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Abstract
In an effort to help rural women of all ages in Thailand, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) producing handicrafts focus on traditional Thai handicrafts as a means to improve women's quality of life. Like many NGOs, these organizations rely on skills women already have to create products that can be sold in the marketplace. Handicraft NGOs face a dual challenge. On the one hand, they seek to improve women's standard of living, or practical gender needs. On the other hand, they also address the more abstract issues, or strategic gender needs that inhibit women's overall development. Can an economic activity that is so gendered promote overall development? Moreover, what effect does industrialization have on rural women's potential development? This paper seeks to examine the impact of the NGOs' pursuit of development and the greater implications that their intervention has on women's development with respect to the dynamics of the public and private spheres in rural—and, by extension, urban—Thailand.