… when you enter a leadership course and you realize there are no Malays.
… when you enter another leadership course and you realize that 60% of the people are men in a job that is predominantly women.
Tag Archives: irl: feminism
Elevators and men
So there’s this incident going around the parts of the Internet atheists hang out in. Here’s a summary and here’s some responses on the issue. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about how appropriate it was for someone to criticise the arguments of someone else during a keynote speech at a conference. I’m slightly more interested in the responses to Rebecca Watson’s anecdote about the man in the elevator. To sum up, at 4am, a man followed her into an elevator and invited her to his room for coffee because he found her interesting. She expressed that this was creepy behaviour and that she felt sexualised. In response, a whole bunch of people have said that she was making too much of the incident.
A lot of men don’t seem to see why this is creepy. Honestly, even though I live in relatively safe Singapore, I get slightly nervous when in the elevator late at night with a strange man. In fact, I’ve even shut elevator doors on men I see coming in the distance (something I don’t do in daylight). When I’m in the elevator with a male I don’t know, I try to stand near the buttons. Basically, I know that as a female, there is always the chance that I could be attacked and I need to be vigilant. And so if some random guy comes into the elevator with me and starts to talk to me, I am definitely going to freak out. And really, if you think that, as a male, you are being unfairly discriminated against, that’s too bad. I’m not going to apologise for this, not when victims of sexual assault are often the ones being investigated instead of their attackers. As men, you have a whole lot more power in society. People tend to believe you more. People don’t judge you on your appearance. People will even come to your defence saying that the victim asked to be assaulted because her skirt was short. In such a reality, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for females to assume that men who approach you in elevators for coffee at 4am are creeps.
Seriously, what is this?
Occasionally, I lull myself into thinking that life isn’t too bad in Singapore. In fact, I sometimes think that it’s pretty damn good.
Then something will pop up and piss me off. And today, that something is Temasek Review. I read two of their articles on Ms Tin and both were misogynistic and frankly, of little value.
Yes, Ms Tin is young and attractive. So what? What does her physical appearance have to do with anything? What does her romantic entanglements have to do with anything? And therein lies the rub – why are women subjected to such questions about their love life? I don’t see the male MPs being besieged with questions about why they dumped their ex-girlfriend or why they are spending money on branded goods. Male politicians, while people may gossip about how they may be married to someone younger/richer/whatever-er, will never have their ability to do anything questioned because of their looks/marriage partner. It’s also ok to make sexually suggestive remarks about her when it has nothing to do with her ability as a MP apparently. I forget but when did anyone use sexual innuendo to put down our male MPs? Yet, it’s fair game for females.
Also, what’s with calling secretarial work a female job? Because it’s a “female” job, then it’s not worth much or deserving of respect is it? Not like those manly jobs out there.
And the misogyny thrown around in the comments is just awful. Not only are all sorts of abusive gendered insults used, there are so many calls for her to stay at home and produce babies.
It just pisses me off so much. I don’t know if Ms Tin is a worthy candidate or not and I feel bad she’s subjected to such harassment simply because she’s a good looking female.
Men are victims too!
Poor men. Life is so unfair. How is it that women get all sorts of protection like the Women’s Charter? Men need protection too from how unfairly life treats them – unequal wages, disproportionate number of women in politics and other leadership positions, judgement on ability made based on looks, inability to say no to sex within a marriage and so on. What we need is a men’s charter to protect them from all the conniving, cunning, heartless women out there.
I REFER to the reports (‘Making defaulters pay’, Nov 1; and ‘Judge throws out ‘secret wife’ case’, Oct 27). The Women’s Charter rightfully accords protection to women against irresponsible men and ensures financial support for them and their children after a divorce.
But what if a woman deceitfully enters into a marriage with a hidden agenda. Is there any legal recourse for the husband concerned to protect himself?
There are women who do not take the marriage vows seriously, but see it as a legitimate means to circumvent immigration rules to gain residency status or as a quick way to escape poverty. With more Singaporean men marrying foreign wives, cases of abuse of this nature will rise.
Women who are out to exploit the marriage process may, after a few years of matrimonial life, either initiate a divorce or behave unreasonably so that their husbands would have little choice but to opt for a divorce.
Under such circumstances, through no fault of theirs, ex-husbands will be required by law to continue to maintain their ex-wives and divide matrimonial assets.
The Women’s Charter, in its current form, does not distinguish between women who faithfully carried out their roles as wives/mothers and those who entered into a marriage with the wrong intent and abused the marriage system for their selfish gains.
Unless appropriate provisions to deal with such abuses are added to the Women’s Charter, they will become more prevalent. We need to send out a strong signal to all that marriages have to be taken seriously as a long-term commitment and not be exploited for one’s short-term, selfish gains.
Oo Choon Peng
Sexism in the Workplace
I was sorting through some past year O-level oral passages when I noticed one about a Chemistry practical lesson in college. The storyline was basically about two girls who join the lesson. In the passage, it was emphasised twice that the girls were pretty and the key idea in the story was that these two pretty girls joined the lesson. The class, who seemed to be made up of boys only, liked that they were pretty but were sceptical about their abilities in the lab. Naturally, the boys were correct and the two girls were depicted as completely clueless about the dangers present in the Chemistry lab. In fact, they wanted to randomly mix chemicals and had to be educated by the (male) teacher that that was not a good idea. After that, the girls went off for lunch all giggly and happy.
In a lesson I was observing, a female teacher made a comment about how she wanted the class to keep quiet and focus on her. In a bid (I assume) to be amusing, she said that she was selfish and liked people to pay attention to her like all women.
Both these incidences sadden me because it demonstrates the overwhelming presence of casual sexism in our society.
… and again
From today’s ST Online:
Talk only about sacrifices & problems of women; trivialise those of men
Yeah, yeah. Quoted out of context (not that I think it matters …)
Saying that there exists discrimination of females as a whole does not mean that unfairness towards individual men does not exist. As a male in the Singapore system, you are in a privileged position in which, as a group, you earn more money, are accorded more power and are less expected to do housework. You are “assigned” the more prestigious professions – doctors, lawyers, academics. You dominate in the fields of science and maths. As a professional athlete, you are likely to earn more than your female counterpart. You sleep with several women and people call you a stud or a hero. You are less likely to be slut-shamed. So as a group, the males have it better.
That does not discount the fact that individual men may not experience such benefits, nor does it deny that some individual men suffer as much if not more than some individual women. When your argument against SAHM’s work in the house being seen as contribution to the household in a divorce is that some women take advantage of it and their ex-husbands are unfairly wrung dry, you fail to see that there are many other women out there who need this protection in the courts.
Competition
Life shouldn’t be a competition. And really, it’s one thing to compete to see who has the better life. It’s ridiculous to compete to see whose life is worse.
I read the comments on the whole teaching as a career issues on the ST online and I noticed a number of people whose main argument is that other people have it worse. It’s a really stupid and hurtful argument and frankly, I think little of those who employ it. Suffering, of whatever kind, is not exclusive. It’s not like if group A is suffering, then group B cannot be suffering. Group A and B can both be suffering, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. Acknowledging the suffering of a group does not mean you cannot also acknowledge the suffering of another group.
But the worst thing about this “but others suffer more” kind of argument is that in the end, it allows the status quo to continue. We don’t do anything for group A because group B is suffering more and we should help them instead. But group C suffers even more than group A or B so we should help them first. And it just goes on and on and simply leads to nothing being done for anybody because, frankly, you can almost always find someone suffering more.
This is why I get angry when people tell me that occupation XYZ (possibly something from Dirty Jobs) is worse then mine, therefore my concerns and complaints about the teaching profession should be dismissed. This is why I refuse to talk to people who tell me that we can ignore the discriminations of Malays in Singapore because the handicapped/gays/any other oppressed group have it worst. This is why I want to hit people who think that it’s ok to not care about gender equality in Singapore because females in China are worse off.
More ST Forum
However, when it comes to managing a family, Singaporean women simply cannot do without maids. They are likely to feel stressed out and sometimes helpless if they must handle the household chores alone. To me, a capable woman is a person who can handle both career and family well.
What about a capable man then? Why on earth is this only a women’s problem? Why aren’t men expected to handle both career and housework well?
‘Bravo to Ms Bertha Henson for her commentary last Wednesday, ‘Bringing up baby, bilingually’. Finally, a writer who has hit the nail on the head. Anyone who has heard listeners calling in to radio shows will wonder where the standard of the English language has gone. Yes, some have mastered both Mandarin and English, but their pronunciation is still not up to par. Anyone who has heard Beijing Mandarin will know we have mutilated the Mandarin intonation. The same goes for English. I do not expect excellent pronunciation, but a grammatically correct sentence is not asking too much.’
Ooh language complaints annoy me. And yes, I think it’s stupid but I’m too lazy to point out why I think that. Accent discrimination. Sigh.
‘The colour codes and designs of school uniforms of different schools seem to promote the idea of elitism. The Ministry of Education (MOE) should introduce a standard uniform. Let all students wear white tops. Secondary school boy students can wear long trousers and girl students, white or navy skirts. Badges can be used to identify which school a student belongs to and blazers for formal events can be of different colours. This willpromote a sense oneness.’
This isn’t stupid actually, more odd. I think it would be quite unsettling to see every school student in the same uniform. More importantly, if we do this, how is STOMP going to identify which school those students they video are from?
Some Random Thoughts
- Got hold of FF13! Yay me! Except I haven’t actually started to play it yet because I figured I would be a good teacher and do stuff like marking and setting exam papers. Still, the fact that it is sitting there waiting for me to play it makes me happy inside.
- A long time ago I blogged about being a female fan. This stupid, sexist facebook page is why I don’t usually tell others I game.
- Did I mention I got Disgaea 3 as well? Yeah it’s a little late and goodness, are the graphics crappy. So that’s yet another game to play. Plus I really, really want to conquer China in DW: Empires. So many games, so little time. :(
- I have this really long blog post about females in pop culture that I’ve been writing for weeks. At the rate it is going, I’ll never finish it.
- I miss my blog.
Jack Neo
All I have to say is that he’s an idiot and doesn’t deserve his wife’s forgiveness.
And really, if he did hit on them while they were at work, isn’t it sexual harassment? Who cares about his marriage? Why isn’t he being held accountable for that? Or is sexual harassment acceptable here in Singapore?
ETA: A quick google tells me that sexual harassment is indeed allowable in Singapore. Certainly, unless criminal force is used, it is not a crime. This makes me mad. Bloody sexist country.