One of the ways to get out of the colour-coded political rut is for rival parties to set a common agenda on shared problems, visualise a more just future together, and work toward what their children will be grateful for. This sounds easier said than done. But civic groups in Chiang Mai have already shown the way.
Despite different political allegiances, they agree that the problems their home town is facing _ from heavy traffic to haze _ stem from top-down control from the Bangkok government and officialdom. No matter what government is in power, they believe their problems will never be solved when policies and budgets are made in Bangkok. Decentralisation is their answer. So for the past year, they have been working together to map out decentralisation blueprints for Chiang Mai and lobby their politicians to answer to their demands for bottom-up democracy.
This is a lesson women politicians and women's groups in Thailand can learn from.
Whatever their political ideologies, women face similar problems in Thailand's deeply patriarchal society. In national politics, women's representation remains dismally low. While women constitute 52% of the voters, they make up only 15% of MPs and 16% of senators. The percentage drops to only 9% at the local level. In the bureaucracy where women outnumber men, only 17% of women reach the top posts. In short, the gender gap is glaring in national decision-making.
In economic life, the high representation of women in top management has won praise worldwide. But they are a minority. The majority of women are still struggling in the informal sector without proper welfare benefits and protection.
Rich or poor, women face similar cultural and sexual double standards that exposes them to sexual violence and weighs them down with a double workload from jobs and family care obligations.
There is much to be done when a study reveals 44% of women report having been beaten up or raped by their partners, when teen pregnancy is the highest in Asia, when more than 1,000 women die each year from botched abortions, and when 36% of women become HIV positive from intimate partner transmission.
There is much to be done to empower women so they can negotiate safe sex, to provide them with safe and legal access to terminate unplanned pregnancies, and _ more importantly _ to dismantle double sexual standards that underlie the discrimination and violence against women.
This is why the reactions from female politicians from both the government and opposition camps to the insulting and sexist remark by former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva toward Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra are extremely disappointing.
For opposition women MPs to defend Mr Abhisit's e-ngo or "dumb broad" remark simply shows they are totally blind to sexism and gender oppression.
The pro-government women MPs do not fare any better. Yesterday, they staged a protest by using a woman's traditional pasin wrap-around to shame Mr Abhisit. By doing so, they were endorsing the deeply-rooted sexist view that women are inferior to men.
It's clear that change cannot be left in the hands of politicians. Speak up, be true to higher principles, and pursue shared goals. That is the path chosen by Chiang Mai's decentralisation movement to overcome the political divide, which women's groups working for gender justice should follow.