The Analysis of Neoliberalism and the Reconfiguration of Gender in the Thai Political Domain

Co-sponsored with the Asia Center

Many observers have held that neoliberalism, as a class project, results in the undoing of feminism (Baer 2016). Neoliberalism espouses key ideas of freedom, self responsibility, privatization, and the free market, and the consolidation of capitalist power. Thailand’s neoliberal reform caused disparities between urban and regional provinces. In this “socio-economic malaise”, capitalists thrived (Khoo 2010: 11). Neoliberalism also intersects closely with gender ideologies. With an almost twenty percent increase in the proportion of women MPs, women politicians are now visible in the previously male arena. The rhetoric of “superwoman” (ผู้หญิงเก่ง) gained prominence. While neoliberalism reinforces precarity, it fosters flexibility, empowerment, and autonomy for some. To understand where these success stories originate, I employ a qualitative method that involves interviewing Thai women MPs who are in the Committee that oversees activities including children, young adults, women, elderly, people with disabilities, ethnic groups, and gender diverse individuals (คณะกรรมาธิการกิจการเด็ก เยาวชน สตรี ผู้สูงอายุ ผู้พิการ กลุ่มชาติพันธุ์ และผู้ที่มีความหลากหลายทางเพศ). It emerges that some women politicians embody neoliberal selves (Chen 2013), where the central neoliberal principle involves treating homo economicus as the model of personhood. Their bodily dispositions align with the pursuit of individual choices, led by entrepreneurial activity in the capitalist commodifying culture, as is evident in their corporeal capital. I examine the interplay between neoliberalism and Thai women politicians as immanent neoliberal subjects who epitomize hegemonic femininity (Baer 2016; Chen 2013) while simultaneously working toward political changes. While the literature on neoliberalism and gender focuses on how women may distance themselves from the politics of the collective and the unchanged structural inequalities, Thai women politicians embody normative femininity (where opulence symbolizes their agency) while also working toward mobilizing political change.