit stage left. I’d like to think you have something more pressing to attend to….zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Holz says
Laura Smith my thoughts exactly!
I cannot work out if Kevin is extremely naive, stupid or just trying to piss people off here.
Really, back home do you believe everything you see in the media? on the news, in magazines? etc etc
Talking publicly and talking amongst friends is two different things all together.
Do you not realise the consequences one of these accomplished fighters might face if they talking openly about such issues? the muay thai circle is a close knit one in thailand, everyone talks, everyone would know who these girls are talking about, what gym etc. It is only going to cause problems for them when they return if they want to go back to the same gym or even when fighting they might have issues with promotors, nobody wants to hear about this sort of stuff they just want you to shut up and get on with it, they have an image to think about.
I have had a few friends who are full time fighters or have lived here extensively from a young age training in Thailand, they have read these comments and been appauled by Kevins responses. They would like to comment but cannot as they have to live here and cannot afford a reputation.
Not everyone wants to blog about their lives and Kevin has shown us exactly why! why would anyone want to blog about their experiences when they are just faced by disbelief or the implication that they have somehow encouraged this behaviour or caused it. It is similar to why many people who have been abused in everyday life do not come forwards about it. Really if you heard some of my friends experiences you would really eat your words, but who wants to discuss such personal issues to a group of strangers over the internet? I, myself have only skimmed a few issues I faced and not gone into detail at all.
Sure there are great experiences to be had too, I don’t believe they can’t be had in a home country though, it depends where you are based.
I think the whole point is to discuss the hardships one might face being a woman which a man will never have to incur. It’s great that some girls don’t suffer such issues, but EVERY single girl I have met who has stayed here long enough has faced a lot of problems and come to me for advice.
Now, I am not longer single I so far have not dealt with any of these issues. I don’t understand how you can comment on the issue when you are never going to see any of this or deal with it yourself, and Sylvie probably will not either which is great! but you should not comment like an expert in the subject.
And again the girls you mention you do not take into account who they have travelled with, if they had partners or families with them or in fact whether they became part of a couple in Thailand. You are basing your argument on a couple of interviews, really?
Buasri says
nice response exactly what i was trying to say too.
If you can find me one single heterosexual woman who is training and fighting here in Thailand who has not had a negative sexual experience I’d be amazed. Every single woman I know has. It’s just part of the terrain — most of us know we’ll have to face it on some level before we get here. This forum offers support in that it helps us understand the dynamics at work and how to handle it. Also, (until now) this forum — and this forum only — has allowed us to talk about these issues without getting bashed by men. A couple of years ago, a similar discussion on MyMuayThai.com produced a barrage of vitriolic responses from the male members. I for one, didn’t enter the discussion because I wasn’t willing to take the abuse.
Holz says
I’d like to add to this one single heterosexual woman with no asian descent….
I say this because I do know of one girl who as far as I know did not have issues, however she was half thai/chinese. One of the girls Kevin likes to keep mentioning, Melissa, I did not previously know what she looked like I have since looked her up. IF what he says is true, and lets be realistic we are assuming based on an interview! and she has not had any issues or talked of any, I think this would have a HUGE influence as to why. We have some hi-so (and also not as hi-so thai girls),thai women who come to our gym and they get treated with A LOT of respect and encouragement, when I have seen any asian/western girls I see the same sort of thing. I rarely see this with any of the western girls figthers or not. I don’t want to put race in to this but let’s face it Thailand is a biased country towards race or even skin tone!
But yes also every girl I know has also had some issues in one form or the other, some worse than others because so many girls have come to me for advice on it but few rarely listen.
I also remember that discussion on mymuaythai, I think it was something along the lines of ‘you chose to come here and do a mans sport, if you don’t like it leave’ etc and all sorts of other abuse. I can’t remember if I took part or not, I think I probably did but sometimes I wonder why I bother because certain people will just always prefer to believe it’s “our” problem, it’s all in our heads, it’s the culture, we are too sensitive, we must have encouraged it etc etc because guys will NEVER see it. They get respect as soon as they walk in to the gym regardless of their abilities.
Somchai says
Personally I found these sentences interesting:
Anne: “Most recently, I’ve been floored by the emergence of and media coverage around Phetjee Jaa O. Mee Khu, the twelve year old nak muay ying who is fighting boys! ”
“Not only that it would happen, but that there would be so much interest in her and positive media coverage around it.”
Phetjee Jaa long ran out of female opponents, now she is fighting boys and beating them. Large amounts are gambled, a sign that the fights are evenly matched.
And yet the concluding sentence is:
Anne: “That I think underpins a lot of the feeling about women in Muay Thai in Thailand. We can only be so good, so there’s no point in aiming too high.”
Being familiar with Phetjee Jaa how on earth did she reach this conclusion?
Having never finished high school, let alone receiving research grants, I’ll quote someone else to express my feelings, ““No common man could believe such a thing, you’d have to be an intellectual to fall for something as stupid as that”.
Holz says
I think her last statement is referring to western women in Thailand? I might be wrong or possibly that Phetjee Jaa only being a recent addition to Muay Thai is a shock to her and a great way to shape the future of women in muay thai and maybe the attitude towards women will now change.
I think maybe you have misunderstood the language/context of her last statement if you read the whole paragraph, she is not saying there is no point in aiming to high it is the attitude towards women, and hopefully this attitude will soon change with girls such as Phetjee proving she can get further than the boys.
Somchai says
Phetjee Jaa is a recent sensation, as she is reaching higher than any girl before her. But girls fighting boys shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has spent a fair bit of time around smaller gyms. It’s been going on pretty much since the whole female fighting scene took off a bit more than 10 years ago.
Around this time, I heard many trainers say they preferred working with girls – they trained harder, had more self discipline and a ‘good ‘heart’. If there was a bad attitude towards female Nak Muay, gyms wouldn’t have been betting on them. I think the role of women in Thailand is greatly misunderstood – 49% of CEOs are female, which is the highest proportion in the world
Anne had a difficult task, as the world of MT is not easily penetrated, especially when your studying/mixing wih ppl at Chulalongkorn. It would be interesting to hear Anne’s perspectives on Gender and Power within that institution, where women are required to wear long skirts. Every now and then they threaten to cuts the grades of those whose skirts are too short and some academics have said skirt length could increase sexual assault.
Genna says
Hi All,
I’m back in thailand again at a new gym in Bangkok a very successful gym I might add. I forget how hard it is starting again at a new gym the power dynamics the social structures etc. This post I will do my best to be objective. Again knowing more about the thai language certainly has its advantages and disadvantages.. I understand what is going on and I’m not sure how to respond. Part of me wants to run away the other part wants to explore and set a good example of what a strong resilient independent women can be. With the language barrier and culture misscommuncations makes it so hard to express what is going on and what I feel. Again the deep seeded sexism that is rooted in thai culture really baffles me, especially in 2013. Again not all thai trainers are like this, some are so open and accepting to female fighters it truly is surprising something to hang on to when things aren’t running smoothly.
One thing I can never get passed, is the deep disrespect. They often offend me and I honestly don’t think they realise the impact they have. Its hard being a female in martial arts let alone a fighter trying to be taken seriously in a foreign country. After some serious reflection I can’t help to wonder/realise maybe they are just ignorant. But how can I excuse that, where do I draw the line and brushing it off as ignorance and standing up for what I believe in and stand for.
I am actually leaving this gym after 2 weeks of training I can’t stand it here and refuse to be treated like a fool and a piece of meat. The training is very average and the cardio is good but I can safely say I have learnt nothing in the last 2 weeks besides a very negative culture experience they will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Genna says
Hi All,
I’m back in thailand again at a new gym in Bangkok a very successful gym I might add. I forget how hard it is starting again at a new gym the power dynamics the social structures etc. This post I will do my best to be objective. Again knowing more about the thai language certainly has its advantages and disadvantages.. I understand what is going on and I’m not sure how to respond. Part of me wants to run away the other part wants to explore and set a good example of what a strong resilient independent women can be. With the language barrier and culture misscommuncations makes it so hard to express what is going on and what I feel. Again the deep seeded sexism that is rooted in thai culture really baffles me, especially in 2013. Again not all thai trainers are like this, some are so open and accepting to female fighters it truly is surprising something to hang on to when things aren’t running smoothly.
One thing I can never get passed, is the deep disrespect. They often offend me and I honestly don’t think they realise the impact they have. Its hard being a female in martial arts let alone a fighter trying to be taken seriously in a foreign country. After some serious reflection I can’t help to wonder/realise maybe they are just ignorant. How can I get them to understand, can they ever as they are not a women. how can I excuse that, where do I draw the line and brushing it off as ignorance and standing up for what I believe in and stand for.
I am actually leaving this gym after 2 weeks of training I can’t stand it here and refuse to be treated like a fool and a piece of meat. The training is very average and the cardio is good but I can safely say I have learnt nothing in the last 2 weeks besides a very negative culture experience they will stay with me for the rest of my life.