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With little fanfare, Singapore now has two women in national leadership as
Ministers of State, and a third in local government as one
of the five mayors.
The absence of excitement can be read as a sign of maturity.
Women in top positions are no longer deemed newsworthy by
virtue of their rarity value.
In accordance with the well-established principle of meritocracy,
it is the capability of the individual that matters, not the
gender.
Since there are women capable of doing the job, then their
getting it should be a matter of course. Yet, despite almost
40 years of close-to-equal opportunity in education, and the
steady increase in workforce participation, women remain a
small minority in leadership positions.
The high profile of the few women who are there hides the
fact that their male counterparts remain far more numerous.
Something seems to be holding back the advancement of women.
And that stumbling block seems to revolve around the issue
of maternity.
There are two interrelated attitudes at play.
The first is to place motherhood on a pedestal, to hold it
sacred and wondrous and powerful, and therefore, all that
any woman would want for complete satisfaction and meaning
in life.
The second is that procreation is an inconvenience which
interrupts economically-productive work.
Employers do not like it, but have to put up with it. It
interrupts women's career advancement and contributes to the
gender wage gap.
Both ascribe primacy to a single biological function in the
female, and circumscribe her potential in other domains.
Neither acknowledges that while it may take the male partner
no more than a few minutes and the female rather longer to
produce an offspring, it is a joint enterprise.
There is implicit denial of the fact that shared rewards
and responsibilities of parenthood go far beyond insemination,
pregnancy and delivery, and is a life-long affair. It is as
unfair to under-rate the father's role as it is to overstate
the mother's.
Flattery notwithstanding, pedestals are dangerous and any
woman accepts a position on one at her own peril.
By definition, they are narrow spaces with little room for
movement - from which it is all too easy to fall. Much better
to be on level ground to access the entire playing field.
As for the attitude which regards maternity as an inconvenient
interruption to the business of business, this could be at
least one of the root causes of our low birth rate.
We should not be surprised that economic imperatives guide
personal choices as well as national policies.
As long as these attitudes prevail, any increase in maternity
leave will raise concerns about possible prejudice against
women in the workforce.
Work life strategies will be counted as a deterrent to unenlightened
employers, who continue to be part of the problem. As part
of the solution, a fundamental revision of the attitudes towards
parenting will be required.
One expression of such a change in attitude would be paternity
leave that goes beyond taking a few days to bond with the
infant and support the nursing mother.
Women can go back to work when they are ready, while the
father takes the next nine months or more to take primary
responsibility for the home and childcare. Give men, as well
as women, the options available in flexible work arrangements
to look after their children.
This is already being done in Scandinavian countries, which
have successfully reversed declining fertility. And where
women's contributions to national leadership is truly a matter
of course.
The writer is a former president of the Association of Women
for Action and Research (Aware). Do you have a view on this
comment? If so, e-mail Today at news@newstoday.com.sg.
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