Lift Your Skirt, Save Your Life ad goes against Asian values

Posted on May 8, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ad catches the eye and raises a few eyebrows’, 8 May 2013, article by Debbie Lee, Eugene Chua and Joanne Lee, ST and 10 May 2013, ‘Cancer ad goes against Asian values’, ST Forum

“LIFT your skirt, save your life,” urges a new advertisement by the Singapore Cancer Society to promote awareness of preventive measures for cervical cancer. But the campaign appears to have raised eyebrows instead.

Public reaction to its posters, depicting celebrities in white dresses catching a rush of air from the ground, have varied from “catchy” to “obscene”…It features celebrities MediaCorp Radio 987FM DJ Rosalyn Lee, model and TV host Linda Black and 93.3FM DJ Siau Jiahui.

The campaign aims to encourage women to go for Pap smear screenings being provided for free by 178 clinics this month. However, more than 60 per cent of the 80 people polled by The Straits Times said the advertisement was not effective in delivering its message.

Respondents commonly mistook it for fashion or slimming advertisements….A quarter of the respondents felt the advertisement was offensive. “Most people are saying, ‘Oh, it uses sexual undertones to get attention, it’s effective.’ But just because it gets people talking doesn’t mean it sends the right message,” said Miss Yvonne Jin, a 21-year-old student.

The Association of Women for Action and Research agreed. Its executive director, Ms Corinna Lim, said: “It is a sad reflection on society that good causes also have to resort to sex to promote their message.”

(Dr V Subramaniam):…We have long cherished and promoted the age-old values of decorum, decency, good morals, respect for tradition and other attributes that go with our rich Asian culture. These values provide us with the cultural ballast against the influx of unhealthy foreign cultural trends and behaviour.

The ad to promote awareness of preventive measures for cervical cancer, which comes with the tagline, “Lift your skirt. Save your life”, is not in keeping with our Asian morals and is degrading to women. Left to the imagination, the crude insinuations can easily corrupt the morals of our young.

Otherwise you’ll get more than just a 7 year itch

Cervical cancer is no joke of course, as ambassador DJ Ross Lee would attest, having had a near brush with the dreaded disease herself. But you don’t need a controversial headline to grab the attention of Singaporean women. One four letter word starting with the letter F would do the trick: FREE, and that magical word that possesses Singaporeans into queuing long hours for stuff they don’t need is restrained here by small caps and boring font. Hell, you may even get a MAN to queue for cervical screening if you market your freebie a little TOO well. Maybe SCC should try the same tactic for prostate screening. I doubt anyone would complain of such an ad as obscene, sexist or defiling ‘Asian values‘, though some may accuse it of causing nightmares, loss of appetite and general distress.

manpants

It’s always tempting to employ ‘sexual undertones’ when you’re talking about cancers of intimate body parts. In 2010, another local cancer foundation used nude models to encourage women to, well, keep ABREAST of cancer prevention, painted NIPPLES and all. Just like those crying foul about this PAP smear campaign giving upskirt perverts ideas on the escalator, some dismissed body painting as crass objectification of women everywhere.

A very cheeky ad

Take away the provocative images though, and what you’re left with are awful puns like ‘Treasure the BREAST things in life’ in 2011, the kind of tagline that would only draw the attention and non-stop giggles of females with their breasts still under development. Unlike boobs, there’s very limited wordplay when it comes to organs around the pelvis without offending someone, especially when words like ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ are still avoided by the media till this day. Even saying things like ‘Hey ladies, come spread your legs!’ can be as insulting as an orgy invitation.

You can’t make visual puns of erogenous zones without coming across as downright vulgar, like the ‘Unfurgivable‘ ad by the Ministry of Wax, which got some all fired up over a purse resembling female genitalia. Still, cervical cancer is the ONLY preventable cancer in women to date, which means delivering a necessary message and making it stick may be more important than what the good folks at AWARE think. All it takes is one person to notice the ad, ‘lift her skirt’ and get saved from disaster for the campaign to work. I don’t see how ‘skirt-lifting’ is a problem for AWARE considering they endorse anti-rape campaigns called SlutWalks. It’s also better to benefit from a lewd ad that is a ‘sad reflection of society’ and be ALIVE, than get your knickers in a twist and dead.

About these ads

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, 2013, Advertisements, Campaigns/Elections, Nudity, Sex, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Ah Boys to Men is sexist and promotes premarital sex

Posted on November 30, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ah Boys to Men is Bad for SAF’ and ‘Why promote pre-marital sex’, 30 Nov 2012, Voices, Today

(Vanessa Tai): I recently watched Ah Boys to Men with my parents and younger brother, who is undergoing National Service. Like other Jack Neo films, the humour was slapstick and littered with Hokkien expletives.  Those jokes were tolerable, but the misogynistic script was unbearable. For example, the recruits referred to women as “clothing that can be easily discarded” in a bid to cheer up one of the recruits who had been dumped.

Another example was a sergeant showing his recruits how to tear a certain leaf in order to form the shape of female genitals. Perhaps Mr Neo is accurately representing army life, but there is no value in such distasteful jokes. From what I understand, such banter is commonplace in the army, and while most guys do not hold sexist views, they play along so as not to be ostracised, which is a shame. Such behaviour should not be accepted as the norm.

A first-class military is not one that is just well armed or well trained in combat. A first-class military – in fact, a first-class society – is an egalitarian one that treats each member with respect, regardless of sex or socio-economic background. The Singapore Armed Forces is moving into a Third Generation, with greater emphasis on nurturing and engaging each soldier, which is a step in the right direction. However, more can be done to improve the image of our soldiers. Ah Boys to Men is a caricature, yes, but with many impressionable young men watching it, my worry is that Mr Neo’s careless stereotypes may undo a lot of the SAF’s good work.

(Goh Lee Hwa):As a mother, I am perturbed that Mr Jack Neo (picture) is endorsing pre-marital sex, in the scene where a guy told his girlfriend that he must have it before enlistment, or else the angels in “heaven” would laugh at him should he die during National Service. We parents are trying to discourage such practices, yet Mr Neo is endorsing it. That scene was uncalled for.

Careless, MDA. You’ve banned another local film for insulting Indians but clearly forgot about a film from a celebrated director that puts our entire ARMY to shame. Thanks to Jack Neo, now we know our boys are NOT writing letters to their loved ones, singing camp songs or playing carom in their bunk in their spare time, but trading sexist jokes, boasting about stealing their girlfriends’ virginity away or playing with ‘CB’ leaves. They also shouldn’t get drunk, steal rifles, cry like woosies in field camp, smoke cigarettes or have their maids carry backpacks for them. All that sort of loutish behaviour would surely do our military in. Leaves as sex paraphernalia instead of camouflaging against the enemy. The cheek!

Yes, our SAF has done a remarkable job of keeping Singapore SO safe we’ve never suffered a single war since its inception. Thanks to our army grooming responsible, ‘egalitarian’ citizens out of rough jewels, we’ll never have to worry about the same men beating women about, having sex with underage prostitutes, cheating on their wives, surfing porn or exchanging sex for favours even if they’re head honchos of key public institutions. How could you, Jack Neo. Why can’t you stick to making I NOT STUPID sequels, and portray students as suicidal depressives instead? That would be accurate, at least.

But seriously, why pick on Jack Neo when there are so many other movies out there which insult both sexes and plug stereotypes about young horny men? Does the writer think Jack Neo is a ‘role model’ for Singaporean boys? This guy cross-dresses like a grandmother for God’s sake. Boys are not going to watch Ah Boys to Men to PREPARE for army, or even for the humour. They would rather accompany their teenage girlfriends to watch the Breaking Dawn finale, and then hope that she returns some hot lovin’ for their painful sacrifice. No, Ah Boys to Men is likely to be a fave of Jack Neo’s staple audience, heartland uncles and aunties, and perhaps the entire singing crew of A Nation’s March. There are, of course, more important things to be worried about than SAF turning your boy into a Hokkien-spewing wife-beater. You’d better hope that he comes out of it ALIVE with his sanity and limbs intact, and lungs not permanently scarred from inhaling grenade smoke.

Any army boy booking out to spend their weekends seeing a whitewashed version of army reality is simply wasting his time. He’d rather polish boots than swallow cheap comic-relief stereotypes about potty mouthed drill sergeants, the mummy’s boy who can’t do a single pull-up and gets bullied by everybody until his geekiness saves the day, and of course the effeminate sissy afraid to damage his nails but dons the best camouflage skills in the platoon. The original NS movie Army Daze had all that, and those horrible ‘misogynistic’ stuff too. In one scene, the word ‘sexbomb’ was used to describe a soldier’s girlfriend. Even the Indian recruit had an exaggerated accent.

[Youtube clip disabled]

Resorting to bawdy humour is inevitable if you want to produce any sort of local army film given the constraints. Which is a waste as Jack could have pulled off something more ambitious without recycling the same old stock characters. You don’t need Jack Neo to EDUCATE young Singaporeans on what to expect in the army, just like you can’t prepare a woman for giving birth by watching ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’. He’s a businessman first and entertainer second, and the trailer alone has formulaic product placement and government approval written all over it. I haven’t watched the film myself, but for all its alleged heartfelt pandering to Total Defence, I think it could have redeemed itself with some badass aliens or mutant zombies. Or maybe an angry horde of striking PRC bus workers. Otherwise I can’t think of any homemade action movie which involved anything beyond a car flipping over and exploding on cue. But there’s hope because Ah Boys to Men Part 2 is coming soon FYI.

Our boys, being moulded into THINKING SOLDIERS as part of the 3G philosophy, should know better. Not thinking about sex, that is. I’m not sure what’s a more dangerous misconception though; that our army is actually READY for bloody battle, or that it’s a MONASTERY that preaches equality to all humankind.

Postscript: Hoping to be proven wrong, I rented the Ah Boys to Men DVD. The slo-mo panning of SAF slogans as the boys walked through the ferry terminal to Tekong could give one nausea before even boarding the boat. The much hyped war scene was packed with special effects that could match high-octane monster films like MEGASHARK vs CROCOSAURUS. The cast, however, saved the movie and kept it entertaining. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the sequel would have less propaganda and more character development, though a climax involving the Ah Boys learning to appreciate NS and becoming Best Buddies Forever seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Filed under: 2012, Advertisements, Army, Film, Local actors, Sex, Singaporean men | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Eye-candy male pacers in Shape Run

Posted on June 21, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Change of pace for Shape Run’, 21 June 2012, article by Chan U-Gene, ST

ONE of Singapore’s women-only runs is getting – for the first time – a shot of testosterone. This year’s Shape Run will introduce 30 male runners as pacers – chosen not only for their running abilities but also their pin-up looks.

Ms Diana Lee, general manager of fashion and beauty at Singapore Press Holdings, the organiser, said: ‘This is a chance for women to chase the guys for a change. It’s to introduce a fun element, to provide ‘eye candy’ for the runners.’

…Jason Tan, 38, is hoping to use the communication skills he developed from his six years in the insurance industry to engage the runners. The financial services manager, who has completed more than five marathons, said: ‘Talking to people is part and parcel of my life. I want to lift their spirits by greeting them in the morning, exchanging high-fives, and also by singing songs during the run.’

Most female runners are receptive to the novel idea. Human relations officer Audrey Huang, 29, said: ‘I’ll be running at my own pace. Unless they are eye candy, then maybe I’ll run faster.’

But there are a few women who are less than impressed. Ms Erika Keilig, 40, said that while she is fine with running alongside the men, some women preferred to keep women-only events, well, only for women. These women feel more comfortable running with members of the same sex, she said.

Avid marathoner Anne Date, 31, said: ‘If it’s a women’s race, then it’s a women’s race. It’ll be nice for women to be independent of men sometimes.’

Got to catch ‘em all!

Good looks or not, these guys have their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to strut about providing cheerleading services, but have to make sure that they don’t look out of ‘shape’ themselves, considering that they have 18 year old professional Kenyan runners in their midst, one of whom won last year’s 10km event. The annual Shape run is serious business, which explains why the intrusion of a few good men  into an exclusive marathon may be regarded by the more ambitious runners as a damper on their crowning achievement.  Some women are particularly bothered if boyfriends or husbands scamper uninvited in women’s only events taking snapshots of their partners. If there’s anyone who should feel stressed by this idea, it’s the pacers themselves. Imagine the pressure of having to keep the enthusiasm, high-fives and stamina up in front of thousands of women, some possibly as old as their mothers who can brisk walk faster than most NSmen can run 2.4 km for IPPT. Imagine facing the wrath of angry feminists who would toss used paper cups at you given the chance. It’s not an easy job, girls.

Who knows what this potent COCKtail of marathon running (itself a risk factor for sudden death) and sweaty hot bods would do to everyone involved in the event. Distractions and discomfort aside, if I were the organiser I would be extra wary about people collapsing, if not the eye candy themselves for over-enthusing, but women whose desperate hearts flutter easily at the sight of six-pecs and tight buns, or those over-exerting themselves running away from pacers like Jason Tan singing like they were leading a BMT road march ( Purple Light, anyone?). Any woman running beyond her capacity under the influence of hunky pacers risks injuries like patellofemoral pain syndrome. Any man who runs beyond his capacity just to impress a woman risks an unscheduled visit to the morgue.

Even if your timing remains unaffected by the presence of men as gratuitous sex objects, there’s nothing like a brawny dude getting in the way of some serious female bonding. A ladies only run is essentially a mahjong session or high tea for the active, sociable woman, and throwing in a man in the fray is like having the husband budging in asking when dinner is ready. Men have their motor shows, soccer bars, and online vice rings, why not leave the ladies alone with some ‘we-time’? On the other hand, putting sexy chicks in a mostly male marathon to man water stations like they straddle cars at motor shows may see less records being broken because of rubbernecking, but could potentially save a life or two if catching a glimpse of a real RACE queen means slowing down and queuing up for a drink (and drinking very slowly too).

Being a male pacer isn’t as lucrative as posing as a glorified gigolo or Chippendale in ‘host bars’, where men  are subject to bids like cattle in a beef auction, not only having to wiggle their way into a tai-tai’s heart but wear garlands around their necks like cowbells. If you insist on subjecting yourself to ogling, might as well make some good money while at it. Otherwise you’re just an Abercrombie stooge with running shoes.

Filed under: 2000s, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women, Sports | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Brastrap flash in Triumph ad a disservice to women

Posted on May 12, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Not so triumphant for women’, 11 May 2012, Voices, Today online

(Tham Kun Moon): It was not too long ago that International Women’s Day was celebrated here and in many other countries. In the same month, an advertisement by an undergarment brand, in which the protagonist wowed her male audience by showing off that bit of her undergarment and appeared triumphant in the deal, aired regularly on the free-to-air channels.

It is pointless to celebrate the wonders and beauty of being a woman when old stereotypes persist. It is a disgrace and a disservice to women. To suggest that the modern woman succeeds on the merits of her undergarment is an insult to many women who rise up to the highest ranks in the corporate world, including several well-known ones locally.

( Ad could be this one below by Triumph. Who would have guessed?)

Nothing sweetens a deal like a little peek-a-boo, and as much as this depicts sultry women as wily go-getters, it also insults men as shallow creatures, that our executive functions are clouded by an exposed brastrap even if it’s flashed for less than a second. It’s like a cinema flick running subliminal split-second images to tell you that you want a hot dog. This ad may be a ‘disservice and disgrace’ to femininity but it merely dramatises a sullen truth that sex has been used, and will always be used, to secure deals, among other things worth getting. Countless movies have depicted women weaponising their cleavage to disarm violent criminals, escape from captivity or steal tiny keys from pockets, yet here we are, only on International Women’s Day, suddenly realising that there’s discrimination going on all this while. It’s like remembering we have someone to love on Valentine’s Day.

But wait, if you view the ad a couple more times, you’ll appreciate the context of what at first glance looks like a prelude to a striptease. The men were having trouble picking a colour scheme, and perhaps, by sheer coincidence, the bra’s shade of orange was EXACTLY what they had in mind. Or they just wanted to see a brastrap. Either way, both sexes are stereotyped, and an underwear ad without stereotyping is like a Burger King ad without fries.

Whether it’s a glimmer of a smile, affectionate touching, laughter or a winning bosom, sensual gestures will always influence the outcome of a sale or a payrise. A maximiser bra and a silly flash are just a few of the many flirtatious tools at a woman’s disposal, whether she’s conscious of her actions or not. Kudos to bosses who manage to see through the visual foreplay and make purely objective decisions without the reptilian brain being stimulated by primal mating signals (Or they could just be gay). It’s so hard to market underwear without pissing some women off. If you take the sexist messages away, you’ll have prudes complaining about topless models, or models unzipping their tops suggestively. At least the ad makers kept the scene restricted to a typical suit-and-tie corporate board room. If recent events are anything to go by, the ad would have been more accurate if it had been men in uniform discussing tenders of IT projects instead.

Filed under: 2012, Advertisements, Nudity, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Only 6.9% of board members are women

Posted on October 26, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Few women at the top in Singapore, compared to some Asian countries’, 25 Oct 2011, article in Today online

Women make up only 6.9 per cent of board members of listed companies on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), according to an inaugural report to track gender diversity in SGX-listed boardrooms.

The report – to be published annually – is a collaboration between BoardAgender, an outreach arm of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations, and the NUS Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations.  Its findings prompted Minister of State (Community Development, Youth and Sports) Halimah Yacob to suggest yesterday that Government- and Temasek-linked companies “take the lead and support the appointment of more women to their boards”.

Madam Halimah, who was speaking at the launch of the report, said: “Our women have achieved much progress in education and at work. Yet they continue to face obstacles in rising to the top leadership positions in the corporate world.”

Reiterating that “this is not just a numbers game”, Mdm Halimah described the proportion as “dismal”

The article later explains that some countries have legislation to ensure a minimum number of women filling top positions (including Malaysia), a process which runs against our meritocratic principles. The nations with the highest female representation are also First World European societies with established systems to thwart gender discrimination. Singaporean females are definitely no slouches in academia, but even with our educational/literacy level we’re second last only to India, which at least has had a FEMALE prime minister. We can’t say the same even of our Cabinet, which is currently an all-male affair.

Something has to give between graduation and landing a board membership. It would be tempting to conclude that male chauvinism at the workplace is behind this, but perhaps there are hidden forces, or certain characteristics  or motivations of the typical Singaporean woman which work against meteoric career paths, traits that are impossible to study scientifically, and politically incorrect or insensitive to even mention out loud. A 2009 poll revealed that only 9% of Singaporeans reckon female bosses are better than male ones, with ‘emotional’ and ‘temperamental’ cited as behavioral  failings. I’m not sure if  ‘employee preference’ has any influence on the success of any boss, male or female.

Here’s the SGX list in full:

Let’s see how boardroom representation correlates to labour force participation for females, according to the World Bank (Assuming that there’s minimal change from 2009 to 2011).

Country                 Sgx ranking(2011)          Labour force participation (2009)

India                       4.7%                                      33%

Singapore              6.9%                                      54% (56.5% in 2011)

Malaysia                7.8%                                      44%

China                       8.1%                                      67%

Hong Kong            8.6%                                      52%

Australia                10.1%                                   58%

EU                             11.7%                                   NA

UK                             12.5%                                   55%

US                              15.7%                                  58%

Finland                    24.5%                                  57%

Sweden                    27.5%                                  61%

Norway                   39.5%                                  63%

What’s striking from the list above is how the UK has almost the same female labour force as us, yet almost twice as many powerful women in boardrooms, while Malaysia beat us even with relatively less females working. But what seems to trend, at least for the top 5 countries, is the higher the proportion of females working (at least 55%), the greater their presence in the boardroom, which seems like a case of simple probability. Well, for the Western world,  at least.   This, however, was a pattern which Singapore (among other Asian giants like China and Hong Kong) somehow managed to buckle. A whiff of  a patriarchal Asian mentality perhaps?

It’s also interesting to correlate corporate leadership with  percentage representation in Parliament. Sweden, Norway and Finland take 3rd, 8th and 7th spot respectively in the ‘Women in National Parliament charts‘, while Singapore is joint 46th with PAKISTAN (though we beat Malaysia, India, US and UK). Not impressive either, so if our women are not hungry for corporate success nor are they dabbling in politics, then what are they up to? How about raising children?

According to the World CIA Factbook 2011, Singapore is languishing in 161st spot at 1.10 in terms of births per woman, while the top 3 Scandinavian countries are hovering just below the 2 mark. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is neck and neck with us at 166th position in fertility rate (1.04), but ranks above us in the SGX index. It appears that fertility by itself has little to do with a woman blazing a career path. If Singaporean women are really giving up top positions to devote their energies to 1.10 kids, then something is terribly wrong with the system. What our women MPs should do instead of complaining is identify such women and the reasons behind their career sacrifice. However, on one hand, you have folks advocating the benefits of career-forsaking, educated, stay-at-home mums, and on the other we celebrate successful women who juggle both at the same time. We can’t even say for certain if having more stay-at-home mums than female CEOs is a good or bad thing for our country’s success. It’s fine either way for a woman, really; it’s socially acceptable if she gives up a high-flying job to look after the kids, but if a man does it he’s either lazy, unaspiring or henpecked by a power-hungry wife. So what DO women want, exactly?

In a recent global survey (Best and Worst Places to be a Woman), Singapore ranks as the 37th best country to be a Woman (whatever that means). Again you see the Scandinavians topping the charts, with Sweden, Finland and Norway taking 2nd, 5th and 7th spot respectively. We beat Malaysia (81) and India (141),  but surprisingly CHINA, with all its problems with infant sex selection, is a better country for women than Singapore(23rd). You’d also have to ask yourself why there isn’t a similar list for MEN (Perhaps any country with WOMEN is a good place to be a MAN)

Another local poll called the ‘Happiness Index’ conducted on 200 professionals found that men were happier at their jobs than women (46.08 vs 37.75%). It would be of interest to the SGX survey investigators if one were to determine what exactly these men were happy about, which could offer some clues to the ‘dismal’ showing by women. So, the jury is out as to why Singaporean women are losing out to men in leadership roles. The numbers above do hint of a deprivation of leadership opportunities, considering that more than half of Singaporean women are working, yet less than half are ‘happy’ with their jobs according to the Happiness Report. It’s a chicken and egg scenario, women could be unhappy thus not motivated to pursue higher roles , or they could be unhappy BECAUSE something is stopping them. But all this is mere speculation, and more studies should be conducted before we label ourselves a patriarchal nation stuck in the backwaters of gender equality with the ironic label of ‘nanny-state’.

Filed under: 2011, Money, Politicians, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Singaporeans are less peeved at work than Indians

Posted on September 30, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘S’pore No. 2 in peeves tally’, 30 Sept 2011, article by Jennani Durai, ST

…Singapore has come in second in a survey of 16 countries tallying the number of pet peeves in the office. In the No. 1 spot was India, according to the findings released yesterday by professional networking site LinkedIn.

The 17,000 survey participants – nearly 1,000 were from Singapore – were given a list of 38 possible pet peeves in the office and told to select all that applied to them. Only one peeve listed – overachievers pandering to the boss – had to do with management.

The peeves ranged from the general, such as loud typing and office pranks, to the specific, from hitting ‘reply all’ on mass office e-mail messages to not reloading a printer when it ran out of paper. Singaporeans’ top annoyance: people not taking ownership for their actions. It was also the No. 1 annoyance picked by 78 per cent of the 17,000 respondents.

Rounding up Singaporeans’ top three gripes were dirty common areas – such as shared microwave ovens or refrigerators – and constant complainers.

…There were also gender differences in the findings. For example, 57 per cent of Singaporean women were bothered by ‘clothing that’s too revealing for the workplace’. But only 29 per cent of Singaporean men surveyed found that to be a problem.

Japanese offices don't celebrate April Fool's

Despite the ubiquitousness of office nuisances, a few interesting  cross-cultural observations can be inferred here: Swedish males have the best office jobs in the world, Americans really make themselves at home in office pantries, Indian workers don’t set their mobile phones on silent mode and you can get demoted in Japan for so much as spamming your boss with email jokes.

‘Taking ownership’ is a relatively recent form of corporate-speak which, in the local context at least, usually refers to the act of taking charge of a certain project or task, people who are the ‘go-to’ guys, or in local parlance ‘champions’, for a specific set of skills or experience, but constantly fail to live up to the position entrusted upon them, either shirking responsibility, delegating others to perform odious tasks, or making excuses to dilly-dally. This, to me, isn’t merely a PEEVE, rather a PESTILENCE. These are toxic colleagues who bring down the morale of the whole team, and are often a hot topic of discussion among culprits of the no 2. pet peeve: Constant complainers. Lazy or irresponsible workers/leaders are a social and occupational hazard in any office, not a trifling annoyance along the line of loud typers or mothers who mollycoddle their kids over the phone. The worst sort of colleagues are really those who are an insufferable combination of the two major peeves of ‘laziness’ and ‘sycophant i.e bosses’ favourite’.

Here’s my own list of office peeves:

1. People who print hundreds of copies of documents while you’re waiting in queue just to print one.

2. People who short-form Best Regards to BR in email

3. Complicated phone handling instructions (call forwarding, recording voice message, retrieving voice mail)

4. Having to change passwords every 60 days

5. Having to correct your bosses’ horrible grammar

6. People who interrupt when you’re having a face to face conversation

7. Track changes in Word documents

8. People who use FYAP, FYIA, or any ‘For Your’ acronyms extending beyond four letters. FYIWTFS (FYI, WTF, seriously)

9. People who ask you to resend them emails because they can’t be bothered to archive their inbox or even think of  search tags

10. Horrible laughter

11. Email trails longer than a script for a short film.

12. A birthday card from the CEO with your name spelled wrong

A similar survey was conducted 4 years ago by Mediacorp’s Media Research Consultants in 2007.

The street poll, conducted at office hotspots Raffles Place, Suntec City and the Orchard Road belt, netted responses from 306 people: 150 comprised males, 113 were below 30 years old and 156 were aged 30 to 49.

Apart from loud talkers, another two top pet peeves were gossiping and people trying to avoid work. In fourth and fifth positions were people peering over one’s shoulder to read what was on one’s monitor, and public reprimands at work, respectively.

Perhaps the advent of instant messaging led to the decline of loud talking or gossiping as pet peeves, with most bitching happening online, though at the risk of not just background surveillance, but people ‘peering over your shoulder’. Such busybody-ness was common even in the desktop-less late eighties when people actually WROTE. Using a PEN. On PAPER.  And people faxed proper acknowledgment forms, signed and dated instead of replying ‘OK’ or ‘Approved’ through email. Lazy workers or bosses rank among the top scourges till this day,  a bane of any results-driven office culture, and HR departments everywhere need to take a long hard look at the survey results because of the number of genuine workers suffering under endorsed incompetence. Someone also needs to conduct a study on how sexy clothing affects work productivity (in particular absentee rate among men) before being judged by envious women as a peeve when it’s really, in light of all other disruptive peeves and provided it’s done in a tasteful manner, more of a pleasant distraction, some might even say motivation, than anything else.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2011, Complaining, Corporations, Dress sense | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Desmond Choo nominated for Alamak award

Posted on September 25, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Aware to give our award for sexism’, 25 Sept 2011, article by Jamie Ee Wen Wei, Sunday Times

It’s not an award to crow about. But Hougang grassroots adviser Desmond Choo looks set to clinch what is believed to be the country’s first sexism award, in ‘honour’ of a person or organisation that has done the greatest disservice to gender equality.

The award is the tongue-in-cheek brainchild of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware), which will dish it out on Oct 17 during its fundraising dinner at the Grand Hyatt Hotel to celebrate its 26th anniversary

…The sexism award, called the Alamak Award, has five nominees. Nominations were made by the public on Aware’s website over a six-week period that started last month.

Mr Choo, 33, who was the People’s Action Party’s candidate in Hougang in the May General Election, was criticised for being sexist when he made his maiden rally speech. During that speech, he recounted a meeting with an elderly Hougang resident who told him that choosing an MP is like choosing a wife.

‘If your wife is unable to cook, there’s no point. You must choose a wife who is able to look after you and do things for you,’ Mr Choo had said in recounting what the elderly man told him.

Besides Mr Choo, four organisations made the list. They are: the Singapore Obedient Wives Club; Singapore Airlines; the Singapore Armed Forces; and insurance company Great Eastern.

The ‘winner’ will be decided by an online vote, which started last Tuesday. It will end on Oct 7. Close to 60 per cent of the 600 votes cast have gone to Mr Choo. The Obedient Wives Club is second, with 33 per cent of the votes.

I Choo-Choo-Choose You

There’s nothing tongue-in-cheek about this award, unlike the much feted ‘Razzies’, a satirical spin-off  of the Oscars; it’s more like stiletto-in-crotch. This isn’t a Worst Dressed List, which ‘winners’ can simply ignore. The ‘Alamak’ award is an accusation and potentially damaging to one’s reputation, and you can’t attend it just to be a ‘sport’ unless you are a glutton for humiliation. Before tossing it around to random voters to take potshots, it’s only fair that AWARE chooses its nominees carefully in order to minimise bias. So it’s no surprise that Desmond Choo, recently blasted for being embroiled in the PA fiasco and being the only PAP nominee, or INDIVIDUAL, in the list, is in the lead considering that ‘how sexist you are’ is determined by anonymous voters clicking a button in a poll. Not only will he secure the votes of disgruntled housewives but both sexes of the anti-PAP camp as well.

Here’s a look at the other AWARE nominees to see why Desmond Choo will score a landslide victory, unlike the outcome of his Hougang campaign.

1) Obedient Wives Club

2) SAF ‘Our Army, My Boyfriend’ ad

3) Singapore Airlines employment policies

4) Great Eastern ‘It’s Great to be a Woman’ ad

It’s worth noting that AWARE labels this as ‘Who scored the biggest FAIL in 2011′,  which is the sort of language gossipy teenagers use to describe celebrity fashion disasters. The remainder of the list suffers from the ‘dilution of responsibility’ effect. I mean, who’s going to accept the award for SAF if they did win? Desmond is seriously outplayed here only because he’s a public figure, when the people directly accountable for the sexist ads (scriptwriter, marketing director?) were spared from embarrassment. Why wasn’t he put under the umbrella term ‘PAP’, which by the way, has a cabinet made up COMPLETELY of males (much to AWARE’s disappointment), or perhaps Desmond is just the unlucky scapegoat cum whipping boy for AWARE’s general dissatisfaction with the dearth of female representation in Government?

But hold your horses, ladies. Does Desmond even deserve being labelled as sexist here? According to the article he was RELATING what an old Hougang resident told him. It’s not clear if Desmond actually agrees with the analogy, so why didn’t AWARE drag the resident into the list as well, just because he’s an old anonymous fogey who can say whatever he wants? Like most GE analogies, this one is flawed anyway. Unlike a wife, you don’t have to LOVE your MP, and it’s easier to ‘divorce’ your MP every 5 years if you feel like it. The point both parties were trying to make here is not that ‘women should all be Nigella Lawsons’, but that MPs must have the necessary  ‘skills’ to run a GRC before you ‘marry’ them. Using a sexist analogy for political gain just isn’t the same as actually ‘advocating’ that women pamper their husbands with sex, which was what the OWC set out to do. Call him insensitive all you want, but to plant a trophy on his head  without digging deeper is unnecessary, frivolous, in bad taste, but more importantly, it’s not even funny.

Though I agree with the choices for SAF and the OWC, here are some more deserving nominees  for 2011 than those shortlisted by AWARE.

Filed under: 2011, Campaigns/Elections, Marriage, Politicians, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Women are better drivers than men

Posted on September 11, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Lady driver:Women are just better drivers’, 11 Sept 2011, article by Tan Mae Lynn, TNP

Let’s be honest. We’re better drivers and you know it.

We women are just more modest (usually) and don’t have epic egos to battle with. Self-assured is what you can call us.

One reason why we’re better drivers is that we have better temperaments – which is why insurance companies offer lower premiums to women drivers.

The tired stereotype that is the ‘woman driver’ still makes its rounds on our congested roads today whenever we see someone hogging traffic. Our gut reaction would be to assume that it’s either a woman driver or  an old man, and Lord help us if it’s a grandmother at the wheel. Driving is a favourite pop psychology test to study sex differences because unlike other one-dimensional tests like reading maps or finding a way out of mazes, there are other specific abilities and traits which one could evaluate of each sex  from behind the wheel. For example you could compare how often one speeds (risk-taking, aggression), how often one overtakes (spatial awareness, reflexes, risk-taking), how well one parks (spatial awareness) or even how often one blasts the horn (impatience, aggression). It also has implications on the male ego, because any study that proves that women are able to handle their favourite toys better than men themselves would send it crashing for sure.

The claim that ladies make ‘better’ drivers needs a definition of what ‘better’ means. Does it mean ‘safer’? If so, that would be summoning bland stereotypes like how women are naturally ‘protective’ of their passengers due to the ‘maternity instinct’, or less likely to fly into a rage and cut dangerously into others’ lanes (if you exclude the effect of PMS) because of their ‘temperament’.  Perhaps we should ask ourselves this question: If you were sick with fever and vomiting and needed to get to the hospital pronto with the least discomfort, and you had two friends willing to take you, one male, another female, who would you choose as your driver, assuming that you’ve never been a passenger in either car? Obviously the ‘better’ driver would get you there first without having to vacuum up your undigested lunch later. In this instance, ‘better’ means achieving an optimal balance between speed and smoothness. An excessively cautious driver might as well take you to the morgue, a panicky one with brake-happy feet would make you wish you were dead.

Here’s a look at the how perceptions of women drivers have changed over the years:

In 1937, a contributing writer to the ST Mrs Richard C.H Lim admitted that her own gender is, ‘as a rule, not certain of herself’, and ‘inclined to hesitate, to make quite certain, and therein lies the danger, not just to herself but others’. On the other hand a woman ‘certain of herself flies along the road at top speed..expects everyone to give way to her..doesn’t bother about giving correct road signals. She may not be a bad driver, but she is very often a selfish one.’ (Woman drivers -Says a Woman, won’t give their mind to the job, 14 Oct 1937, ST)

By 1956, women drivers became rather commonplace and it marked the beginning of Singaporean ladies making confident strides into the male domain of motoring. According to one ST reporter, women are generally ‘more careful and hence less accident-prone’. They also ‘seldom take risks as men do, and they drive at a slower pace’ (Women at the wheel, 19 Jan 1956, ST). It was also the same decade where we saw our first female driving instructor (1953) and  taxi-driver (1959), a milestone for Women’s Lib in a pre-independence Singapore.

The assumption that females were more ‘trusted’ at the wheel continued into the late 70s, with a former police inspector declaring in a survey that women tend not to speed. Which led to the General Insurance Association of Singapore to conclude in 1987 that based on women’s ‘statistical’ track record of ‘safer driving’, they would pay lower premiums for motor insurance, penalising ‘frequent travelling professional males’ who may actually be safer than less seasoned women drivers BECAUSE they drove more frequently.

All perceptions of women being dainty, speed-limit-obeying, do-gooders behind the wheel were laid to rest with the emergence of our very own female racer for Red Bull Rookies earlier this year, Emmiline Ang. We even have our own all-female Go-Karting race team CTMC2, proving once and for all that the adrenaline-laced world of motor-sports is no longer the exclusive arena of the boys anymore.

So the  jury is still out as to whether women are indeed better drivers than men. In general they do seem to be less accident-prone,  although that would merely be a flipside of slowness or wishy-washiness, but low accident rates could also be an artifact as the majority of road users and hence people getting into accidents are still men. Even then, safer doesn’t necessarily mean better (it inevitably means ‘slower’), depending on what the situation calls for. I think it would be fair to both sexes to compromise and state that there are a FEW women drivers who are better than MOST men.  Likewise there would be a FEW men who are worse drivers than MOST women.

Filed under: 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s, 2011, Motorists, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

LKY wants PhD girl to get a boyfriend

Posted on September 9, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘My mind was a total blank’, 8 Sept 2011, article by Koh Hui Theng, New Paper

SHE had a burning question for former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew last night. Given the big influx of immigrants here in a short time, and a dilution of the national identity, what can we do to create a sense of belonging and foster social cohesiveness, she asked.

Singaporean Joan Sim, 27, a PhD student at Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) School of Biological Sciences, thought it was a straightforward query and expected an equally direct reply.

…Following her question, Mr Lee spoke about the fast ageing population. That, plus the drop in the fertility rate, are major worries for Singapore’s leaders.

Last year, the total fertility rate – which measures the average number of children born to a woman over her childbearing years – was at an all-time low of 1.15. Mr Lee said: “The birth rate today, the fertility rate, is 1.01. In other words, for every couple, you have 1.01 babies.

…“How old are you now?” he wanted to know. “Twenty-seven,” she replied.

The queries came thick and fast: Are you married? (No) When will you finish your PhD? (In two years) So you’ll be 29 then. Do you have a boyfriend? (No) That was when Mr Lee drew attention to the biological clock and a woman’s child-bearing years. After 35 (years old), the dangers of having children with Down syndrome rises, he said.

“My advice, please don’t waste time. I hope you get your PhD and your boyfriend,” he added.

The audience laughed loudly. Miss Sim turned red. She told The New Paper: “It was very, very embarrassing. At that moment, I wanted to hug myself and disappear.

“My mind turned into a total blank when he started asking those questions.”

It was a case of an NTU forum intended for intelligent and insightful discussion turned into a Chinese New Year reunion dinner grilling session writ large. Of course it’s normal for old people to have such simplistic views of romance and marriage, but LKY threatening and publicly humiliating a brave and smart woman reveals a deep, gnawing agenda for educated single women which he has been espousing since 1983. The reason for this ‘kah-poh’-ish enthusiasm is simple enough, that this is a woman with a PhD, letting her smart genes go to painful waste. Though he did not specify that Joan should marry a man of equal stature, his staunch Darwinian beliefs turned eugenics worshiping reared its ugly head in a National Day Rally 28 years ago, when he blamed the future dip in our talent pool on educated women choosing to have less children, or none at all (Get Hitched!..and don’t stop at one, 15 Aug 1983, ST)

…PM sees depletion of talent pool in 25 years unless better educated wed and have more children. Think about it, says the Prime Minister: If you are well educated, it is your DUTY to get married and have children.

…”For every two graduates, there will be one graduate, and for every two uneducated workers, there will be three…We will be unable to maintain our present standards..Levels of competence will decline. Our economy will falter, the administration will suffer, and society will decline (Full text on LKY’s speech here).

Such mechanistic ideas on social engineering led to the sterilisation incentive scheme in 1984, just a year after he made the above speech, in an ambitious ‘God-playing’ attempt to keep the ‘uneducated malaise’ in check. 25 years on and we know such tactics have not only failed miserably, but probably backfired and made the situation worse, with the influx of immigrants used as an excuse to buffer this ‘talent pool’. But no one would dare bring up the past without having the ISD come by with an invitation to a chit-chat session over tea the next morning. What LKY didn’t take into account in his back-of-the-envelope calculations, is that even our imported ‘talent’ aren’t staying here long enough to relieve the brain drain, especially in the realm of scientific expertise. Not to mention our homegrown talents deciding to apply their skills elsewhere, which makes LKY’s hard mathematical logic as useful as recruiting more rain-dancers to summon  showers to relieve a drought, when the real problem lies in the very soil of our harvest.

Incidentally LKY’s only daughter Lee Wei Ling is still single and she’s more than half a century old, and if Joan wanted to get even she could have rebutted the old man on his own failure to ‘harvest’ at least one more graduate grandchild out of his stubbornly single daughter, though I suspect the real reason why Lee Wei Ling never married, other than personal choice and the fact that she looks like a teenage boy, is because no man in his right mind would ever want LKY as his father-in-law, even if the old man were undisputed King of the Land and needed an heir to the throne.

Here’s what Wei Ling shared on remaining single (Why I  choose to remain single, 9 Sept 2009, ST)

…I had my first date when I was 21 years old. He was a doctor in the hospital ward I was posted to. We went out to a dinner party. I noted that the other guests were all rich socialites .

I dropped him like a hot potato. In 2005 , while on an African safari with a small group of friends, one of them, Professor C. N. Lee, listed the men who had tried to woo me. There were three besides the first.

Two were converted into friends and another, like the first, was dropped. I am now 54 years old and happily single. In addition to my nuclear family, I have a close circle of friends.

Most of my friends are men. But my reputation is such that their female partners would never consider me a threat. More than 10 years ago, when there was still a slim chance I might have got married, my father told me: “Your mother and I could be selfish and feel happy that you remain single and can look after us in our old age. But you will be lonely.”

Lee Wei Ling’s luck with eligible equals is living proof that LKY’s call for graduates to go forth and multiply is easier said than done. Joan shouldn’t take such teasing to heart and just treat it with the same pinch of salt as one would regard the self-indulgent proselytizing  of a granduncle with too much time and experience on his hands, that it’s not all unmarried graduate women’s fault that we’re facing a fertility crisis. Singaporeans, in general, are just not having much sex at all. Meanwhile, we’re hearing more coming out of LKY’s restless mouth than any other politician since his retirement. Someone get the man a job. Anything except Minister Matchmaker, please.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2011, Babies, Marriage, Politicians, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Kebaya for beauty pageants instead of swimsuits

Posted on August 6, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Beauty queens and too much skin’, 6 Aug 2011, Mailbag, Life!

(Musliha Ajmain Janssen):…I would not presume to know whose idea it was to include the swimsuit in the beauty pagents but from what I have learnt, it is more than just about showing off one’s best figure.

In Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and Northern Europe where the climate is usually cold, women do not get a lot of chances to wear a swimsuit. When the seasons change and they do get the chance, it is a very big deal, which is why they call it the ‘swimsuit season’. Furthermore, most of them do not have easy access to the beach.

Women there also vary in body shapes (Italian and Spanish women are known to be more curvaceous) which makes watching the competition a lot of more interesting compared to Singapore, where most of the contestants are naturally thin.

Singapore’s climate enables swimsuit wear at any time of the day…so I fail to understand the point of the swimsuit category other than to merely follow the beauty pageant formula…For example, a kebaya would be a good way for the contestants to show off their figures…A kebaya shows off as much, if not more, than a swimsuit does.

This fuss over swimsuits and sexism comes in the wake of organisers of Miss S’pore World 2011 proposing to remove this category altogether, which would surely spell the downfall of the beauty pageant as we know it. Nothing but words being minced around here, with the writer’s final argument being self-defeating because instead of focusing on talent and intelligence as would be the typical stance of feminist swimsuit naysayers, she recommends instead body hugging kebayas as an excuse to ‘show off as much, if not more’ than a normal swimsuit does, though I fail to see how this is possible unless you’re talking about transparent kebayas.

Well to each his own, and call it sexist if you will, but what all men want to see is a teasing flesh parade, not SIA stewardesses on a catwalk. Bikinis are simple and almost anyone with a stunning figure will look good in it, but choose the wrong kebaya and you risk looking like a Nyonya grandmother. What’s left unspoken here, and in fact everywhere else,  is that bikinis don’t just signal figure or complexion, it is also a dead giveaway of bust size, something that kebayas can easily  conceal, or enhance. And no one can deny the harsh fact that being well-endowed does help in the overall scoring for this segment, and hence overall chance of success.

It’s also baffling to say swimsuit contests are unnecessary because Singaporean women get to wear these at any time of the day, as if it were office attire. This is Singapore, Ms Janssen, not Club Med. A woman looking good in a bikini on a beach is as rare a find as one who dazzles in a kebaya on the streets. But the horrible truth is this, men don’t gawk at women in just bikinis anymore. With the internet and Photoshop, nothing is left to the male imagination. We’re not interested in women putting on a sexy show for the sake of it. We’re interested in the context in which their sexiness is presented. A paparazzi shot of an otherwise conservative actress in swimwear intrigues us, whether or not she has a good figure.  But line up smiling bikini-clad women in a contest and asking of a selection like wares at a slave market and you’ve lost our attention.

Although removing the swimsuit category, or anything hinting at nudity from beauty pageants, may encourage more smart, talented, even chubby women otherwise averse to exposing their bodies to sign up for Miss Universe and the like, what’s the point if no one’s interested?  From a purely commercial perspective then, swimsuit contests are a necessary evil, if only for the minority of men who haven’t yet discovered the internet or prefer to snap shots of Miss World in the flesh at shopping malls.

Swimsuit contests in 1954

1965

Still in one piece in 1988

2010

Filed under: 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 2010, 2011, Beauty pageants, Ms Singapore Universe, Nudity, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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