In the land of wise old men: experiences of young women activists in Myanmar

ABSTRACT

In a society in which leadership is still largely defined by age and gender, young women in Myanmar face social, cultural, and even administrative challenges to raising their voices and taking on leadership roles. This article explores the experience of young women activists in Myanmar, considering social norms and challenges to leadership, coping strategies, and solutions to the obstacles that young women face to participating in on-going legal and political reform in Myanmar.

Dans une société au sein de laquelle le leadership est encore largement défini par l’âge et le sexe, les jeunes femmes du Myanmar doivent relever des défis sociaux, culturels et même administratifs au moment de se faire entendre et d’assumer des rôles de leadership. Cet article examine l’expérience des jeunes femmes activistes au Myanmar et considère les normes sociales et les défis qui entravent le leadership, les stratégies d’adaptation et les solutions aux obstacles auxquels sont confrontées les jeunes femmes qui souhaitent participer à la réforme juridique et politique en cours au Myanmar.

En la sociedad de Myanmar, donde el liderazgo sigue siendo determinado en gran medida por la edad y el género, las mujeres jóvenes deben enfrentar retos sociales, culturales e incluso administrativos para hacerse escuchar y ejercer funciones de liderazgo. El presente artículo examina las vivencias de mujeres activistas jóvenes de este país, tomando en cuenta las normas sociales existentes, los retos que implica poder ejercer el liderazgo, las estrategias ensayadas para afrontar los problemas, así como las posibles soluciones halladas para sortear los obstáculos que enfrentan aquellas que participan en las constantes reformas legales y políticas en curso en Myanmar.

KEYWORDS:

• Myanmar
• youth
• women
• age
• leadership
• policy reform
• sociocultural norms

Notes on contributors

Agatha Ma works for Phan Tee Eain as a gender specialist. Email: [email protected]

Poe Ei Phyu is a freelance gender consultant. Email: [email protected]

Catriona Knapman is a freelance land tenure and gender consultant. Postal address: c/o The Editor, Gender & Development. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 A full account of current political processes in Myanmar cannot be given here but brief details on the key facts include the following. Since 2011, a peace process has been taking place in Myanmar, which aims to bring to an end the long-standing civil wars between the government and ethnic armed groups (Burke et al. 2017). In March 2016, an elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government took power, although the military still retains control of some ministries up to the time of writing (June 2018). In addition, the peace process is not fully realised and is currently under strain: not all ethnic armed groups have signed the National Ceasefire Agreement, and conflict is ongoing in parts of the country (Mark 2018). There has also been no disarmament or demobilisation (Strasser 2016).

2 For more details on the government draft youth policy, see www.moi.gov.mm/moi:eng/?q=news/6/01/2018/id-12475.

3 For information on Phan Tee Eain, see www.phanteeeain-myanmar.org.

4 For information on the WCDI, see www.wcdimm.org.

5 For information on GEN, see www.genmyanmar.org.

6 For information on the Gender Academy Myanmar, https://www.facebook.com/Gender-Academy--110976366168183/ (last checked 4 October 2018).

7 For information on the snowballing research method, see Kitchenham and Pfleeger (2002) and Acharya et al. (2013).

8 The Karen people, also known as Kayin people, are an ethnic group who live in the south-east of Myanmar. It is estimated that there are 6–7 million Karen people in Myanmar with most of them living in Mon State, Kayin State, the Ayeyarwaddy region, the Yangon region, and the Thanintharyi region. They speak Karen language. For more research on the specific situation of the Karen people, see Karen Human Rights Group (http://khrg.org) and The Asia Foundation (https://asiafoundation.org/where-we-work/myanmar).