The two revolutions Burmese women are waging
Editor’s note: These posts are part of a collaboration between Tea Circle and Insight Myanmar to publish Report #3 by Real Stories Not Tale’s (RSNT). To read RSNT’s Report #1, visit Tea Circle’s posts here and Insight Myanmar’s posts here. The full RSNT Report #3 is available here. For all posts by RSNT featured on our site, check out the full list.
“At the moment, women are fighting two kinds of revolutions in our society. The first one is for gender equality and the second is against any form of dictatorship.”
Hsu Myat is working with an organization in Myanmar advocating for women. She was interviewed on December 20th, 2021.
When the coup happened, I was in Dawei Township with my child escaping the second wave of Covid-19. I didn't know the military seized power that day because I was taking a long break. I only found out when I went out. Moments later, the quarter head administrator came and told me to collect my belongings and move to a safe place.
Four days before the coup, a police sergeant came to see me and asked where I had been and what I did, basically asking me every detail of my life. So, on the evening of the coup, a colleague contacted me and told me to move somewhere else immediately. At 4 am the following day, I went to the road near the river and moved to another town. I stayed there for three days. The people letting me stay were afraid I would get arrested, so they suggested that I stay in the hovel with the pigs. While I was hiding in the pigpen, I saw a group of people coming from the jungle to recruit laborers at noon. I didn’t dare to go out until 7 pm that evening.
After a while, I felt uneasy staying at a stranger's house, so I decided to go back to Dawei. Since I joined some protests during the daytime, I faced difficulties finding accommodation at night. My colleagues told me not to go out, and I couldn’t risk going home either. Therefore, I decided to return to Yangon and left my child at my sister's house. It was not easy for me to travel to Yangon because I had to catch the bus on the highway instead of starting my journey from the bus station in the town.
I hadn’t planned to participate in the protest in Barkayar, one of the protests that was seriously cracked down on. However, when I saw the people protesting, I decided to join them. But unfortunately, I fell over during the protest and I couldn't go out for three or four days after that.
On International Women's Day, we protested by holding up Myanmar htamein (ladies’ skirts) as flags on the road. I told my male friends that I couldn’t run, so they suggested I communicate security advice and checkpoints using social media to help the protestors on the ground. Before working with my current women’s organization, I worked at Myanmar Institute of Gender Studies for 10 months. After the NUG was formed, the director, Daw Khin Ma Ma Myo, became the Deputy Minister of Defense, and as a result I wasn’t safe anywhere. After that, one of the advisory board members was arrested, so I disguised myself and left for Hpa An.
As a single mother, everything I do is for my son. When I arrived in the forest, I suffered from Covid-19 for a month, so I had to send my son to my brother's place. Then I had to have a surgical operation because of another illness. The health care situation in the forest is challenging. Although there is a surgeon, there is no operation room for surgical procedures. So the surgeon referred me to the Hpa An hospital, but I went to Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot instead. My operation was postponed because of the political situation and Covid-19 restrictions, and I had to wait. When it was done, I was lucky and recovered after three months of staying at the clinic. When I was back on my feet, I moved to a safe house arranged by my organization. When I first arrived there, I wasn’t allowed in because I was a stranger to them, and a group of people wearing uniforms came to me. Thanks to the help of the security guard, I was able to stay in the end. But we struggled more because my son has no legal documentation but I really wanted him to stay with me for his safety. I am worried: he is 15 years old, and he needs to go to school and study. I think about the safety of my family all the time.
I am thinking about continuing my current work which is related to advocacy. Before the coup, my main concerns were about my son's education and mine—I wanted to continue my studies—but now it has all become total chaos.
Women’s participation in protests against the coup has been significant, and more and more women are joining. However, the extent of women’s participation has not been fully acknowledged by society. Women are still suffering various forms of discrimination in society, and sometimes, they are treated like toys for men to use. I didn't receive any support from my family for my involvement; on the contrary, it was like I was a burden for them when I could no longer support them. They thought I made their lives difficult. I feel like they blamed their struggles on me. Women’s challenges are different from men’s: women would always put their families first, unlike men. Women feel more stressed and worried about their families. At the moment, women are fighting two kinds of revolutions in our society: the first one is for gender equality and the second is against any form of dictatorship. In our society, we suffer body shaming and discrimination as customary. We need men to be educated and to be kind to women. After this revolution, we need to recognize that women also play an essential role in getting our freedom and rights. We need to encourage women from the kitchens to make their voices heard—loud!
This revolution is not only for fighting against the dictatorship but also for the development of a federal union. Before, we had weak civil disobedience, and there was vast inequality among people. We have to build trust between us as a community. We have to listen to the voices of ethnic minorities; we have to learn from their past experiences. And women are also citizens. Women deserve equal rights. Women are also giving all they have to the revolution. There is a need for recognition and appreciation of those women who support the struggle entirely.”
Real Stories Not Tales (RSNT) is a dedicated team in and out of Myanmar that aims to bring awareness to the reality of young people’s lives since the Myanmar military staged a coup on February 1st, 2021. Stories are collected through interviews with each protagonist by the team, either in Burmese or in English. Each character is drawn by a professional illustrator bringing a visual context to the story. RSNT is an anonymous name that is used by the group to guarantee security to all parties involved in the collection of the stories.