Online Only – Aware should have a pro-family slant
Letter from Gilbert Goh
10:10 AM Jul 14, 2009
I am disappointed that the new Aware team has continued its main thrust to champion for women causes. It could have move dtowards a pro-family slant given the increasing number of divorces in Singapore. Families also need help especially when it comes to resolving family conflict.
Until today, I could not reconcile with the fact that Aware is still fighting for women’s rights when the modern woman is likely now to be someone climbing up the corporate ladder – often putting work before family. Women nowadays enjoy equal opportunites in the work place and there are no visble signs of discrimination like those in third world countries.
My past five reporting officers were all women and I saw that they worked their guts out proving to be capable and competent. I sometimes had to encourage my women bosses to go home earlier and spend more time with their family members, seeing that they were still at work way past eight in the evening.
Many young families I know also prefer to be childless as career women do not want children for fear that these will interfere with their work commitments. Many husbands also fail to persuade their wives to think otherwise.
I have male friends telling me that they dread having a working wife who spends more time at work and neglect their family. The responsible males will try to go home earlier to spend time with their children — often neglecting their career advancement. Many husbands thus end up failing to move up further up the corporate ladder than their high-powered career wives.In turn, such career women tend not to respect their men here seeing them as unambitious and incapable.
There was an extreme case of a corporate wife — whom I knew of — controlling all the family finances and limiting how much the husband could spend. Every month, he had to press his wife for his monthly allowance. His current unemployment status does not help the situation much. The last I heard was that the poor husband is depressed and highly suicidal. He saw little meaning in a one-sided relationship.
For Aware to stay fully integrated on our societal issues, it needs to think out of the box and come out with a new agenda to help both women and men here. It is no use going back to their archaic focus on championing for women’s rights. Our women have already moved very far ahead – they do not need any more help.
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Looking at the recent EGM and AWARE saga, they should just stick to their mission to seek “improvement in gender equality, encourage
positive change, and support women in realising their highest potential.” They never did have a pro-family stance. But realising equal sharing should come into play here.