Democracy and Violence Against Feminist Activists

Episode 4 – Democracy and violence against feminist activists

Host:

Before we begin, please note that this episode contains dimension of sexual violence. Please don't hesitate to take a break and take a good care of yourself.

Welcome to our last episode of the series “See Through Feminism”, hosted by Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Souteast Asia Regional Office and Feminimitr, where we will investigate feminist movements across Southeast Asia. I'm your host, Jirada, and we would like to end our series, still with the seeing that Southeast Asia has a complex, local and colonial histories, which have influenced the development of feminist movements in many different ways.

But despite these challenges, there are common themes that resonate across the region. In fact, each country's feminist movement can offer stories that could benefit one another. The public can also learn more about these feminist mobilization, support, and consciousness, whether in a form of group, a collective, an organization, or even a person. So we investigate these stories, challenges, and lessens one topic at a time .

For our last episode, we end with democracy, human rights, and violence like an activist. We have a guest that apparently we share a lot of network together, but haven't had a chance to have a direct conversation until now. So I'm very excited .

She goes by the name Cho. She's a feminist cartoonist, activist, and the founder of Chwin Toon. Cho is from Myanmar, and she has gained prominence for her bold comic series with the name that I just mentioned, Chwin Toon. The comic series, from what I've been seeing is through satire and chat which was storytelling, but also deeply personal as well. It's a work that challenges the deeply rooted religious and culture taboos, gender ineality and patriachal norms.

Cho has been facing various types of attacks as a feminist activist, but despite the violence, she's uses art as a form of resistance while still advocating for democracy and general equality. I think I'll stop right there. Cho, how are you doing?

Cho:

Yeah, pretty fine. It's really nice to meet you, and thank you for having me here.

Host:

The pleasure is all mine, but anyways, how about we start with, what's your story? How did you get here at this point?

Cho:

People know me at a like cartoonist, but fun fact about me is I cannot really draw cartoon. It's kind of funny because I want to draw the cartoon and I'm very enthusiate in like animations and like drawing and cartoons because I grew up watching like Japanese anime. So when I try to make the comic, I have like the artist that draw my thought. I tell him, like, what to draw this panel, I want like this, in this position, that's this person talk that, that person talk at something like this.

I started my cartoon around 2022. Other the time, I was studying master degree in Mahidol University in human rights. As a student, I had to quit my job because of everything happening in since like Myanmar, and I moved to Thailand. I'm like outside already here. So I want to do something.

You know, I feel like I just don't want to be someone who just outside and like study and having a good life. I just want to start something. I started the cartoon called like Chwin Toon. So it just, how it's happened.

Host:

Could you explain how did you arrive with the name? Where does that come from?

Cho:

For some reasons, people from Myanmar who worked for revolution have so many names, including me, Chwin and Cho. My name is Cho Yin Lae and I do the cartoon. The cartoon is all about me because I face, not only me, but also other women everywhere on the earth. We face patriarchy. We face discrimination and everything.

I want to turn this struggle into the cartoon and that's a daily life for me. As my name is Cho Yin Lae, and the cartoon is Toon. It became, when you pronounce “Cho Yin” together, it became “Chwin”, and Toon came from “cartoon”, so it became “Chwin Toon”. That's how it began.

Host:

You started drawing cartoons and then the experience around the harassment against activists happen or it's kind of the other way around. The experience of harassment and attacks push you to draw cartoons.

Cho:

I consider myself as a feminist activist and I usually do a lot of activity. When I started my cartoon, my cartoon advocate about social inclusion, gender equality , and feminism. I talk about queer, queer people, LGBT rights, and things. Sometimes, very strict religious thing that even could kill people, things like that.

There was a cartoon that I talk about woman clothing in Burmese, in our country. Women wearing a short skirt is an invitation. I think it's a general and on the in the earth, the whole earth. In this cartoon, the guy is like talking about, “oh, look at her clothes, revelling so much” that deliberately arousing men and asking for it, something like that.

So me as a like, look at your face. It looks so damn that practically acting for a punch. At that time, that person like, “you cannot punch what other people's face look like”. So I reply, “the same applying to her, you cannot just just go around and braging people because no matter what they wear”, something like that.

This cartoon was kind of viral. There are so many people trying to attack that because I talk about like this, because I'm trying to cover clothing is not a problem, but there are men in the comment session like “if you're wearing like a slut, you will get raped. It's a lot of hate and they accuse me of being slut, even though they don't even know me.

Also, other cartoons projecting about a queer person and they accuse me being the gay as well. They don't even know me, but they just assume. Another one is about the religion. They accuse me of other religions. For example, if I'm talking about Hijab, you are in other religion. You are a Christian. You are Buddhist. Even though I'm not any of these.

They just assume and attack in every kind of possible way. Not only in the cartoon, I also got so many harassment in my personal account as well. Most of them are death threat and risk threat.

Host:

Hearing that, it sounds so disproportionate, grossly disproportionate from the messages you were trying to say. It kind of got me to think about the accusation of you being the adder. Like it's as if there's like an archetype of the other that we have to hate, you know? And this other has to be, for some reason, maginalized somehow, you know, being gay, being a Muslim, being like just complete other.

Is there any similar patterns that you've noticed among maybe your fellow activists, your friends, your move in partners, anything along that length?

Cho:

I usually speak out about harassment, power abuse, not only in my cartoon, but also in my personal account. There are long list in my message request that queing to curse me. There are so many, so many people.

During the revolution, I don't only talk about military violence. I also speak out the harassment, power abuse, sexism and things happening in revolution as well. These people also accuse me of destroying the revolution or staining the image of revolution as well.

The pattern I see is it's not only me, but also like other feminist activists as well. When we all started the revolution, we were trying to achieve the absolute revolution, which is like free from all forms of oppression, such as sexism, racism, and every kind of oppression things.

But once, the revolution took longer, these agreementsents became fade away. Even in the revolution, the people started to become sexism and racism. They started to discriminate minorities, queer, and woman. When the feminists and activists talk about it, now it became a problem. Another activists also face the same. Such kind of cannot speak out. We are treated like an outsider. Because so many people are struggling and sacrifrifying in this revolution. They feel like they have the responsibility to protect the image of the revolution.

But it is just not the correct way. The correct way to have a good image for the revolution is to have the actual justice in this event and how to handle and how to take responsibility and accountability in that event. Not just like trying to cover it “no, our leader are not doing this. They are very innocent”. No, that's not the right way.

Host:

The first thought I had is whether they are internally, whether there have been a hierarchy in terms of like the goal, because I've been hearing a lot of, you know, in many countries when they're talking about democracy, democracy come first and then, you know, gender equality, you could wait, you know, you could come later .

Cho:

When the revolution started, it was very famous. Several Revolution, we make the flag of our own protest. There are queer protests, every minority and everyone. The ethnic monority is on the front line and we worked together. So we can see, “oh, now we are in this together. We are doing it together”.

But once it took longer, that kind of equality became fade away and people started talking about revolution first and other things can come later, something like that.

Host:

You also mentioned about the revolution has to have like a certain kind of image to it. Could you explain what that image would look like? Is it like a male dominated? How does does that look like?

Cho:

It's a man’s world, you know. The patriarchy stayed there. We thought that we were in the same when we started. But later on, the leadership position, a decision making position, only the men are in that position. Women's and queer people started to become side characters.

Ethinic minority also became side characters. When there is some events, mayb international women's Day or something, they just took out some women and said “this without the woman, we are not able to do anything. Congratations for the woman”, blah, blah, blah. “For queers and blah, blah, blah”. They just bring out one queer person. They keep going on and all things like that. We are not promised to fully participation, just become like mascot or something to show when things happen.

Host:

How do you, and also fellow feminist activists, reclaim that space back, have you fight back within such a male dominant space?

Cho:

It is really difficult. Because, you know, when we talk about women and queer should also be in the decision making position and the leadership position. We just want the position because we are women. Just using the woman card. Okay, give me the position because I'm woman, something like that. But it's not that way.

There are so many talented women and educated women who could do so much better in this position, but they just forgot and don't give a thought or anything. So why don't we talk about women should be in this leadership position. At the time, the response is women are not qualified.

Some people actually say that women might not be qualified in this leadership position, but how do they consider this male person is qualified? There is no checking the quality in this position for a male person. But when a woman or queer person trying to step in, they're just like, are you like qualified? Are you able to do that? They questioned that person.

So this is what the Myanmar feminists are fighting for. They don't even know the woman. They are women who are educated and qualified enough in this position. Women have to try twice just to prove that I am in the same level with you. Just to get the recognizing, it just like, it shouldn't be that way. We should be treated the same.

Host:

Right. It's like you have to keep proving yourself just because, you know, you're women.

Cho:

Yeah, not only me, but also other women leaders.

Host:

How does a response look like when there's a fight back?

Cho:

They are really good male alliances out there, but most are like, these women are jealous and try to take the position. This is the pushback that we got back from that.

Host:

I see. Let's zoom out and we look into some sort of violence and attacks against activists, and we know that, you know, the military regime, they've been targeting activists, right? When the violence comes from the external source, external from within the movement itself, is it different when it comes to women activists or they kind of get attacked the same same way?

Cho:

I don't think the same. Military directly focus on student, or feminists, and also artists as well. And also male activists and famous influencers and people as well. For the women and queer person, they are more likely to get more gender during the interrogation. They might get more sexual harassment. They are also record and report about it. They rape and talk in so so many things.

But I don't mean that the male activists didn't get harassment. They also get the sexual harassment and during the interrogation process, but women's superior person have more serious than this .

It is about patriarchy, I think, because they want silence, and obedient women. Fighting back, it's not a stereotypical woman thing. They are thought a stereotypical woman is like obedient, silent, and sit back, didn't do anything back. But when a woman fight back, they become more angry. She's not behaving something like that. For the queer person, they are very homophobic. These peoples are different from them, they think.

So when these people fight back, they feel like, who are you to fight back? For the male activists is like they got more of the tension or the physical violence than other.

Host:

Just to clarify to a listener that when we say male activists, we mean CIS males. Another question that I have is, what about ethnic minorities?

Cho:

Most of the military are Burma. I'm also Burma, and came from major identity, Burma. In the military perspective, they are very patriarchal, very militarized. They think the ethinc minority are beneath them. So, the ethnic minority, the places, their village had got air strike and bombing. It’s a daily busy thing, not even arresting and everything, include the same. For the majority, they live in big cities, so they don't usually do in Yangoon.

Host:

Wow, I see. FYI, I don't think we've been fall a listener than you've also in exile as well. So was that one of the reasons that you went exile. How has living in political exile reshape your activism or identity or your connection to Myanmar's struggled?

Cho:

I became an exile because my house was rig down by the military soldier. They shoot in our house with the rubber bullet and the actual bullet while me and my family are inside the house. Luckily we escaped. And after that day, I cannot go back to my house anymore. Then I became an exile and then moved to Thailand.

If I have to be honest, I feel kind of guilty, because in Thailand I am free from every kind of oppression while the people inside Myanmar are facing. Everything you can think of is happening in Myanmar. Every kind of oppression, you know, arresting, drafted to the military, inflation, airstrike, and bomb.

So, I feel very guilty for having the privilege. Me being able to talk in a podcast here like this, it's also a privilege. I am no longer be able to work with the people on the ground, so I try to turn it in into online and as much as possible. There are so many ways to support in revolution, speaking out in podcast, writing the paper, and also fund raising. I try to be direct, change my way of supporting the revolution, even though I'm not able to work in the ground.

Host:

Thank you for sharing that honesty. On my end, I feel like Chwin Toon has been shaping public awareness as well. So I wonder what’s role you see your artwork and also Chwin Toon in terms of supporting the resistance or perhaps also empowering the groups that you're trying to empower and did you ever anticipate the level of backlash that it received?

Cho:

I think it intends to play the role of spreading advocacy message and creating public attention and awareness for the gender equality and social inclusion. Because I think the format is kind of simple and people are very busy. You saw that many people are writing long paragraph to educate, but, you know, people don't really read about it like very long.

So I think cartoon will be very great to spread advocating message, and people can understand it very quickly. I also think that it will help reinforce other issues, make it easy to understand, like everyday sexism is in the public and inside the movement, about the backlash I got a lot. There are message requests. People are lining up to curse me for the activism that I do.

Having a disagreement is reaching to the direct target, the direct audience. There are so many NGOs doing their advocacy message with many kind of tools, including the long paragraph, the panel, the podcast, and many things. When we do the session that took long to digest, people don't usually pay attention and these kind of message is just revolving around each other.

Maybe like, one NGOs do the campaign and another person from another NGOs just participate in this campaign. And then this campaign didn't reach to the actual audience that need to hear the message. So this kind of campaign just revolving around each other and didn't get bad feedback or bad message.

Getting the backlash and getting the message from the opposition idea is getting into that target audience that I'm trying to reach. There are that kind of audience that need to hear that message and most of the message are not reaching to them. So we need to try to find a way that actually go to that people.

Now, they might hate me, but some people don't really know that because we have different kind of background and education that we grew up. So there are people who didn't have a chance to be able to understand these things. So this is the first time they hear it. They might curse me in a comment and there are also some people, I don't know these people. They just came here to the comments and explain these things .

For example, when woman wearing short, “women shouldn’t wear shorts, we should protect, religion and culture and everything, blah, blah, blah”. So another person came in, and “this is not a woman's job, blah, blah, blah. Women can wear whatever they want”. This kind of message could be the first time they heard. Now they become like conversation. There are people who finally understand. I think this is kind of thing that I'm trying to do.

Host:

I'm so in love with the fact that he said, you get the hate because it's working. That's how you can get your message across and hopefully it will land onto someone somewhere, like a seed and it's sprout into something else. But meanwhile, if you get hate, then you're doing the work, right? Something is working. You agitate them.

Cho:

If I only get supporting message, this is from my friend, friends, not from the audience.

Host:

You also mentioned about the long text, a lot of explanation but you make it a really short, easy to read kind of comics. I wonder what are you thinking of visual art has in terms of political and feminist movement?

Cho:

I have a thing about Japanese anime and I grew up watching these. I see this anime bring the really big message. People cannot just consider them as a cartoon. Naruto, Pokemon, Attack on Titon, but they bring very big message. There are so many NGOs trying to spread the advocacy message, but I see that it's not working, I guess, it’s just revolving around each other. I want to find a new way that actually work.

At the other hand, I also have the obsession of the Japanese anime. So what about I combine this cartoon and turn it into a digital tool, do advocate my passion which is feminism and social inclusion.

It brings very big message into a small cartoon, which are easy to digest for people. They can just look at it when they go to work, on the bus, on the train, they just look at the cartoon. They don't need to take so long to understand. It is like using the cartoon as a digital tools to spread the advocacy message about feminism and social justice and social inclusion.

Host:

I agree. I think these day, at least I'm speaking for myself, my attention span is so little. Just to read comics and something really punchy. I think I saw one of your comics talking about international Women's Day. For 364 days, they're not touching on women topic and then for one day we're all about women and you have to describe in lots of paragraph. You could just sing it yourself. I definitely agree.

You also mentioned about a lot of NGOs doing this kind of work that might not be effective. I understand that there are a lot of constraints on that end, right? But do you see feminist movements or other like my organizations, some movement aligning and helping each other or has there been any collaboration or even tension or contradictions in the landscape?

Cho:

But people support me, like feminism and local NGOs, because this is local language, so most of the NGO see that. They support me, not organizationally, but individually. They like my cartoon. They share it in their work. We support each other in that way. It's not like we are against each other, but I do it individually. I have moved free freedom in what my content contribute things like that. As an organization, it would be difficult. I could understand that as well.

Host:

I think we've been touching on a lot of issues, so this is going to be a final question on my end, otherwise I definitely want to chat with you for much longer than that. I've been hearing a lot of resilience on your end, right? You move out with Myanmar. Whatever you do, you always come back and talk about gender, about human rights and in different shaps on form that you could do. I'm curious to hear about what keeps you drawing and speaking and fighting all this time.

Cho:

I think the only thing that I have passion, I don't really have much. I feel I have the privilege and freedom that the previous woman rights and feminists activists fought for. That's why I'm here standing and sitting, able to talk about this thing, that thing, without being killed, without being burned out by accusing this is the witch.

So this is the collective effort of the previous generation feminist that they work for. We are walking on the road that they paced. I also want to continue paving that road to be able to work the next generation and other queer peoples, and other minorities could work on the road. They could continue this long time journey.

We don't know when we will get equality, even though if I reachached it at a hundred years old. Nothing can guantee that we will get general equality. This is a long time journey. So we are getting the merit of the feminists of the previous generation. I also want to contribute to the next generation to be able to work better road than us.

Host:

I agree and I think feminists are painfully stubborn in the best kind of way. So I really hope that other generations, pick up the things that you do and they just run with knowing that you build something based on other generation as well.

Cho:

Most of the feminist activists don't usually think that they are able to do much. For me as well, as an individual, I don't feel like, “oh, am I really contributing to the community or thing?” But I feel that even in the previous generation, they might also feel that way. “Did we really contribute in this thing?” But I think as a collective, we contribute something, not as an individual, we are nothing, but as a collective. As a way, we contributed in a way and it became, maybe, like one party girl for that pavement to the general equality or something.

Host:

Another bonus question that I have now that we touch on this topic and I really want to hear. It sounds like a really overwhelming task at time as well. So how do you care for yourself? How do you take a break, step back? I hope you do. How do you care for yourself?

Cho:

In Chwin Toon, we only have three members - me, the artist who draw from me and the finest. When I have the idea, I just posted, but when I got many backlash or things and I tried to take a break.

I think last year, the backlash was very, very big. It's not from the cartoon, from my personal account. I speak out for an advertisement, which is sexualized objectify the woman body. It is a revolutionary product. That was a very big thing. So I speak out about that they shouldn't do that. I got lost of hate about it. I was even scared. People know me. My red hair, people recognize me very easily. Even the cartoon, I use the same red hair as well. Even when I go out and I sometimes I feel like, even though there are no one watching me, I sometimes I feel are they looking at me and how do they know me? Do they know me as like destroyer of the revolution or as an individual, something like that.

So sometimes I just take a break. I just stop looking at the news. In Myanmar, they are always bad news everyday. During these days, I'm just taking a break. I try not to look at it. I try not to speak out about the thing because even I'm taking a break, there are other feminists that are doing these jobs. When I'm taking care of myself, at the time, I'm just trying to do fun things with my friends. I usually go camping with my friends, have a sleepover in the campsite. I do some funny things. I watch anime and I also sing and I'm also practicing my drawing as well. I think that's how I heal.

I also don't hate the people that have in the backlash toward me because we came from different kind of society. We are not here to fight. We are here to have an agreement and to go to a better way. They also have their point of view. We are trying to just understand each other. So like we are not the enemy and we are just trying to understand each other and going to the same direction. I think that's way.

Host:

I imagine you’re doing camping, singing, drawing that feels like joy. That's good for you. So, before we wrap this up, is there anything you want to share? Anything you want to promote? Is there any questions perhaps that you might have anything you want to share at all?

Cho:

Just check out my cartoon. I also try to make it an English version because my cartoons are kind of funny in Myanmar version, but it's kind of difficult to make it funny in English language. I'm trying to make it look funny English as well. Just check out my cartoon!

Host:

I think it's on Facebook, right? So we will link that in the description for our podcast. Thank you so much for today. I'm really glad that we could finally connect and have a direct conversation. I wasn't aware you've been so honest , funny, authentic, and also possess such a remarkable resilience on your end as well. So definitely, you have gained a big fan for. Not just your work, but also your lifestyle and personality.

Cho:

Thank you.

Host:

I think we were just going to wrap up the podcast. Thank you so much and bye-bye, everyone.

So this is the very end of our series “See through Feminism”. Thank you for listening. As mentioned earlier, this is one of the four episodes where we investigate feminist movements in Southeast Asia. Please feel free to check out the rest of the episodes in the series if you haven't already .

We end this podcast with the hope that you are able to see the diversity in feminist movements in the region. And at some point, hopefully these conversations inspire someone, somewhere to do something as a part of these feminist movements in your own way.

Thank you Heinrich Böll Stiftung Southeast Asia Regional Office for supporting us to expand feminist dialogues as well as other speakers. If you enjoy our work, we're Femnimitr, a local feminist collective, consisting of data-driven passionate people. We work with policymakers, development practitioners, and feminist activists to produce research with robust intersectional gender data across Southeast Asia. You can check out our work with the link of the podcast description. We're also open for collaboration, so please feel free to connect us.

Thank you for having us and until next time. Take care. Bye bye!