To Be a Woman...

... you're up against more. Social norms, mores, laws and yourself....

To be a woman in Malaysia... baby dumping is to be classified as murder. Guess who are the more likely 'murderers'? Yup! The women.

Mr. Bung got hauled to court for marrying a second wife, the lower court sentenced him, he appealed. Finally he only paid a meagre RM1000 fine. A woman was caught for beer drinking, she gets caned. Women get this and that law shoved at them... Why?? Cos Mr. Bung has responsibilities, so said the judge..

“As this is a first offence and the appellant has a great responsibility to the family and society, I believe that a prison sentence will affect his responsibilities to the family. Also suffering by the family can lead to problems.

“In addition, the reputation and image of appellant as a member of parliament will be viewed negatively by society if the prison sentence imposed,” he said.

I was in a shop one day. In walked a lady garbed in a burqa-like outfit. Suddenly she pushed her mobile to the shop assistant and said that her husband wanted to talk. Turned out, the husband is a doctor. And I was thinking, the wife had every inch of her (except her eyes) covered up so that other men cannot see her. Yet everyday, as a doctor, he probably sees his patients 'exposed'.... unless he's one of those pencil docs. Kinda unbalanced. Are women are merely objects to be owned like a car? A car is owned by one, cared by the owner and when you are done with it, you change it for a new one....

Girls, women... we get giddy headed way too fast. Not too long ago, a woman and her two kids got splashed with acid. Husband/Dad was responsible. The weaker sex is easier to bully and has a softer heart. I bet she will accept him if he comes crawling back with 'soft' words.

Household chores... who sees to most of the chores if there is no maid? The wo-man! Leave it to the man and they'll say no need to do unless it's dirty. Laundry??? I don't know... maybe till the last clean clothes is out of the cupboard. So, do women really get a better deal in a marriage these days? Stay at home and take care of the family - no own money. Go out and get a job - got money but more work and no time for self.

I've got colleagues who get up at 2-3 a.m. in the morning to cook during fasting month. Then they come to school to work. I seldom hear of my male colleagues doing that. Two jobs... the WO in front is just an added burden; they carry extra burden in life.

So, what while Mr. Bung, Mr. Rahim, Mr. Chua and countless Mr.(s) get off for their promiscuities, the wo-man continues to bear the brunt of the laws made lopsided by our gender-biased lawmakers. Not just that, Mr. Rahim has gone on the record to say that he's out to expose an immoral person. A (black) pot calling the kettle black? There was a story about him and a 15-year old girl back in 1994 and Lim Guan Eng went to jail for speaking up about that... Mr. Pot and Mr. Kettle.... To be a woman???? It ain't no bed of roses... anyway, roses are full of thorns to begin with.

But don't get me wrong... life as a woman in Malaysia is better than in Middle East of many African countries. Women here still have the freedom to choose, though a perverted group of religious men seems to be doing their utmost best to throw their holy edicts to curtail and even restrict the women. They seem to think that the women are the root cause to many of their sins... while most of the time this group of people gets told off, I do see some women having less of a say in what they can or want to do with their lives. It's still a very sexist world that we're living in. Ah yes! Our Mr. Bung recently says this of women drivers...

“When you honk at them, they get agitated with some even showing hand gestures to other drivers,” he said in Parliament on Monday.

Showing hand gestures? More men or women do that, I wonder? Goes to show how easily duped we the rakyat are, cos we can elect reps like him who doesn't seem to think much with their heads... I guess too that's what stories of bulls and boorish pea-brained buffoons are made up of too. And we get charmed by such characters.... guess our brains must be even smaller than peas then.