How do Thai men view issues of gender equality, homosexuality and masculinity?
JE: Homosexuality is not a difficult issue for young Thai men, who recognize that homosexuals have rights similar to heterosexuals. Particularly challenging for them is removing ideas that blame women victims of rape and prostitution. There are strong beliefs among them that women want or provoke rape. The massive sexualisation of women’s images in media shapes their inclination to believe that women want sexual violence. IPS: What other misconceptions about gender-based violence surfaced during the workshop? JE: That women enjoy pornography and are being used in the sex industry, that men should earn more than women, and that women should primarily perform housework. IPS: What are the dangers of young men seeing themselves as ‘protectors’ and ‘helpers’ of women who have been subjected to various kinds of violence. Shouldn’t they instead see women as ‘equals’? JE: Chivalrous ideas which are still underpinned by views that men are strong and women are weak are the normalised definitions
JE: Homosexuality is not a difficult issue for young Thai men, who recognize that homosexuals have rights similar to heterosexuals. Particularly challenging for them is removing ideas that blame women victims of rape and prostitution. There are strong beliefs among them that women want or provoke rape. The massive sexualisation of women’s images in media shapes their inclination to believe that women want sexual violence. IPS: What other misconceptions about gender-based violence surfaced during the workshop? JE: That women enjoy pornography and are being used in the sex industry, that men should earn more than women, and that women should primarily perform housework. IPS: What are the dangers of young men seeing themselves as ‘protectors’ and ‘helpers’ of women who have been subjected to various kinds of violence. Shouldn’t they instead see women as ‘equals’? JE: Chivalrous ideas which are still underpinned by views that men are strong and women are weak are the normalised definitions
