Simply because of four words: You are a girl.
I understand if one was wearing a skirt or a dress, spreading your legs wide whilst sitting may be unsightly but why is it so when I'm wearing shorts or pants?
As a kid, I always felt rather restricted whenever I had to constantly clench my thighs together. I would sometimes cross my legs but that too was unacceptable for a kid in the eyes of my mother. I had to be conscious of my social etiquette which I did not understand and my mother would shoot daggers at me whenever she caught my thigh muscles taking a rest.
Guys could open their legs as much (I know why they had to) as they wanted when they sat and the wider they spread their legs, the more we perceive them as being manly or macho.
Which brings me to my point today. Sexism.
The never ending battle against chauvinistic pigs.
I never understood why a vagina makes such a huge difference. Just because of our seemingly different sexual organs, women receive lower benefits economically with lower pay at work, significantly lower work opportunities and a lesser pay as compared to men at work. While we deliver equal if not better results, the sad reality is that women are always losing out just because we are the 'fairer' sex.
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A perfect illustration
So my question is if we are the 'fairer' sex, shouldn't we be treated fairly? Upon my exploration into this topic, I stumbled upon the Gender Equity Index conducted by Social Watch. Malaysia ranks first from the very pit bottom in gender equality in East Asia.
Read more here: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/14577
We are as bad as Laos and Cambodia. Seriously this is no joke given that Malaysia prides itself as being so economically and socially advanced as compared to our neighbours, yet the welfare of women are basically thrown out the window. You don't have to look too far, just look at the number of female ministers in our past Cabinet. I'm pretty sure you could count all our female ministers with one hand.
Socially, I've seen sexism all around me growing up, but I was too young to know how to coin that unfairness that I've seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.
I was a school prefect. Being Standard 6, 12 years old is the time where girls peak faster than boys, emotionally and mentally so we are naturally more matured than our male peers. Having said that, the discipline teacher would elect a new head prefect and assistant head prefect among the graduating students of that year. So there stood a very capable classmate, always first in class, a natural leader and a respected figure among students (currently a Petronas scholar studying accounting in the University of Sydney) and another friend who was from the second class, had a playful attitude and was of a softer character (I lost touch with this friend). Not that there was anything wrong with being more sensitive, but he would bend rules in favour of his friends which was definitely not a sign of good leadership. Lo and behold, the guy from the second class was opted as the head prefect. A surprise? Not at all. Cause he was after all a guy and my classmate was a girl.
I listened on as my discipline teacher, shockingly a female teacher told me and my dejected friend that she was sorry but the headmaster wanted the position of a head prefect to go to a boy. At the expense of a much better leader that is. There wasn't any choice but to let him take the helm of the prefect board but it was the assistant head prefect who had to do all the work ultimately.
At that young age, I was brainwashed to think that men would always be more superior than women, no matter how smart, how capable we are, even if we were even better than them and that we could prove it.
Thankfully, I then proceeded to enrol in an all girl's secondary school which used to be a mission school. By the time I left, I didn't only take with me 5 years of knowledge but I was also imparted with values that moulded me to who I am today.
My brush with sexism did not end there. I later joined Judo and became a competitive player. I trained as hard as the guys in my team yet when I won, they would pass remarks of 'If i was a female, i would've won gold too. The male categories are much tougher than girls'. I do not know if they were envious or threatened but I understood then that every fight was not only about victory, I had to fight for something even more as a female: respect.
Winning something means nothing without respect
Even in the world of sports where unity and fairness is preached lies a dark side of social inequality which I believe is prevalent not only in Judo but almost every single other sports out there. If a girl plays football, she's almost a lesbian. I don't hear that being uttered when a guy does gymnastics! Sports like squash and tennis always offer higher cash prizes to males!
Enough is enough. I support that if women were to be treated equally, then we should not be spared of sexual harassment charges, rape charges or the rotan if convicted. We cannot argue for equal rights if we continue to play the weak card when it comes to punishments. It will be hard to fight for equal rights in a nation that is still very much male engineered. I honestly have yet to see any real social changes to women's rights and being a realist, this would undoubtedly be a tough fight against society but I believe there are other girls, ladies and women out there who share the same vision as I do.
Its time to demand for more respect ladies. We can all make a difference.
