men r weak....

ST 2004.11.21

Lament of Miss Spinster: 'No one wants to date me'
BANGKOK

THE telephone does not ring any more. Since she won a beauty contest last year, this pretty, high-spirited, sociable woman cannot seem to get a date.

'They are afraid of me,' said the beauty queen, Miss Saovapa Devahastin. 'I've stood up for myself. I'm a confident, successful single woman, strong enough to take care of myself. This makes them nervous.'

Miss Saovapa is not just any beauty queen. She is Thailand's first Miss Spinster, a title that sounds as odd here as anywhere, but that in this male-dominated society amounts to a declaration of independence.

Unmarried by choice, Miss Saovapa, 38, and a growing number of successful professional women like her are challenging not only the traditional imperative of marriage and family, but also what they see as the delicate egos of Thai men.

'Sometimes they like to tease me,' she said. They say she is too choosy and too proud. But they keep their nervous distance. They are not sure how to behave around a woman who does not seem to need them.

'I think this idea of being independent and being your own person maybe overpowers them,' said Miss Saovapa, who works as a media planner in her brother's advertising agency and is studying for a master's degree in advertising and public relations.

'But at the same time, there are lots of women, lots of people, who admire what I'm doing and what I represent.'

The male ego may be delicate, but it is resilient.

When the Miss Spinster Thailand contest was announced early last year, men sent messages to its website offering to come to the rescue of the contestants.

'Right at the start, some of them got my phone number and they called me,' Miss Saovapa said.
'But they weren't asking for a date. They wanted me to be their secret mistress and let them take care of me.

'They said, 'You don't need to go on the contest. You don't need to stand up and say you're a spinster. I'll provide for your comfort'. It was crazy. They thought we were showing off our looks because we were desperate to find a man.'

The contestants, who wore evening dresses and answered questions from judges, included a marketing manager, a university associate professor, an entrepreneur, a senior officer at an aeronautical radio enterprise, a former volleyball champion, a sports equipment saleswoman and a souvenir shop owner who is a cousin of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

They represent a growing urban middle class in which personal choice is replacing the hierarchies of family and community that bound traditional society. The patterns of change are not unlike those in other countries.

Not long after Miss Saovapa won her crown, the Thai Constitutional Court ruled that married women had the option of keeping their own surnames.

Indeed, the organisers of the beauty pageant remained somewhat hidebound in their definition of a spinster. The contest was for unmarried women as young as 28.

Even in this time of change, the family holds a core place in the lives of many people such as Miss Saovapa. Before entering the contest, she said, she sought the approval of her father.

'He was a bit old fashioned and I was afraid to ask his opinion. Then he said, 'Why not', and he helped coach me for the contest. That was wonderful.' -- New York Times