He Ting Ru 何廷儒
I've been following the BBC coverage on #100women which started this week. Singapore has come in 54 out of 145 economies surveyed by the World Economic Forum's annual 2015 Global Gender Gap Report. We're doing well, particularly when compared to Asia, although we do lack behind the economies at the top of the table.
I think we are lucky to have a generally safe and secure environment for women here, with less barriers to us pursuing our goals and dreams. However, the Singapore labour force statistics tell a story of women still getting paid over ten percentage points less than men in most occupational categories. While our female labour force participation rates have increased, it is still significantly lower than for men, and many women in their 'prime working ages' still leave the workforce, primarily to take up caregiving responsibilities before struggling to fit back in subsequently.
In 2015, we have Canada announcing their first gender-equal cabinet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proclaiming himself a proud feminist. We have Hollywood celebrities speaking out against how female stars are paid a fraction of what their male counterparts are paid, for fear of coming across as 'difficult'.
For me, personally, I know that in a matter of just three generations, we've indeed come a long way - I remember stories from my grandmother about how she had to fight her family tooth and nail just to be allowed to go back to school, how she had to teach herself to read and write in the years she was taken out of school, hiding in the upper floors of her house so that her parents would not catch her with books she took from their library without their permission. About how she gobbled down book after book in the semi-darkness, eager to read more, but not daring to do so in the open.
She lived to see her granddaughters study, work and live in 5 continents, take on a wide variety of roles in life, and summit the highest mountain in the world. She was extremely proud, although tinged with more than a little regret that it was not possible for her. But that's progress, and we should be glad of that.
Yet, there are little things that make me pause and think. We are asked by job interviewers how we would cope if we were given a foreign posting and got married (men don't get asked this because the assumption seems to be that their wives would just up sticks and follow them). We get asked by interviewers whether and when we intend to get married and start a family, while male counterparts are asked for their views on the economy. We are told that we would find our greatest contentment in life by starting a family and raising kids.
My reaction to these is usually to smile, try to ignore it, and sometimes seethe a little inside.
It is mindsets like these that need to change in society before we can continue to work towards greater equality between the sexes. I am somtimes shamefully guilty of thinking in this way myself, or just accepting it haplessly without challenging it.
I don't think it's a coincidence that societies with greater measures of equality also often rank very well for being great environments to have families (and yes, that means higher TFRs as well). So we should all of us be working together, with legislators, communities, families and friends towards making this possible.
Perhaps one day I will have granddaughters of my own. I look forward to boring them with stories about how 'in my day', we hoped to see the progress that they would then take for granted as being the norm.
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