Opinion > Opinion
POST BAG
Thai women work better than Thai men
Published: 16/12/2010 at 12:00 AM
Bangkok Post

In answer to Sethaput Suthiwart-Narueput's question, ''Where have all the men gone...?'' (Bangkok Post, Dec 14) may I humbly suggest that, in order to find answers to this question, he simply visit any school in the kingdom.

Amongst others, I teach two Mathayom 2 classes. One class, predominantly boys, the other, predominantly girls. Both classes suffer from the usual Thai student diseases _ OBD (Obsessive Blackberry Disorder), narcolepsy, chronic copying, creativity deficiency syndrome, and aural disagreement with oral overload _ but, despite these generic (genetic?) afflictions, the girls still manage to find a way to do their classwork, do their homework, ask intelligent questions, keep their books and the classroom clean, and generally be interesting, respectful and, most importantly, responsible human beings.

The boys, well, not so much. They like pretending to be kung-fu masters, spinning their pens, making ''miaow'' noises, jabbing sharpened straws up each other's derriers, and generally doing all the things that your average Western kindergartener is already starting to think a little juvenile.

I have a friend who runs a factory in Thailand. In their first year, they had so many problems that they nearly went under. The staff were constantly absent, constantly hung over (or drunk), constantly sneaking off for naps, constantly delivering the kind of shoddy work that you see everywhere, and constantly demanding more money be cause, as they put it, ''I want it!'' He then discovered a pattern. The problem staff were all Thai men. In fact, it was fair to say that the Thai men were all problem staff.

The factory now has a policy. For any job where it is even remotely possible to employ a woman, even if that woman is initially less qualified than the male applicants, they will employ her. The factory is now doing very nicely, thank you (and the place smells much nicer, too).

Now, I could tell you what the root cause of this is, what the root cause of pretty much all of Thailand's woes is, but the only people who would agree are those Westerners who don't have ''some lovely Thai people at work who sort all that stuff out for me'' and the odd Thai who doesn't adhere to the Kasit Piromya school of how to deal with constructive criticism, i.e. ''No... you are!''

So, what can be done about this? Well, I would say, please don't do anything about this. Let the trend continue. Actively encourage it! The sooner Thailand is run by responsible, intelligent, diligent, mature and reasonable Thai women, the better for Thailand.

Thai men are welcome to rebut, though I imagine most of them will be either too lazy to do so, too busy jabbing sharpened things where sharpened things have no business being, or too incapable of even reading this in the first place.

Let me stress that I am not a feminist. I like my girlfriend to wear her hair long and her skirts short. She does the ironing, cooking and cleaning way better than I ever would see the need to. And I expect her to give up work and take care of any sprogs we might fashion in the future.

But then I don't have to give her all my wages every month because I can't be trusted to not spend it all the first week on Regency with my buddies at the marble checkers table outside the local shop; I don't think it's okay to have women on the side; I don't exist in a perpetual state of grumpiness and aloof disinterest with her; and I would employ her before I would employ myself any day of the week. I am, after all, a man as well.

MICHAEL PHILLIPS