Thammasat University students interested in the allied health sciences, sociology, technology, epidemiology, and related subjects may find a new book useful.
The Girl in the Pandemic: Transnational Perspectives is an Open Access book available for free download at this link.
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MitchellGirl
The Thammasat University Library collection includes several books about different aspects of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
The book was edited by edited by Professor Claudia Mitchell of the Department of Integrated Studies in Education and Director of McGill’s Institute for Human Development and Well-Being (IHDW), Canada, and Dr. Ann Smith, an Adjunct Professor at McGill University and Managing Editor for Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
The publisher’s description notes:
As seen in previous pandemics, girls and young women are particularly vulnerable as social issues such as homelessness, mental healthcare, access to education, and child labor are often exacerbated. The Girl in the Pandemic considers what academics, community activists, and those working in local, national, and global NGOs are learning about the lives of girls and young women during pandemics. Drawing from a range of responses during the pandemic including first person narratives, community ethnographies, and participatory action research, this collection offers a picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic played out in eight different countries.
The book’s introduction states:
Time has been a crucial feature in the lives of girls and young women during the pandemic. Schools closed down and learning time was lost. For many girls and young women, it has not been clear that life will ever be the same, especially since extensive economic disruption can limit what is possible for any young person. While temporality is a feature of many academic publications, especially those dealing with health and humanitarian crises, there is, we think, an even greater responsibility to be aware of in writing about the lives of young people. Features of short- and long-term impact are inevitably in flux, so there is a great risk at any one time of misrepresenting the impact of crisis on young people’s lives. […]
Perhaps it is crucial to keep in mind the broader question of what the significance is of a year or two (and more) in the life of a young person. What, for example, is the short-term impact of being out of school? What is the long-term impact of knowing that because of an unwanted pregnancy, returning to school is unlikely to ever be an option?
Among the chapters in the book is one co-written by Dr. Rapeepun Jommaroeng of Mahidol University, Dr. Cheera Thongkrajai of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Dr. Kath Khangpiboon of the Thammasat School of Social Work, and colleagues about young transgender women in Thailand and unspoken gender-based violence in the time of COVID-19.
The authors note that transgender women (TGW) studied were
young TGW who ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-five. Most of the participants were students, who came, typically, from the middle class. Within the student group there were only a few who were from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; it was these students who explained that they were having economic problems since losing their part-time employment as a result of COVID-19. Two participants who identified as students were recent graduates who had already begun working. Others worked as cabaret dancers or in night entertainment sectors in Pattaya and were less educated than the graduates since they had started working immediately after completing secondary school. All the cabaret dancers had been working in the industry for less than a year; they said that they had worked in factories and as salespeople, waitresses, cashiers, and bartenders prior to employment in the entertainment sector.
Among results:
Five key themes emerged during the interviews: the negative economic impact of COVID-19; increased tensions in self-quarantine; discrimination in online learning; the dissolution of relationships as a result of COVID-19; and difficulty in accessing hormone treatment.
Unsurprisingly, the participants who were more vulnerable to the economic impacts of COVID-19 were TGW who were less educated, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and working in the entertainment industry. This last aspect reflected the fact that when COVID-19 reached Thailand, many cities that relied heavily on the income from tourism were shut down. The cabaret dancers had lost their jobs because their theaters had closed. All the cabaret dancers reflected that before COVID-19, their lives had been improving because they had managed to find employment in prestigious cabaret theaters. They had been earning a significant salary in their previous roles—between THB 11,000 and 20,000 (approximately USD 350 and 650) per month on average. A number of the participants supplemented this income by working additional jobs in bars after finishing their shifts in the theaters. This income also allowed them to afford the hormone treatment necessary to feminize their physical appearance and enabled them to send money back to their families. All the cabaret dancer participants expressed their disappointment in having their employment terminated, since working in cabaret shows was what many called the “dream of [my] life,” and they had worked hard to retain their employment in this role. Ping, a 23-year-old from Buriram province, said:
It’s been my dream job since I was young. I used to write an essay when I was in Grade 4 that I wanted to be in the cabaret show or a designer—something like this and I could do it. I have reached my dream but not for long, and now there is COVID-19. Then, I had to stop and will try again when there is no longer COVID-19. I’ll resume my dream again.
When COVID-19 struck Thailand, many of the shows stopped. Some of the participants still attended rehearsals for a few weeks, but some lost their jobs as soon as the state of emergency was announced and the curfew was introduced. Many of the participants working in Pattaya, stressed, upset, and feeling that they were starting all over again or that they had lost all progress made toward their goals of working as cabaret dancers, decided to return to their home provinces. Jenny, a 21-year-old from Loey province, said: I’ve kept thinking about this. Why is my life like this? Why have I ended up where I started . . . back to be[ing] a 7-Eleven staff [member].1 I used to work at the cabaret show, which is my highest dream. Now, I have to start my life all over again. I feel so frustrated.
The economic constraints of COVID-19 meant that the cabaret dancers were saving as much money as they could, and this often meant living in their family homes. The dancers entered new forms of employment, such as selling street food and working at the night market or at 7-Eleven. They said that they would prefer to work in their own businesses rather than in factories or what they called “hard jobs,” as Ping explained: From what I’ve seen, those who are in the cabaret business turned themselves into entrepreneurs. For example, the star of Tiffany Show, she’s now selling products at the market. Most of her friends also turned to become entrepreneurs, selling things. People working in the cabaret shows are good-looking, they definitely wouldn’t go to work in factories because it’s hard work. While a number of respondents tried to find new jobs in the Pattaya area, many were unsuccessful. Jenny had been hired at a 7-Eleven but stated that the salary was half what she used to earn and that she was struggling to cover her expenses, pay her debts, and still send money home to her family. She said, “I used to give 2,000 to 3,000 Baht to my family, now it is only 1,000 Baht.”
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)