2013 Archives

The health of older women matters!

By Rachel Pullen, Vivienne Wee and Nadzirah Samsudin

Is it possible that gender stereotyping leads to social neglect of older women’s health? Is it also possible that some of the older women internalise such gender stereotypes, leading them not to prioritise their own health? When they do choose to attend to their health needs, do they experience any economic hindrance?

The World Health Organisation marks 7 April as World Health Day. The focus this year is on the identification and treatment of high blood pressure (hypertension). Worldwide, figures indicate that above the age of 60, more women than men are likely to suffer from high blood pressure. The reverse is true at younger ages.

A 2005 survey of Singaporeans aged over 55 shows that women have a higher rate of hypertension than men in this age group. The Singapore Heart Foundation (2011) also shows a higher rate of death due to cerebro-vascular disease in women than in men.

Hypertension is easily diagnosed and treated, yet WHO statistics show that worldwide, more than 1 in 3 adults have hypertension, resulting in more than 9 million deaths annually.

A local study shows that as many as 70 per cent of older Singaporeans have hypertension. Of these, 30 per cent were unaware of their condition and 30 per cent were not being treated. The difficulty often lies in identifying the problem, as hypertension may be asymptomatic and only picked up by chance or on routine screening. Untreated hypertension can lead to stroke, heart attack, kidney disease, visual problems and blindness. A 2010 study published in the Annals Academy of Medicine Singapore reports that among low-income residents in Taman Jurong Constituency, the top reason given for non-participation in regular health screenings was that it is ‘too expensive’, although this is not disaggregated based on gender. Nevertheless, more females than males are not regularly screened for hypertension. Screening packages can cost from $300 upwards, with use of Medisave available only for mammograms or colonoscopies.

Is it possible that gender stereotyping leads to social neglect of older women’s health? Is it also possible that some of the older women internalise such gender stereotypes, leading them not to prioritise their own health? When they do choose to attend to their health needs, do they experience any economic hindrance?

Women’s health issues are often defined in terms of fertility and reproductive health – a bias that leads to neglect of women past the age of fertility. However, heart disease is the leading cause of death in women. According to Singapore’s National University Heart Centre, cardiovascular disease claims the lives of eight times more women than breast cancer does in Singapore. Renal failure is another health problem arising from hypertension that affects many older women. In 2006, it was reported that half of the number of Singaporeans with end-stage renal disease were over the age of 60.

Apart from increasing age, lower socio-economic status and obesity are also correlated with raised blood pressure. Data from 2005 show that for women aged 55 and above, less than half had their own income, as compared to three-quarters of men in the same age group. Statistics also show that only about 7 percent of elderly women have Medisave, with more women (65%) than men (44%) relying on their children’s Medisave. Furthermore, those above the age of 90 are not covered by Medishield, despite rising life expectancy.

An analysis of healthy life expectancy in 187 countries reveals that while female life expectancy in Singapore in 2010 is 83.3, 13.3 years were spent in ill health. In contrast, male life expectancy in Singapore in 2010 is 78.8, with 10.7 years in ill health.

Women are often seen as primary caregivers. The Ministry of Manpower reported that 68 percent of women who are not in the workforce identify caregiving responsibilities as the reason for not doing paid work. Consequently, they do not have enough Medisave to fund their healthcare costs, a situation that deters women from seeking medical attention, especially for hypertension, which needs long-term treatment.

The prevalence of hypertension within the community underscores the importance of early detection. AWARE is heartened by the efforts of the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and the Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF) in increasing its community outreach. SHF’s Go Red for Women campaign encourages women to take charge of their heart health, while HPB reaches out to the elderly and encourages them to have regular health checks. Significantly, HPB’s one-stop functional screening programme led to a fourfold post-screening follow-up rate in 2011.

More attention needs to be given to older women’s health, especially those with lower incomes. The health of older women is linked crucially to the health of their families. A healthy older woman is a contributing member of family and society. But an older woman who has suffered a stroke or a heart attack needs care to be given by younger family members, mostly women.

As Singapore evolves into an increasingly inclusive society, we need to realise our interconnected well-being. No one’s health should be treated as expendable on the basis of age, gender, class, ethnicity or any other marker of difference.

Rachel Pullen is a volunteer at AWARE. Vivienne Wee is the Research and Advocacy Director at AWARE. Nadzirah Samsudin is the Research and Advocacy Executive at AWARE. A shorter version of this article was first published in TODAY on 8 April 2013 (no longer online).

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Donates $250,000 to AWARE

The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, has donated $250,000 to AWARE. This donation will go a long way to achieving AWARE’S mission to eliminate all gender based barriers in Singapore. Of which, the funds will be set aside to bolster AWARE’s Support and Sexual Assault Befrienders Services, and to fund our We Can! End All Violence Against Women Campaign.

The Temple, known for its philanthropic work, has been an active contributor to social, educational causes and arts in Singapore. Particularly, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple which has been supported AWARE since 1997, has donated large sum of money to support and enhance AWARE’s Support Services since 2008. The tremendous growth of our Support Services and programmes 0ver the past 3 years, has been made possible from generous funding by the temple. To date, our initiatives have helped more than 8,500 women and their families.

In 2011, the temple donated a sum of $170,000 to AWARE, which has gone to bolstering AWARE’s Support Services in terms of staffing capacity and allowing staff to manage a higher number of calls. These measures have a direct impact on the four designated programs under our Support Services – Helpline, Counselling Services, Befrienders Service, and the Legal Clinic. The number of calls has since increased by 73.41%, in comparison to figures taken in 2007. Counselling cases have since multiplied five times, and Legal Clinic cases taken on by AWARE have doubled in the same period of time. The funding has not only allowed us to increase our resources in managing demand, but have also improved the quality of Support Services, of which an average of 86.5% of the women deemed these services as satisfactory.

In 2012, generous donations from the temple have supported AWARE in efforts to reach out to the Chinese speaking community. Through the introduction of its first Mandarin Helpline training course, we are hopeful that the increased pool of Mandarin speaking helpliners will meet growing needs from the community.

This year, the funds will be used to improve existing Support Services facilities, and to increase the capacity of the Sexual Assault Befriender’s Service (SABS). Funds will also be channeled towards the We Can! End All Violence against Women Campaign. This campaign marks the 21st anniversary of our helpline, and the donation will go into training ‘Change Makers’ to advocate against gender violence in Singapore, and in promoting advocacy efforts primarily through the use of drama.

The Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, located at Waterloo Street, is the one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Singapore, having been built in 1884. Its philanthropic activities can be traced to the early 20th century, where the temple provided shelter for the sick, wounded, and homeless during the second world war. It continues to contribute to causes that support the needy and the disadvantaged, amongst which, bursaries given to needy students have allowed many to continue pursuing their studies. Amongst its notable contributions is the $15 million donation to the National Kidney Foundation in 2000. The temple is also a regular presence and partner to the annual President’s Challenge.

As a patron of the arts, the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple has been used as the site for the works of several artists during the Singapore Biennale in 2006. To date, the temple is a significant aspect of Singapore’s rich cultural heritage, having been designated as a historical site by the National Heritage Board in 2001.

Once again, we would like to thank Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple for its generous donations that will help women in need.

“Pro-Family” Policies Need Rethinking (Part 2)

AWARE Board Member Teo You Yenn discusses why we need bolder moves for a more inclusive society.

Read Part 1 of this interview here.

PART 2: THE STATE, FAMILY AND FERTILITY

The announcement of the enhanced Marriage & Parenthood Package in January this year has stirred a lot of discussion and debate around the direction of Singapore’s pronatalist policies, the intrusion of the state into fertility decisions and the unequal right to support for parenthood that current policies reflect.

Is one week of paternity leave enough? Should support for parenthood be extended to some parents, but not others? Do short-term financial incentives like the Baby Bonus work? Who gains, and who loses out from these benefits?

We ask AWARE Board Member and Assistant Professor of Sociology at NTU, Dr Teo You Yenn, where we might be going wrong, and what it takes to really be “pro-family”.

The government has introduced a slew of measures under the new Marriage and Parenthood Package in an attempt to boost Singapore’s declining birth rate. This includes the introduction of paternity leave. What is your take on this step?

One week of paternity leave is certainly a big improvement from nothing. But people who have been around babies will know that there is a lot of learning involved in taking care of them. Also, there is a lot of labour involved for the first years of a child’s life. You cannot become competent within a week.

I think we now have a situation where many men want to be more involved in their children’s lives, want to be there for everyday care, but their circumstances do not allow it.

The lopsided leave structures solidify the sense that women should be the ones to make the decisions about how to balance work and family. It may also lead to women of childbearing age being less attractive as employees.

The Parenthood Priority Scheme has been introduced to guarantee a flat for young families – do you think this is incentive enough for couples to want to have children / have children earlier?

While the Parenthood Priority Scheme might enable those who are already oriented toward marrying and having children to do so, we should hope it will not incentivise them to do so!

We want people to be making decisions responsibly. Given its gravity, I don’t think it’s responsible to make a big decision like having a kid based on a few material incentives. I think in general, Singaporeans are in fact quite responsible about their fertility decisions.

The government’s aim through the new parenthood measures is to increase the total fertility rate from the current 1.28-1.3 to 1.4-1.5. From a Sociologist’s perspective, do you think this is achievable?

We know that fertility rates have been decreasing for more than two decades, coinciding almost perfectly with our pro-natalist policies. That is quite strong evidence that the pro-natalist policies have had very little effect. If they are to achieve the ostensible aims of earlier marriage and higher fertility, the measures must move towards creating a set of social conditions where people can envision themselves and their loved ones leading secure and fulfilling lives.

Such a shift in societal conditions would have to go beyond changing the immediate financial circumstances of young couples thinking of marriage and children. Cash handouts like the Baby Bonus, for example, may temporarily alleviate the financial burdens of couples who are already considering having children, but have not been effective in shifting fertility trends, or persuading those who aren’t considering starting a family to do so.

So the answer to that question depends on some radical rethinking about social conditions, including costs of living, but also aspirations, opportunities, inequalities and feelings of community.

Thus far, I have not seen radical solutions. In fact, the measures continue to emphasize very narrow criteria and very individualized solutions that encourage people to think in terms of “what’s in it for me” and to experience their decisions as very lonely ones that they have to make and bear in isolation.

The new measures are aimed at young, heterosexual couples who are married and employed. Doesn’t this leave out a huge segment of the population who could be parents or are considering parenthood?

How about older couples who are still looking to have children, single parents, stay-at-home parents or same-sex couples?

Social policy should enable a range of arrangements and practices to be truly inclusive. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and if we want to build a society where people care for each other, then policies have to be based on similarities between citizens, rather than differences and a sense of ‘differentiated deservedness’. Policies that single out certain groups of people and their choices as “desirable”, while marginalising others, should go.

If we protect only a single group’s rights to access support for caregiving, we create in our society divisions and conflicts of interest, as well as the sense that there are more and less valuable citizens, who accordingly deserve more and less support.

Some people see women’s career focus as a hindrance to fertility. What are your thoughts?

Human beings are complex and capable–we don’t have to limit ourselves to being one thing, and certainly do not need to be just one thing throughout our life course. What we need is to enable people to be caregivers and wage-earners, to be nurturers and professionals, in ways that match with their training, talents and sensibilities rather than with their sex categories. And they don’t necessarily have to be everything at a given stage in life.

Our current conditions are unforgiving towards people who try to do multiple things at the same time andalso unforgiving toward people who choose to focus on one thing (in that they find it hard to switch later on in life and are deprived of benefits pegged to certain roles).

If you look at education, we have made many gains as a nation. One of the significant gains is to ensure that we do not only tap on the talents and potentials of half the population. It is very positive and valuable, not just for individual women, but for society as a whole, that women can now excel in the formal economic realm.

On the other hand, we have stalled in terms of shifts in the workplace and the roles of men as fathers. That is where change needs to happen so that the gains we have made in women’s education can be fully realized.

The PAP’s women’s wing has made some suggestions to promote a pro-family work culture in Singapore in a bid to get more mothers to rejoin the workforce. Is this the right direction?

The focus cannot be on mothers alone. A culture that focuses on women’s roles as mothers is not the same thing as a pro-family culture. A culture that recognizes and supports people when they have to take care of various members of their families – spouses, children, siblings, aunts, parents, nephews and nieces – that is a pro-family culture.

At the end of the day, having children is a personal choice. Do you think state should intervene so much in fertility decisions?

The “choices” we make are made within specific social contexts, not in social vacuums. The kind of children we raise, like it or not, will shape our society of the future. So having children, is not, in fact just a personal choice.

The state – as a representation of society – has the responsibility of creating enabling conditions so that people can lead the lives they want. That should be at the core of its interventions–providing conditions that enable, and that enable across the board – regardless of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, marital status, and so on.

If it approaches with these principles in mind – principles of enabling all members of society to live good lives, then it will need to rethink the constraining effects of current measures. Importantly, precisely because having children is not just a personal matter, there is a major responsibility for civil society to continually insert ourselves into the conversation, to stake our claim on matters that so profoundly affect all of us.

On You Yenn:

Why did you decide to join AWARE?

I volunteer my time because I think at AWARE is a great organization, where passionate and principled people come together, and where we become more than the sum of our parts. I believe that to make a difference, collective action is necessary.

Everyone in any society has a responsibility to think about what could make their world a better place. The reality of life, however, is that not everyone has the luxury of free time, stable income, supportive family members, and access to groups of likeminded people. I have these privileges; it is my responsibility to try to make a difference in what limited ways I can.

What do you find rewarding about being at AWARE?

One of the important things I have learnt at AWARE is that diversity is something that must be actively embraced. We do not treat diversity like you would lights from oncoming traffic – by looking away. Instead, we have numerous and robust, sometimes combative, debates.

We bring to the table diverse experiences, training, outlook–and we use our differences to produce new ideas, to generate ideals and practices that far transcend what we can achieve as individuals. In other words, we treat diversity not as something to be tolerated, but something to be embraced, worked through, and ultimately utilized.

How Stiglitz undermines Singapore’s struggles

By Teo You Yenn

People who care about Singapore should reject this cheap thrill. Americans who care about reform in their case, on the other hand, should not be thrown off by the use of a case that is in fact closer to theirs than to genuinely desirable alternatives.

Joseph Stiglitz’s commentary in The New York Times, “Singapore’s Lessons for an Unequal America” (March 18, 2013), promptly republished in The Straits Times, does great disservice to both Singaporeans and Americans.

Kirsten Han astutely points out in an article in Quartz, “Joseph Stiglitz’s Singapore is hardly the one I grew up in” (March 19, 2013), that Singapore’s Gini coefficient ranks among the highest among developed countries; that exploitable migrant labor has allowed employers to suppress wages; that workers’ rights to collective action are curtailed; and the “individual responsibility” to save, so lauded by Stiglitz, has led to tremendous burdens for Singaporeans.

In overlooking these basic empirical facts about the Singapore case, Stiglitz misrepresents the realities of inequality in Singapore and the profound costs it has entailed for social wellbeing.

Burmese protest in Singapore — Photo courtesy of The Singapore Rebel

More importantly, because he speaks from a position of great authority and legitimacy—a Nobel laureate economist—his misrepresentation undermines Singaporeans’ ongoing struggles for reform.

Inadvertently, Stiglitz’s willingness to gloss over the specificities and complexities of the case turns Singaporeans’ (not the Singaporean state’s) real and actual struggles for change into collateral damage. In making the claim that Singapore is a model for equality, he diminishes ongoing calls on the state to reform the welfare regime and address intensifying inequalities.

In praising, for example, the Central Provident Fund system for compelling individuals to save, Stiglitz affirms the Singapore state’s own claims that individuals should ultimately be responsible for themselves. As various members of civil society have pointed out in recent years, this individualized view of solutions leaves many needs unresolved and indeed generates significant inequalities across groups.

The healthcare system, heavily dependent as it is on individuals’ “responsibility” in ensuring lifelong employment and hence savings in their mandatory CPF accounts, disadvantages those who for various reasons are unable to have continuous and full employment. Because the CPF is tied to a given individual’s income, differentials in wages translate directly into unequal access.

At the Association of Women of Action and Research (AWARE), we have been particularly concerned with the ways in which women who do a great deal of unpaid domestic and care labor have greater difficulty accessing this basic need.

In contemporary Singapore, various civil society groups, scholars, and individual citizens have been calling on the state to reform the welfare regime to ensure social inclusion and curb intensifying inequality. Like Stiglitz, we are interested in comparing cases and drawing comparative lessons. We have come to rather different conclusions about “the Singapore model.”

Where Stiglitz places Singapore and the Nordic countries into the same category, we have pointed out the significant differences in both principles and outcomes. In support for children, for example, the Singapore model is strongly premised on women being responsible for decisions around fertility and children’s care, and men have limited rights to be caregivers.

tuition — Photo courtesy of The Kent Ridge Common

In education, while it is true indeed, as Stiglitz points out, that Singaporean kids test well, this has come about at significant cost on the part of certain classes of parents; that enrichment and tuition centers are a thriving business signals the large private investments going into education.

In considering reform, Americans would be better served by looking closely at social policies in various Scandinavian countries that do genuinely generate greater equality—across class or gender—as various scholars do in books such as Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (edited by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers).

From an outsider’s standpoint, the “Singapore as model” pitch is perhaps meant as praise. Given that Singaporeans often have to read about chewing gum and caning as if these alone define our nation, reading a positive piece in the New York Times about Singapore can evoke some nationalist feel-good sentiments (and no doubt readers noticed when Stiglitz praised his Singaporean students as some of his brightest).

Yet, the empirical failings of the piece are harmful. People who care about Singapore should reject this cheap thrill. Americans who care about reform in their case, on the other hand, should not be thrown off by the use of a case that is in fact closer to theirs than to genuinely desirable alternatives. Given ongoing debates, disagreements and struggles regarding the futures we want, and given the tensions in worldviews that exist between state and society and within society, the rush to declare Singapore as a coherent and stable model to be emulated undermines the very project to reform.

Teo You Yenn is a board member at AWARE, Assistant Professor in Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, and author of the book Neoliberal Morality in Singapore: How family policies make state and society (Routledge, 2011). This article was first published in TODAY Voices on 27 March 2013. Read the published version here.

“Pro-Family” Policies Need Rethinking (Part 1)

AWARE Board Member Teo You Yenn discusses why we need bolder moves for a more inclusive society.

PART 1: SUPPORT FOR SINGLE PARENTS

It was recently announced that single, unwed parents will now be entitled to the same childcare and infant care leave benefits as their married counterparts. Single fathers will also enjoy paternity leave. This is a step forward – a sign that the state and society are starting to recognise the rights of all parents, regardless of their marital status. But while it is encouraging that the state has lessened the prejudice against single parents and their children, we would like all forms of discrimination to be removed.

Why are steps towards just and progressive policies so modest? Many structural barriers to parenthood unfortunately remain in Singapore. We ask AWARE Board Member and Assistant Professor of Sociology at NTU, Dr Teo You Yenn, why it’s important to make bolder policy moves towards a more equal and inclusive society that is pro-family, rather than pro-a-certain-kind-of-family.

What measures should the government introduce to help single parents and their children?

The measures AWARE recommends do not require special treatment of single parents, but the removal of existing discrimination against divorced, widowed, but especially “never-married” people. To access a variety of public goods – full maternity leave, housing, the Baby Bonus scheme, and parenthood tax benefits – marriage is a precondition. This puts single people, particularly never-married mothers, in difficult positions. These parents and their children are members of our society – it goes against the principles of equality and inclusion to neglect their needs.

In many EU countries, the trend in terms of support for children is to frame support in terms of the rights of children. This makes a lot of sense ethically as well as socially and economically. Ethically, all members of our society, including children, should have access to the same public goods. Why should they have more or less depending on their parents’ practices?

From an economic point of view, if children are future workers, then we should give them all the same opportunities from which to begin so as to maximize their human potential. From a social point of view, if we are to view children as future citizens who will contribute in a variety of ways to the wellbeing of our society, then ensuring that they have the same levels of support, regardless of their family backgrounds, is not only sensible but crucial to the good of our society.

Do the recent Budget announcements do enough to help single parents? Why or why not?

We welcome the Budget’s commitment to reducing income inequalities and promoting social mobility. We support the attention to increase wages and address the needs of the elderly. However, we would have liked to see more direct attention to caregivers. As it stands, Singaporeans’ access to public goods depends heavily on continuous employment throughout one’s life. This is more difficult for people who have caregiving responsibilities either for the young or elderly members of their families. Most of this care labour is done by women. The single women among this group will have especially heavy burdens since they do not have spousal support to fall back on. Public goods channelled primarily through the CPF results in systematic neglect of caregivers. To do more, the Budget must look beyond employment.

Caregiving work is crucial in all societies. As human beings, we are all dependent on others for care at some point in our lives; without care, we cannot carry out any of the other activities that contribute to society’s wellbeing, including paid employment. Public spending must recognize and support this and not see it as peripheral and secondary to economic activities. And the support we as members of a public provide cannot be limited to narrow groups.

How do you feel about single parents being denied benefits that married parents are entitled to?

Single parents should not be discriminated against. Discrimination is detrimental to building an inclusive society where members of society feel mutual obligations and responsibilities toward each other. Therefore, we should support single mothers not just because we value children, but because we value all members of our society.

What are the benefits of providing the same social support for single parents?

The benefits of removing discrimination are numerous: we enable women and men who are single parents to participate as caregivers and /or workers; we ensure that children of single parents do not receive less access to public goods and therefore that there is more equality of opportunity; and we signal and begin to build a society where there is a deep ethos around equality and not differentiation.

Is there a downside to providing the same benefits to single parents?

One common claim to justify discrimination is that removing discrimination will encourage “lifestyle” choices of single parenthood. This is highly implausible. If one stops to think about how much effort, money and personal sacrifice is required for raising a child in contemporary Singapore, we know that raising children as single parents is very difficult. Ours is a situation where married couples with two incomes are limiting their fertility, not one where people will eagerly “choose” to raise children alone.

On You Yenn:

Can you tell our readers more about your role at AWARE? What are your responsibilities?

I have been a member at AWARE since 2003. I became more intensely active in 2010. Currently, I am serving my second two-year term on the Board at AWARE. The Board’s responsibilities are oversight and governance. As a Board, we make decisions about the big-picture goals of AWARE. Many of us are also interested in various specific issues in research and advocacy. Because of my research, I have also been quite involved with various activities to do with what we might broadly call familial issues.

As a Sociologist, do you find it easier to use your knowledge to impact AWARE’s causes?

At AWARE, I feel valued for my expertise as a Sociologist, and there is a nice connection between the more theoretical orientations in my job and the more practical orientations of advocacy work.

Read Part 2 of this interview here.

Managers Guide To Dealing With Workplace Sexual Harassment

If you are looking for more info on sexual harassment, see here

Does your workplace have a clear sexual harassment policy in place and provide adequate training for managers to deal with such situations? If the answer is no, be part of the solution. Share what you learn in this course with your company’s Human Resources department.

You dont need to be a victim to care about making your workplace a safe environment. Many victims of sexual harassment suffer silently because they fear repercussions. And those who do speak up often have to deal with inexperienced HR personnel and managers, which makes their situation even more frustrating. But inexperience can be easily remedied with training.

Aware has offered this managers’ course on how to deal with workplace sexual harassment since 2009. The instructor is Ms Veronica Wong, a personal life coach and specialized project consultant for Human Resource Management (HRM) and Training. She has over 20 years of HRM experience and is a certified counsellor skilled in Choice Therapy, Reality Therapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Besides AWARE, she has also shared her expertise with non-profit organizations like the Kaki Bukit Prison School and the Special Needs Trust Company.

In this course, you will learn:

Basic knowledge of sexual harassment, including myths and misconceptions, key characteristics, types of harassment and why it occurs in the workplace.

Skills that will help you to investigate and conduct an interview with the victim and the perpetrator.
Tools you can use to implement an organisational policy on sexual harassment.

Quotes from previous participants:

“Very interesting. I have learned so much about sexual harassment.”

“The trainer delivered the information very well and made the class very enjoyable.”

“Everyone must have this knowledge!”

When: 30 August,2013 Friday (1pm-6pm)

Where: AWARE Centre, 5 Dover Crescent

Fee: Single, S$100, pair: S$180

Reserve your spot here.

For more information, go to Workplace Sexual Harassment microsite or e-mail publiceducation@aware.org.sg

Let all women make free, informed choices

By Corinna Lim, Jolene Tan and Kokila Annamalai

Population engineering and the policing of women’s bodily autonomy in the name of demographic goals go against the principles of equality and human freedom, and cannot be tolerated.

AWARE welcomes Minister Chan Chun Sing’s recent statements on abortion, affirming that the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy or bring it to term is a highly personal one, which can only be made by each pregnant person for themselves.

We refer to the Straits Times article, “From adoption to abortion” (March 17). The article reported that experts felt “the law could be changed to make those seeking abortion think harder and longer” and that the process of dealing with patients seeking abortion should aim to “persuade more to keep their babies”.

Laws and procedures on abortion should have no aim other than to protect the rights and health of patients, and definitely should not interfere with patients’ reproductive freedom in the name of national agendas to increase fertility.

Few experiences rival gestation and childbirth in physical intensity and impact on health. Pregnancy and parenthood transform lives radically – offering potential joys but also imposing tremendous burdens, especially when workplace gender discrimination remains rife. This particularly affects those who lack social support and acceptance, such as poor, disabled or single parents.

It is therefore important to remove structural barriers to parenthood – such as poverty or discrimination against unwed parents – as these might coerce those who otherwise want children to seek abortions instead. At the same time, we must also trust people to make their own decisions about their bodies and their families’ needs. Each person is best placed to understand their own situation – whether that is someone who may be fired or expelled for being pregnant, a woman whose husband is abusive toward her and her children, or a couple who cannot cope with an additional child.

The suggestion by some Members of Parliament to “raise awareness of adoption rather than abortion” presents adoption as an allegedly easy or straightforward substitute for abortion. Promoting adoption as the “better” choice increases the stigma against abortion and pressurises pregnant people to make this choice, ignoring the fact that carrying a child to full term has very different physical, mental and social implications for the patient.

Notably, in Singapore there is a 10-15% rate of postnatal depression, with unplanned pregnancies causing increased risk. Giving one’s baby up for adoption only exacerbates distress at this difficult time.

This personal choice, which enormously impacts one’s life, must not be appropriated callously by nationalist discourse and framed as a public duty to “make a difference to Singapore’s birth rates” or as a social service of “producing more babies for adoption”. The well-being of children, parents and pregnant people – including their mental health – is far more important than improving fertility statistics.

When a patient decides to terminate a pregnancy, being lectured about an ultrasound image or confronted with bullying and inaccurate language like “real-life babies” and “dead children” causes needless psychological harm and is an intrusion on the patient’s right to privacy. Healthcare professionals and counsellors should allow patients to make free and informed choices for their own reasons, not try to persuade them of anything.

Making access to abortion more distressing may produce a marginal increase in birth rates, but at great human and social cost, including to the resulting children. Children deserve to be raised by people who desire them, not unwilling or unready caregivers, whose family relationships and economic circumstances face increased stress from reluctant parenthood.

Currently, pre-abortion counselling is mandatory only for some women, but not others. There is no counselling for foreigners, rape victims, Singaporeans who have not passed the PSLE or who have three or more children. If they seek an abortion, they get it right away. Why is this so? This policy reeks of eugenics and systematic discrimination, aiming to persuade supposedly socially “desirable” people not to abort, while withholding counselling from others who may very well need guidance to make an informed decision.

All people should have equal access to patient-centred healthcare, including abortion services. Population engineering and the policing of women’s bodily autonomy in the name of demographic goals go against the principles of equality and human freedom, and cannot be tolerated. We call for healthcare decisions to be made by patients (in consultation with medical advisers) on the basis of their individual needs and aspirations, not judgments about their social status.

Corinna Lim is the Executive Director at AWARE, Jolene Tan is a volunteer at AWARE and Kokila Annamalai is the Communications Executive at AWARE. A shorter version of this article was first published in The Straits Times Forum on 24 March 2013.

Recognising the paradox of “choice” on International Women’s Day

By Wong Pei Chi

In commemorating this 101st anniversary of International Women’s Day, let us remind ourselves that this Day came about historically to mark the expansion of women’s choices and rights, including the right to protection against discrimination.

The first International Women’s Day, commemorated on 19 March 1911, was marked by public rallies in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland calling for the limited choices then available to women to be expanded to the right to vote, the right to work, and protection against discrimination.

Living in Singapore in 2013, we are often told how fortunate we are to have more choices than women of previous generations had available to them. However, we need to ask what these choices include. Here, I argue that there is a paradox of “choice” and explore how the way we think about “choice” limits the possibilities for social change that we can envision and enact.

One example of this paradox of choice that does not leave much to be chosen is the ongoing debate on “work-life balance”. Supporters laud work-life balance proposals for going some way to redressing the discrimination that women face, partly due to the social norm that we are disproportionately likely to be the primary caregivers in the home, which limits our choices in the workplace.

Detractors say that women who choose to have children should not complain about the consequences of that choice, conveniently forgetting that a male partner would have been involved at some stage in the process, and that society does not expect him to bear the responsibilities of childcare nor the social approbation that accompanies asking for support of those responsibilities. So why is it that only one party has to bear the consequences of what is supposedly a collective choice?

The way we talk about “choice” in the context of work and family decisions mirrors the way we talk about consumer choice, as if we all have the same choices laid out in front of us, and merely need to choose the best one. Individuals are expected to bear negative consequences arising from miscalculated choices or unforeseen changes in our circumstances.

More fundamentally, even the lack of good choices available is somehow our responsibility. At the same time, social engineering penalises some people for their social status, which is framed as a “choice”. The assertion that we “chose” to be in such an undesirable situation becomes the justification for not providing social support to individuals.

For example, it is common for people to resent a female co-worker who has just given birth for taking a few months of maternity leave. She is seen to be leaving others to carry on her work while she cares for her child, as if this is a “lifestyle” feature to be enjoyed at others’ expense.

The alternative of quitting work altogether results in difficulties for many women when they try to rejoin the workforce. What is hidden in this discourse is that the dilemma between childbearing and sustaining formal employment that confronts many women, is not seen as an issue that men who benefit from having children have to contend with.

Why is it almost unheard of for fathers to take significant time off work, or to quit work, to care for their newborn children, so that mothers can return to work sooner? Rigid gender roles limit the options that we can envision for ourselves and each other.

Hence, we see that the paradox of “choice” arises because of the conflation of two meanings within the word “choice”. There is free will, the ability to create new alternatives and shape the world around us to suit us, and then there is agency, the ability to choose among existing options, of which none may be desirable.

For most of us, what we have is the latter and not the former, which is why “option” is a better word to use for this Hobson’s choice than the word “choice”, implying free choice.

At the same time, our current social norms invisibilise and devalue family structures which include unwed parents, same-sex couples, adoption, families where members are not related by blood, and so on.

When our conception of “family” is so narrow, women who do not exercise the option to become heterosexually married and have children for various reasons are seen as irresponsible and selfish, and women who already consider themselves part of a family, albeit unrecognised, are left out.

Women’s exercise of reproductive agency is fraught with social penalties revolving around this idea of “choice:. The seductive myth that is “choice” renders us responsible for social circumstances beyond our control.

An example of these social circumstances is the way that the Singapore government, in expending much effort and money to get women to have children, has marked this option as preferable over others and accorded incentives for it. On the other hand, six out of ten companies resist implementing work-life strategies which would expand women’s options beyond the stark dilemma between caring for children and keeping their jobs.

In this context, women are compelled to exercise their limited options between the “choice” of the government and the “choice” of most employers. If they go with the government’s “choice”, they may find themselves penalised by an unsupportive employer’s “choice”. Conversely, if they go with an unsupportive employer’s “choice”, this would reduce the relevance of the government’s “choice”.

In either case, women are constrained to picking what has been pre-selected for them by others.

Since we are dealing, not so much with women’s own “choices”, but with the “choices” that have been made for them, we need to question the motivations underlying the latter. Although the State designates childbearing and caregiving as almost exclusively the responsibility of women, it simultaneously narrows its already limited recognition of the value of these activities to the context of heterosexually married women who hold formal jobs.

It is clear from the example of the Marriage and Parenthood Package that not all options are equally available to all women. The payouts and benefits are only available to married women. Furthermore, because these benefits are either explicitly restricted to working mothers or disbursed in the form of a reduced maid levy or tax reliefs, these disproportionately benefit women who work and earn higher taxable income.

We need to question why certain women should be discriminated against on the basis of marital and employment status. In a competitive society, rewarding some people on the basis of social status effectively penalises those who do not meet the criteria. It is revealing that this bias is justified by policy makers as rewarding particular choices – for example, working mothers who “made a choice to work”, to quote Minister of State Amy Khor.

There seems to be no recognition that some other mothers do not have the luxury of this “choice”, for example, because what they can earn working outside their home may not be enough for them to hire a foreign domestic worker, so as to claim tax relief for the levy paid for this worker, which is a perk that rewards the “choice” of being a working mother.

The marital status and employment criteria, as well as the tax-based nature of the Marriage and Parenthood Package, have serious implications on existing class and ethnic divisions in Singapore.

Our place in the social hierarchy influences just how many options we have. Women at the top of the social hierarchy will tend to have more options by virtue of our social location than women further down. This is the effect of intersectionality, whereby discrimination and structural inequalities play out in multiple layers depending on where we are situated with respect to ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and gender identity, disability, and other markers of discrimination.

The evidence for this is clear. The labour force participation rate for women in Singapore lags far behind that of men at all ages, and also lags behind that found in other developed economies. Income inequality has increased more significantly within the female workforce as compared to male workers.

The gender wage gap is the greatest in blue-collar occupations, which also have lower wages compared to other occupations. There is also evidence of persistent disparity in wages and labour force participation between different ethnic identities.

Given these, the social engineering of the Marriage and Parenthood Package, amongst other policies, further deepens inequalities between men and women, between women at different levels of the social hierarchy, as well as between people of different ethnic identities. This does not bode well for our vision of an inclusive Singapore.

To arrest the worsening inequality, the State needs to lead the long overdue shift in our social norms by putting an end to the social engineering embedded in its policies. It also needs to recognise that the discourse of “choice” is too simplistic to inform our understanding of how people behave.

The State’s social engineering is based on outdated and regressive social norms which individual women have had no say in, and yet shape the options that we face. At the same time, individuals and businesses – in their roles as employers, co-workers, spouses or domestic partners and so on – should also recognise that there are many layers of considerations that go into shaping people’s eventual exercise of agency.

It is misleading to pretend that women are fully able to exercise their individual “choices” when, in reality, they are restricted from pursuing alternatives that suit them better than the limited options currently on offer.

Some of these alternatives already exist and are, in fact, not uncommon arrangements. Yet the State evidently denies the reality of these alternatives, treating them as beyond the pale and penalising those who dare follow alternative paths.

The rewarding of those who comply with the “choices” made for them and penalising of those who do not amounts to systematic discrimination.

In commemorating this 101st anniversary of International Women’s Day, let us remind ourselves that this Day came about historically to mark the expansion of women’s choices and rights, including the right to protection against discrimination.

An inclusive society cannot be founded on systematic discrimination, whereby people are herded in one direction after another through carrot-and-stick measures. Rather, an inclusive society should include the range of choices open to individuals and respect the choices they truly make, including choices beyond narrow options offered to them.

References

“Conversation on Women, Babies and Career”, Reach: reaching everyone for active citizenry @ home. 2012.

Ismail, S. 2013. “WoW! Fund to be enhanced”, Channel Newsasia, 12 January, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1247513/1/.html (accessed 3 March 2013).

Lee, WKM. 2004. “The economic marginality of ethnic minorities: an analysis of ethnic income inequality in Singapore”, Asian Ethinicty, v.5(1), pages 27-41.

Ministry of Manpower, 2000. Occupation Segregation: A Gender Perspective. Singapore: Ministry of Manpower, http://www.mom.gov.sg/Publications/867_op_11.pdf (accessed 3 March 2013).

Ministry of Manpower, 2011. Report on Labour Force in Singapore, 2011. Singapore: Ministry of Manpower, http://www.mom.gov.sg/Documents/statistics-publications/manpower-supply/report-labour-2011/mrsd_2011LabourForce.pdf (accessed 3 March 2013).

Ministry of Manpower, 2011. Report on Wages in Singapore, 2011. Singapore: Ministry of Manpower, http://www.mom.gov.sg/Documents/statistics-publications/wages2011/mrsd_2011ROW.pdf (accessed 3 March 2013).

Mukhopadhaya, P. 2001. “Changing labor-force gender composition and male-female income diversity in Singapore”, Journal of Asian Economics, v.12(4), pages 547-568.

United Nations. No date. History of International Women’s Day, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/history.html (accessed 3 March 2013)

Wong Pei Chi is an AWARE Board Member. This article was first published in IPS Commons on 8 March 2013. Read the published version here.

22 years of listening to women in need

By Sheena Kanwar

After 22 years, many women still need safe spaces, like our helpline, that ensure their physical and emotional protection while encouraging their self-determination, choices and voices. That is saying something about our society.

“Listen, listen and then listen some more.” That is what AWARE’s team of 50 helpliners are committed to doing — listening to women talk about the struggles they face as they try to claim a rightful place in their personal and professional lives.

This International Women’s Day, we call upon society to give women the space and support they need to take charge of their lives.

The AWARE helpline turns 22 this year, but we do not know whether to celebrate this landmark in the history of our association and the women’s movement in Singapore — or to be concerned about the reality that confronts us: That a dedicated helpline for women continues to be in demand, more so than ever before.

In the last 20 years, the country has made great economic strides. Yet, discrimination, disempowerment and violence against women persist. While there are statistics about gender disparities, we who listen on the phone learn about them as the subjective experiences of women who call for help.

Women in Singapore still face crimes of violence at home, at the workplace, in public spaces; perpetrated by trusted family members, partners or strangers. They risk losing their jobs when they become mothers. They are subjected to growing stress as they take on demanding work and continue to be solely responsible for caregiving at home. Their status in their families and their decision-making power continue to be hampered by unequal gender roles.

These are some of the issues we hear about on AWARE’s helpline. Sometimes, it is the first time the caller has decided to talk to someone about her problem, believing the helpline would be a safe space to do so. At other times, the caller has tried several avenues already and when nothing has worked, she calls us, hoping to find a more understanding ear.

Divorce Difficulties

Last year, out of the 3,184 calls we received, 27 per cent were seeking legal advice, predominantly about divorce and ancillary matters; 15 per cent were seeking emotional support for marital problems, and 12 per cent were seeking help with abusive relationships.

Calls related to divorce have persisted as the largest category, reflective of the increase in divorce rates. These callers usually face challenges in securing custody of children, maintenance or rights to the matrimonial assets in a difficult divorce process.

Often, the caller has found out about her husband’s extramarital affair and decided to divorce him; or she has suffered years of abuse and finally decided to end the marriage. In some cases, the caller’s spouse unexpectedly declares that he will be filing for divorce. The women in these situations feel lost and intimidated by the long and taxing legal battle that awaits.

Globally, increasing divorce rates are a reality, more so in the developed economies. But, with increasing education and awareness levels among women, why do they continue to face vulnerability and fear when it comes to legal and financial matters? Why do they still encounter difficulties in securing minimum maintenance and share to the matrimonial homes?

In worst-case scenarios, some are not even able to stay in the country. A significant percentage of foreign wives who call in face the possibility of getting their Dependant Passes cancelled and being forced to leave their Singaporean children behind with their Singaporean husbands.

Someone They Knew

Another category of callers that has seen an increase is the survivors of sexual assault. Following an increase in such calls in 2009 and 2010, AWARE launched a specialised Sexual Assault Befriender Service in November 2011.

Our data shows that most sexual assault is committed not by strangers, but by boyfriends, partners, friends, dates or colleagues.

The age range of callers is between 16 and 30 years, provoking us to question if young people are developing healthy, respectful relationships in an era where an active sex life before marriage is becoming a norm.

Most sexual assault survivors who call us do not make police reports as they are too scared of the legal processes or too ashamed to let anyone know, or both.

Most often, the helpline is the first time they have spoken about their experiences, sometimes years after these have taken place.

After 22 years, many women still need safe spaces, like our helpline, that ensure their physical and emotional protection while encouraging their self-determination, choices and voices. That is saying something about our society.

Sheena Kanwar is the Support Services Manager at AWARE. AWARE’s helpline is the first and still the only helpline in Singapore run by women, for women only. This article was first published in TODAY on 8 March 2013. Read the published version here.

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Year: 2013