The Lua, according to their mythology, are the original inhabitants of Thailand. Today, however, hey are regarded as ethnic minorities who inhabit this region. A study of their myths and legends reveals the importance of spirit cults, matriclans, and women’s role in the discovery, production, and trade of salt. The matriclan system is also established in the longhouses and their ocial structure. However, with the entry of the Thai state, power has shifed from the Lua women to Thai men who represent the state. This has also resulted in the appropriation of women’s traditional knowledge about the technology and rituals surrounding forest conservation and sustainable use of resources. Further, there has been a shift in gender relations in favor of men among the Lua people.
Tag: men
Engaging men for gender equality in rural transformation projects
A gender analysis conducted in targeted districts, however, revealed that men’s motivation for GALS and crosscutting women’s economic empowerment interventions waned over time, especially where household land, assets or other resources are involved. This reflects a need to actively engage and sustain men’s engagement to address the root causes of gender inequality and unequal access to productive resources. There are strong masculinist ideologies about land and resource rights which create an intractable challenge for some types of project interventions. Special measures are therefore needed to transform deeply entrenched inequalities with respect to household decision-making, access to and control over household and landed resources, domestic violence, and power sharing through different roles and responsibilities to progress gender parity and project objectives.
This training toolkit comes as a response to this challenge. Designed to complement the successes of GALS, this toolkit serves as supplementary toolkit and suggests where each tool can be incorporated into the GALS methodology implemented by NOPP. Beyond the NOPP landscape, this gender-specific approach for engaging men and sustaining their motivation to promote gender equality can be tailored to context and integrated into rural transformation initiatives at any scale.