By Tan Tarn How
SINGAPORE men - it's time to buck up.
You'd better start pulling your weight at home or women will
continue voting with their wombs and choose career over children.
Don't even think that the pro-baby goodies you throw at them are
enough.
This was the reality check issued to the Singapore male yesterday
by four MPs, one of whom was a man.
The first in the House in the two days of debate to blame his own
gender, Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman's message echoed that of his female
counterparts: Dad has to share equally in bringing up baby or there
won't be any baby to take care of.
Why, he lamented, were questions about the baby shortage always
directed at women as if it were solely their issue.
Said the Sembawang GRC MP: 'Perhaps that is why we have not been
able to reverse the trend.
'Men's minds have not been sufficiently 'liberated'.'
The solution was for men to be comfortable with their masculinity
and thus treat their partners as equal, said the father of two
young children.
The Government too must have family policies that are equal for
both sexes, he said.
'Only then will we send the strong message to our womenfolk that
they should and will be supported when they bear our
children.'
The mixed signals sent to women - that they should pursue a career
and yet be left holding the baby, as it were, was also the grouse
of Dr Amy Khor (Hong Kah GRC) and Miss Irene Ng (Tampines
GRC).
A mother of three, Dr Khor blamed it on a conservative society, a
government which supported a 'patriarchal and male-dominated
society' and women's own wish to fulfil themselves as
individuals.
Forced to choose, women increasingly opt for career over
children.
Like Dr Maliki, she wanted more shared responsibility between
husband and wife.
Also on her wishlist: longer paternity leave, equal medical
benefits for women in the civil service, citizenship rights for
children of a Singaporean woman and her foreign husband, and the
right of women to claim child relief and maid levy tax
breaks.
'Please listen to women', was her closing plea.
Amending that to 'Please listen to women as equals', Miss Ng said
measures such as maternity leave and baby bonuses might not be
enough to stop the slide in the birth rate here.
What was needed was to 'move from our patriarchal system to a more
gender-equal one'.
She asked for the Government to get out of the family affairs of
Singaporeans by not telling them who should be head of the
household, and to set an example of giving up to two weeks'
paternity leave to civil servants.
Miss Indranee Thurai Rajah (Tanjong Pagar GRC), one of 21 MPs who
spoke yesterday, also doubted that money talked loud enough.
If she were married, and considering having children, 'the single
most important thing to me would be that I had the husband's
support because I would have to know that he would be there if I
needed for him to take on part of the role', said the 40-year-old
lawyer.
What was needed was nothing less than a social and mindset change,
she said.
Otherwise, the policies that result are 'only addressing symptoms
and not necessarily the cause'.
hahaha.. ok. now it has become our
fault.
