Source background
According to"Don’t Call Me ‘Honey’: U.S. Lawyers Barred From Sexist Comments, Discriminatory Behavior", the United States has its anti-discrimination law amended to include ABA Model Rule 8.4. in order to prohibit discrimination misconduct in legal profession. The vote was made by the American Bar Association's House of Delegates on August 9,2016 after a heated controversial of one female lawyer who was shouted sexist response at when she asked the male lawyer to stop interrupting her.
_______________________________________
My Yes/No question is:
Should we revise an anti-discrimination law in Thailand?
My answer is:
Yes, and the law enforcement against discrimination should be taken seriously.
This article reminds me of the case of Miss Theresia Degana, a disabled member of Thai delegation who participated the UN conference which held earlier this year. She was introduced by a senior government officer with a "Thai joke", making fun of her disability in front of the UN committee. His inappropriate action stirred up resentful comments on the social network such as Facebook. UN representatives condemned his disrespectful action by addressing their disapproval in the middle of the conference in the very next day. What surprised me is he did not even feel sorry for what he had done;conversely, he said it was just a "joke". He did not intent to discriminate against the lady or anything. However, what was worrying me was not his brainless speech. It was the response from the disabled lady, saying that she totally understood his intention and did not feel upset by it. She even felt sorry for the guy and did apologize him for being the such a problem. I was speechless. Just, wow. In the other part of the world, calling a female lawyer "Honey" or "Darling" would be considered a discrimination and the government took a serious action on it. For Thailand, the victim was the one who said sorry to the discriminator, for the fear that she might get into trouble. I was like ..really?
I am not going to blame it on that senior government officer, the lady or the law. I think the most problematic issue is people do not aware that discrimination do exist and that's why it becomes a part of Thai society unintentionally. The revision of the law is probably a good start, in the sense of it will raise public awareness towards discrimination and educate people in the society to realize the importance of it.
___________
Reference
Mosbergen, D. (2016, August 10). Don’t Call Me ‘Honey’: U.S. Lawyers Barred From Sexist Comments, Discriminatory Behavior. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-bar-association-antidiscrimination-rule_us_57aaf5f5e4b0ba7ed23e3361
Mosbergen, D. (2016, August 10). Don’t Call Me ‘Honey’: U.S. Lawyers Barred From Sexist Comments, Discriminatory Behavior. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-bar-association-antidiscrimination-rule_us_57aaf5f5e4b0ba7ed23e3361
That tiny font is really hard to read.
ReplyDeleteI strongly recommend that you write your blogs in Blogger, not in MS Word or some other program and then paste it in. If you do, use Blogger's tool to remove all the weird formatting from the word processing program.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi Peter. I wrote it in blogger and didn't use MS word. I tried to change the font size so many time but somehow the system won't update my changes. But I just fix it now by copying the text into the MS word, change the font size and paste it again in Blogger. I hope it's ok now.
DeleteThanks Mieng. I just used Blogger's "Remove formatting" tool on it. Your solution had also worked well.
DeleteThere are very tiny fonts in your blog but I can read it by zoom in. I really agree with you that we should revise the anti-discrimination law in Thailand because everyone has their own rights (or human rights) so we should treat them as equality and fairness, respect and listen each other. I think that if we can launch more severe punishments to regulate people who discriminate other people (like poor people, less money, less opportunity to get an education, or even gender, race, colour skins, and so on), our society will be more peaceful and livable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the law enforcement against discrimination should be taken seriously, I also think bullying and cyber bullying should also consider. As it went viral couple week age, A government officer posted the pictures of a young gas station worker on his Facebook with a very rude caption. I think it’s an unacceptable behavior for judging a stranger for the way they look and post it publicly through social media. I wonder if this situation happened in a country like the US. where cyberstalking law enforcement. What will happen to this guy, I think at least he will get fired.
ReplyDeleteSexual discrimination has long been existing in Thai society. However, the degree of discrimination gradually decreases through time because more and more women have proved their potential to the eyes of public. For me, a revision of an anti-discrimination law can only raise general people's awareness and force them to avoid doing discrimination. However, the subconscious mind of discrimination does not change. Only could time and the achievement of women themselves demolish those deep root of discrimination from the public's mind.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of the practicality of the execution of ones who commit the violation of gender discrimination in Thailand. The idea of sexual discrimination has been widely made to be known to the Thais for years; however, it the violation still appears in job advertisement in daily newspapers; for example, classified advertisements that recruit for English teachers but explicitly announce that position are open for female only; I don't really know what wrong it is with male applicants;are they not smart enough?; or are they lack of knowledge to teach?; there probably isn't any empirical findings shown and it's just a misunderstanding myth. One Canadian English teacher voiced this matter up when he first stepped his feet in Thailand and found those strange announcement in Thai adverts. Luckily, women are not rarely facing this kind of gender discrimination, especially in business sector. I did a mini survey of sexual discrimination in Thai business company 20 years ago and found that it did not exist in those 50 companies joining the survey.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure whether Thai laws have the specific Anti-discrimination law. However, as I remembered the idea about anti discrimination is existed in the constitution law. The principle of Equity that ones must be treated fairly and equally is even considered as a key in Thailand's constitution. Unfortunately, there is no sanction for the private organizations discriminating against others.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a good idea to revise this law and take it seriously. The most important thing is that we should start by ourselves not to discriminate against others.
I agree with Pun on this topic. However, I am not sure about your definition of equity. I learned this word last year in social justice class when we talked about the differences between equity and equality. I think the terms are not interchangeable. If I remember correctly, equity means to treat people fairly. But to treat people fairly doesn't mean to treat people equally. For instance, amputees might need more assistances than healthy people. Or the poor should pay less tax. My point is I'm not sure if it has deeper meaning in law language. Could you clarify it, please?
DeleteOil, thanks for reminding me about the difference of this two words. You are right about the word "equity", ones may not be treated in the same way but the result must be fair. "Equality",on the other hand, means to be equally treated but it might be fair or not fair.
DeleteI searched Thailand's constitutional draft 2016 in English, it was prescribed with the word "Equality". However, according to the book in public law subject, the word "Equity" might be more suitable here.
As these two words have exactly the same meaning in Thai language which is "ความเสมอภาค". So this might be the reason why the word Equality is used in this constitution (my opinion).