International Women's Day
International Women's Day reminds me on friends I met in Ukraine. I remembered, I was wished by some friends, especially guys from Ukraine during the International Women's Day. It was awkward, yes, it was!! Because I have never been greeted by anyone in Malaysia on this day!!! I've never been appreciated as a woman (erm, born as a woman), nor I deserved to be greeted as a woman!
When they greeted me, "Happy Women's Day!! Today's your day!!" I felt like it was my 2nd birthday!! I was so amazingly happy at that time. I felt great to be a woman.
But, it is completely different back in Malaysia. Yeah, some events were held to celebrate the day and relevant articles were published on the newspapers. All these did not mean to most of the Malaysian. It was just a day to have fun, or some discussions, like any other celebrations.
We do not take any concrete actions, do we? I asked myself after attended yesterday seminar "Paving the Way Forward for Equal Opportunities in High Level Decision Making".
"Have we achieved gender equality?"
"Have all Malaysian known about gender?"
"Is gender only about empowering women?"
"What have been done all these years by us to achieve gender equality?"
One man/officer (maybe he is a civil servant, the seminar was participated by mainly government agencies and some NGOs) asked during the seminar, "If the quota to ensure women's participation was implemented across all sectors, how about defense and armed force? Women do not have strength and these sectors, need a lot of strength, e.g. like fight with terrorist. I think the quota can only be implemented in certain sectors."
The thought of being equal is still not understood by the people here (is it on biological equal?). We are still lagging behind on the gender education. Can we talk about legislative change and policy supports, if the civilians were not equipped with knowledge on gender or aware about gender? How do we fight for gender equality if we do not realize there is gender inequality in our society?
The ratio of women graduated from diploma and degree is far more higher than man. Half of the labour force of Malaysia is women. However, only half is employed (where is another halve?) and most of them in executive level. Why are they not in the senior management? The main reasons are long working hour, and low in flexibility. Women are carer for children, family and old. They are exhausted to juggle between career and family. Thus, they make decision to quit one, and always it will be her career. (Why women have to make the selection?)
Norway government shared their experiences with us. The people there have very tight families ties, just like us here. Based on the research findings, they realize the change must formed under their culture and family values. Both men and women are educated to share responsibilities on taking care of children, family and old. The men also deserve to grow up with their children and have some time with their families. So, how did the government make it? Fathers are entitled to mandatory paternal leave. They must take leave from the jobs to accompany their families. In this period of time, women are working. It is such a brilliant idea to complement each other.
Norway government uses legislative power to form policies in supporting the change. Someone commented, "Is that necessary? The legislative power is to regulate...changes should come from heart." In one of the presentation, it said, without legislative power and policies, the increase of women in high level of decision making to a satisfactory level will be achieved after a century. Gosh, that's really slow!!
The legislative power will support the changes for a period of time while the education on gender will be effective and create permanent changes. So, I concluded that both work well in parallel to complete the process.
Norway has had used 40 years to achieve low gender gap index. When are we going to start ours?
Comments
Post a Comment