Cindy Sirinya Bishop has had enough of Thailand's culture of slut-shaming
Is #DontTellMeHowToDress Thailand's own answer to #MeToo?
Cindy Sirinya Bishop, 39, is a TV host, entrepreneur and model. In response to recent remarks made by authorities that women should not dress sexily during Songkran to avoid sexual assault, Cindy posted a video that has taken the internet by storm. Her message: don’t tell women what to wear; tell men to respect women. She has now begun a hashtag campaign—#DontTellMeHowToDress #TellMenToRespect—with the hope of kickstarting Thailand's own answer to #MeToo.
The hashtags are supposed to encourage people to talk about it. I don’t want to be just this celebrity who comes out and says do it my way then just fades away.
I wouldn’t have been so upset about it if I hadn’t had these experiences myself before. To the men who govern Thailand, there seems to only be one solution [to sexual harassment] that they talk about: women shouldn’t dress sexy. I just think it's too easy and lazy.
During one Songkran on Khaosan Road, I was there with a big group of my friends but accidentally got separated from them. A group of men, like five of them, ganged up on me and tried touching me everywhere.
No. I got so scared and got in a taxi home straight away.
They were Thai. I’ve never had a bad situation with tourists. All the stories I've heard from women are also about Thai men.
Thailand doesn’t talk about sex, we learn about sex from our friends or from the internet. When you say things like, “women shouldn’t dress in sexy clothes in order not to get raped,” what kind of messages are we sending to our children? The girls will be reading it and blaming themselves while the boys will see it as they have the power to do whatever. There has been a lot of talk about how un-Thai I am: who is this farang girl? She doesn’t understand Thai culture. Now you tell me it’s Thai culture for men to touch a woman inappropriately? When you play the “culture” card, it’s just so wrong.
Because it’s easy. It’s a patriarchal society, traditional, conservative. Men are superior and women are placed at home. Here’s one response I got from the campaign: “Oh if you’re so confident then go ahead and lead a parade of women in bikinis in public. When you get raped, who can you blame?” That’s not the kind of message I’m trying to send, don’t misunderstand me. I’m saying it is not the only solution.
Don’t tell me it is a culture thing. We have this problem everywhere in the world, like slut-shaming happens in America as well.
Do I think it has anything to do with it? Yes. Do I think they are asking for it? No. Maybe a woman dresses sexy in a dodgy place where men are drinking alcohol or whatever, but at the end of the day, it is still her decision. It is her rights to wear whatever she wants without men touching her. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not telling you to go out and dress in sexy clothes, but do I think it’s a risk factor? Yes because Thai men still can’t figure it out whether the outfit becomes a license or not.
My daughter is eight and my son is five. I’m going to make sure they’re not going to learn about sex from their friends or the internet because this is going to stick with them for the rest of their lives. I already talked to my daughter about how a female body changes in terms of reproduction and how nobody has the rights to touch her. You don’t have to do a whole, full-on sex talk, it’s the whole idea of respecting others—you don’t have the rights to force anyone to do anything.
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