Working in public relations in Myanmar involves hurdles for career women due to gender discrimination from both clients and male colleagues.
Thandar Seint, a pseudonym, is a female public relations (PR) specialist working at a public relations firm. She sat down with Mizzima to talk about the clients she meets and the conditions she encounters while working side-by-side with well-spoken male colleagues.
Customer satisfaction is the key factor for those who are working in the PR sector. During appointments, due to gender discrimination by some clients, female specialists like Thandar Seint face discrimination and even verbal abuse.
“I have met various types of clients who were pigheaded, conservative, and stingy. It is understandable because those may be their usual habits. I can put up with it. However, what I saw frequently was that a male client wants to discuss only with a male PR specialist and a female client wants to discuss only with a female PR specialist,” Thandar Seint explains.
The demographics of the PR industry presents difficulty for the female specialist.
“Actually, as there are more male clients, so we women are at a disadvantage. The important thing is to see human beings as human beings. Another assumption common in the workplace is it is a women's job to attend to the details. Like, women should do the details such as preparing slide shows and PowerPoint presentations while men would be using what we prepared to present in front of the clients.
Simply, we are treated as the second-class citizens,” she says.
It is not just men who are a problem.
Thandar Seint says women are discriminated against not only by men but also by some senior female staff. Even the female entrepreneurs do not have the ability seemingly to protect the rights of the lower-level female staff in the workplace they manage. Especially in the tailoring and production industry, female workers' rights are frequently violated. Thus, it is an important process to change the perception of the female upper-class when advocating for women's rights.
Myanmar society tends to be conservative, so when it comes to modern ideas such as feminism, women naturally face hurdles.
“The word feminism understood in Myanmar is not right. Some people fighting for women's rights regard women's rights as personalities such as one’s beauty and being sharp-tongued. For me, I want to define it as equal opportunity for everyone regardless of gender. Moreover, there is a misconception that women are emotional and men are not. There is a wrong way of coaxing a crying boy by saying ‘Boys should not cry. Are you gay?’ Everyone, both male and female, has the right to be emotional. You cannot regard females as too emotional and discriminate in the workplace,” she says.
In rural areas of Myanmar, attitudes can be particularly conservative, the situation compounded by the current crisis in the wake of the military coup and the lack of safety and security in the hinterlands.
There the hang-ups about women’s clothing, elements of which are considered bad luck, are particularly acute. And then there is the issue of sex education which is typically missing. All of this tends to compound the problems involved in the cases of the rape and murder of women, both young and old – long a problem in the ethnic conflict-ridden areas.
Thandar Seint says there are no laws made especially to protect women.
“In the past, the laws were not effective, but now, it is getting worse as guns become the law. There is no place for us to report when we are assaulted like physically abused by a boyfriend or being raped.
There were some rape cases that police investigated until the end, only when you could give money.
Thus, women must protect themselves,” she laments.
“Females, especially in a conflict zone, are in a worrisome situation because even in the cities, there is no protection. Personally, I believe feminism is related to males as well. Feminism is not about opposing men but the cooperation of both male and female to fix and work together,” Thandar Seint adds.
