Voices and roles of competing groups of elite women in Siam's political and social transitions, 1868-1942

Abstract

This dissertation studies the pivotal roles and voices of elite women of both aristocratic and commoner backgrounds in the significant period of Siam's political and social transitions from the late absolute monarchy to the early post-revolutionary period between 1868 and 1942. A key focus of this study is the competition between the two groups of aristocrats and commoner women. By analysing representations of women in Thai mainstream and official publications, this dissertation critiques the lack of emphasis on Siamese women's public roles and voices in dominant historiographical discourse. This study presents a counter-argument to these works by demonstrating elite women's agency in the four domains of: state public administration, education, print media, and politics. Siamese women entered the public sphere by taking administrative roles in the royal palace from the late nineteenth century during the absolutist reign of King Chulalongkorn. It was in this period that aristocratic women realised the importance of skills other than domestic training in arts and crafts, and they began initiatives in female public education from the end of the nineteenth century. As the result of women's improved access to education, a new class of commoner elite women emerged in the early twentieth century. These literate commoner women competed against aristocratic elite women in the print industry and in politics from the beginning of the post-absolutist period in the early 1930s. This dissertation highlights the competition between these two groups of women as a distinctive contribution to the field of Thai women's history. This study is based on analysis of personal memoirs from cremation volumes, archival records, and women's magazines. Through considering these source materials, this dissertation reveals the previously overlooked roles of women in Siam's transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Show more