A taboo-busting video blog called “A Dose of Cath” unabashedly wrestles with hush-hush topics in conservative Cambodia, drawing both applause and abuse in the patriarchal country.
Hosted on Facebook, the show by a 23-year-old Cambodian woman tackles the finer points of sex education, women’s health and gender imbalances in a country where the #MeToo movement has barely registered.
A recent episode on a well-known 19th-century Cambodian poem that used to be taught in schools and advises women not to laugh too loudly
gained nearly 350,000 views.
The videos feature Catherine Harry, the pen name of the self-described feminist who featured in Forbes’ 2018 “30 under 30” list of outstanding leaders and entrepreneurs in Asia.
Having ditched her birth name more than 10 years ago, Cath is following in the footsteps of other Cambodian writers and media personalities turning to blogs and social media to make a name for themselves.
But few have waded so deeply into the sensitive social issues that Cath confronts in short no-frills monologues filmed in her Phnom Penh apartment.
“What I expect to get from what I’m doing, from my videos, is to start a conversation, because the topics that I talk about, people don’t really talk about,” she said.
Statistics point to an urgent need for conversations in a kingdom where one in five Cambodian men surveyed as part of a 2014 UN study admitted to
having committed rape.
Cath has shared her own #MeToo experiences to help spur debate, but said those who speak out in Cambodia face victim
-blaming or even violence.
“If a woman talks about her experiences of sexual assault or sexual harassment, she will be rejected by society, by her family, her friends,” she said.
And while 65% of all businesses in Cambodia are run by women, the country’s major political and financial institutions are still male-dominated.
Cath, who studies mass media at Pannasastra University in Phnom Penh, started the “vlog” in early 2016 and it is now a full-time job, monetised through product placements.
Raymond Leos, one of her professors, brings up Cath when discussing a wider trend of students moving beyond traditional career paths and family expectations.
“They’re very technologically savvy, they’re very sophisticated, and they’re very independent in their thinking,” he said.
“A Dose of Cath” has found a ready audience in a country where one third of the 15mn population is under 30 and smartphone usage has more than doubled over the past five years, helping her amass more than 200,000 followers on Facebook.
Cath says men have harassed her by sending pornographic images to the account, while she is frequently accused of denigrating Khmer culture and being
indecent.
Cambodian blogger using the pen name Catherine Harry, editing a video for her blog in her Phnom Penh studio.
