24
Mar
Gender Discrimination in Singapore
A huge flame war broke out over on Bing De’s blog yesterday, at or around 9 pm Singapore Time. The issue at hand? A post describing how administrative jobs discriminate against males, and speculation on why that is so.
A reader contested the claim, countering that with examples of discrimination against females in certain job fields. I’ll ignore the personal attacks this same person has made on the tag board, since it tends to cloud the issue with personal indignation.
Firstly, the reader mentioned the engineering and medical fields as an illustrative example of the discrimination against females. I agree with this. Singapore is a dominantly patriarchal society, with male chauvanistic practices that continue even to this day.
Behold our Woman’s Charter: enshrined in law to protect the females from abusive males, this charter is obviously created because of prevailing views that females require protection, and its continued presence in our fair country here is perhaps the best indicator of the mentality of law-makers in our country. Even with the presence of female politicians, I am surprised that they don’t propose a removal of this law. Are they implying a perpetration of the same male sexist doctrine, or are they simply too Singaporean to think about this?
In this same chauvanistic society, men still dominate the rank and file at the managerial level. Therefore, isn’t it natural that these same men would tend to choose female assistants? These people come into office with their stereotype of a female administrative assistant, and coupled with Bing De’s comment on uncontrollably sexually deprived men at the workplace, isn’t it true that they will tend to choose a female clerk over a male?
Isn’t this thus also a form of discrimination against females?
To that reader: If you are reading this, I welcome your comments.
on March 25th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I want to hear your VIEWS, your STAND.
Don’t just sit on the fence.
Come on, you can do it!!
on March 29th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I thought my stand was pretty obvious…
on January 16th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Gender has shaped our perception of ourself and the way we are being brought up. Thus, we will tend to abide by the norms and gender discrimination will still exist.