Commentary: What’s behind varying attitudes about gender equality in Singapore

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Commentary

Commentary: What's behind varying attitudes about gender equality in Singapore

Demography, upbringing and cultural differences can explicate variations in receptiveness towards women'southward bug. The trickier question is how concerns tin be tackled so progress continues, say Mathew Mathews and Syafiq Suhaini.

SINGAPORE: For all the progress made in improving agreement between men and women in the road towards gender equality, the biggest hurdle to cantankerous is the ane betwixt our ears.

Some women'due south issues in the news have sparked online debates on gender equality in Singapore – from Facebook to Twitter and Reddit.

These online discussions typically raise the usual contentions: Females, without National Service obligations, have an unfair head start at piece of work. Women are more likely to gain custody of immature children subsequently a divorce even if men are practiced fathers. Or that a woman'due south accusation of a sexual crime is taken more seriously than a human being's denial.

Despite detailed responses debunking relevant myths by the regime from time to fourth dimension, at that place are corners of our population who keep to feel uneasy, fifty-fifty discontented near societal goals of greater gender equality.

Singapore is not unique in this regard. Globally, groups claiming to represent the voices of men allegedly losing out to gender equality norms have been pushing back calls for greater protection of women'south rights.

They include the anti-feminist movement in South Korea and the incel motion in N America – a loose network of unmarried men who misguidedly attribute their luckless beloved lives to the perceived fussiness of their women counterparts or believe that feminism "has gone too far".

South Korean demonstrators hold banners during a rally to mark International Women's Day every bit part of the country'south #MeToo movement in Seoul on Mar 8, 2018. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-je)

To exist clear, many men here in Singapore stand for gender equality. Those who oppose information technology are, fortunately, in the minority.

Based on the 2022 World Values Survey polling over 2,000 Singaporean respondents, only 21 per cent of men surveyed agreed a university education is more of import for a male child than for a girl.

Only 28 per cent of male respondents believed that men brand ameliorate business executives than women. Slightly under one in four male respondents believed a human relationship in which the wife earns more than than her hubby would raise bug for their married life.

DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDES OVER GENDER EQUALITY

Demographic and income differences can explicate office of this split in attitudes.

Highly educated and younger respondents from flush backgrounds were more probable to support gender equality compared to other demographic groups, the same survey found.

Greater exposure to news effectually gender equality and an increasingly gender-neutral curriculum in their formal instruction, equip these respondents with knowledge to approach outmoded gender stereotypes.

They grew upward when domicile economics became compulsory for all lower secondary school pupils since 1997. More of their parents are probable to be dual-income households.

Merely such variations over what gender equality looks like also stems from differing viewpoints on whether this requires an imposed uniformity of roles between both sides.

The thinking goes: If gender equality ways that men and women must be subject to the aforementioned, equal standard, why do women need concessions similar motherhood leave or different standards in athletic competitions? Why should they be given these benefits?

To answer these questions, there is a demand to differentiate between "sex" and "gender".

The former refers to the biological differences that changes little across societies or time periods like the ability of a adult female to give nativity that men practise not accept. The latter describes the roles club ascribes to men and women, which include patterns of domestic duties between married man and wife.

In sports and athletics, where biological differences result in some differences between the sexes, the creation of women's sports with different standards recognises fair competition based on equitable standards.

Championing gender equality means providing equal opportunities for both sexes to pursue their aspirations. Imposing blind uniformity in rules or policies, on the paw, might end up disadvantaging women instead.

Some unmarried-income households cover a traditional gendered division of domestic labour – one works while the other stays home to take care of the children and housework – often out of economic convenience rather than conviction over gender roles. Couples should be given the space to make their own life choices.

But interestingly, while women have long been the stay-domicile spouse, even norms here are shifting. In 2017, the Manpower Ministry building found stay-home dads accept doubled to 1,500 from 700 in the preceding decade.

TENSIONS WITH EARLY ATTITUDES

The influence of early socialisation cannot be discounted in shaping gender expectations. Nosotros learn almost gender roles as children, including societal, cultural, and fifty-fifty religious expectations on how the sexes should behave.

Growing up accustomed to the male parent working outside the habitation and the mother, despite also having a full-fourth dimension job, returning to cook and clean, a child internalises the idea his female parent'south – and, by extension, women's – career is secondary to her primary responsibleness at home.

It so seems natural for families, men, and women to behave in such a gendered manner.

A 2022 Insight report on Family and Work by the Ministry of Social and Family Development bears this out.

About 96 per cent of married working women polled said they were equally or primarily responsible for care-giving duties, compared to 43 per cent of married working men.

They as well tend to spend more time on household chores fifty-fifty though they also work outside the home. Men nevertheless were more than likely to contribute finances to maintain the family.

But as gild slowly shifts from traditional gender roles to more progressive ones, this child – at present an developed – finds his beliefs on families, men and women challenged and fifty-fifty deconstructed.

This dismantling evokes discomfort and may exist even more severe when some religious behavior of gender, held every bit unchangeable truths, are redefined.

Yet, Singapore's cultural-religious sphere has evolved to provide more equitable spaces for women at a time when society did not.

Advancement of the founding members of the (PPIS) in the early on 1950s and 1960s created spaces for Malay women to cultivate financial and personal independence in learning working skills and religious and academic literacy. These also helped to carve a more equitable outlook for women during the formulation of the Administration of Muslim Constabulary Act.

Today, other forms of cultural relearning and expansion are taking place.

Through movements such as Dads for Life, many men have come to embrace more than equitable gender roles in their families, especially in caregiving duties.

Religious communities too have used their platforms to reach male followers to brainwash them on gender relations within a religious perspective.

The Islamic Quango of Singapore (MUIS), for example, have used Friday prayer sermons to talk well-nigh the off-white handling of women and the roles of a father in today'due south families, with the message easily reaching all levels and ages of Muslim men in Singapore.

Listen to Minister Grand Shanmugam requite his frank accept on women's issues, sexual assault and NS on CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast:

MAKING FURTHER PROGRESS IN GENDER EQUALITY

While many depression-hanging fruit accept been plucked in Singapore'south journeying to empower and support women, the road ahead might be less clear.

Moving forward to heighten the participation of women every bit part of the Regime's White Newspaper on Women's Development mean those who practise non concord the same values might find themselves being excluded or mocked for their views.

This is where tolerance, respectful dialogue and instruction are needed to find a common middle basis.

There is a trend to recollect men with concerns over gender equality are an impersonal, faceless albeit aroused bloc of people. But dismissing their views could inadvertently increase opposition towards the crusade of gender equality.

In moving across this river, Singapore should tread carefully and feel the stones, accepting three bounds to avoid the move towards gender equality condign a flashpoint for heated cultural debates.

First, there is an urgent need to address bug on gender inequality in society. While policy reforms can be quickly passed by Parliament, cultural change happens at a much slower pace.

Greater sensitisation of gender equality and individual credence require time. Sociologists telephone call this "lagged adaptation", where men may express more egalitarian ideas of gender, simply lack the skills or will to act upon these ideas.

People wearing protective face up masks cantankerous the road at Pickering Street in Singapore on Sep vi, 2021. (File photo: Gaya Chandramohan)

Second, societal discourse requires nosotros lay aside stereotypes to fence bug rather than identities.

Rather than conceive of feminists equally "triggered tumblrina", a politically active female blogger who oft posts issues relating to social justice on her blog, or reduce men with worries to chauvinist bigots, we should await to measured dialogue to negotiate changing norms.

Organisations like Dads for Life and PPIS provide resources and safe, educational, and respectful spaces to learn about the changing roles of men and women in lodge.

Communities similar these present men with role models who have accepted new masculinity norms, learned to negotiate this with their partners and thrived in the process.

Such engagement strategies assist shift perspectives, even amid those with more traditional notions of gender, perhaps amidst older members of our extended family.

Hearing personal explanations of changing gender roles and expectations from a family member might make the message a little easier to swallow – every bit it can exist contextualised and supported with examples the recipient can improve relate to.

Third, while advocacy for gender equality matters, these must move across a cipher-sum game of "rights" and "privilege" and focus instead on how implementing equitable social systems benefits all segments of guild.

These should recognise that some social groups might take different ways of agreement gender equality, given Singapore's multicultural and multireligious Singapore context.

Atypical, homogenous progressive explanations of gender equality should make room for inclusive, diverse but tolerable nuances on the calibration of equality.

This includes providing resources for pro-women and pro-gender equality cultural and religious groups to define gender equality norms inside the boundaries of their culture or faith.

Mathew Mathews is Head of the Social Lab and Main Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. Syafiq Suhaini is Enquiry Associate at the IPS.

Commentary: What’s behind varying attitudes about gender equality in Singapore

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