Need to make 30pc women participation a policy
Published on: Sunday, October 27, 2019
By: Lorena Binisol
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She said the call and directive from Chief Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal himself to head the MPWS would have been impolite to refuse.
She was interviewed recently on the progress of women in business and other sectors over the years as she witnessed the “journey of the council” since the inception of the MPWS in 1988.
DE: What do you envisage as your mission and vision for women now that we are in this millennial age?
MISSION:
Noni: To realise gender equality. Generally, inequality against women is still rampant although there have been slight improvements in certain fields in society, but it is not sufficiently good enough yet. This issue is not new, we have been fighting over decades to get this realised.
There are women, however, who have emerged successfully competing on par with men in their own rights, but I am talking about numbers here, it is still relatively small.
Women in general are still misrepresented in many ways. We are culturally “corrupted” by the stigma of the perception that women are good only for the kitchen and looking after babies and considered as secondary persons (but not equal).
Nevertheless, I do see some progress in some areas where the involvement of women have increased and evolved.
In other societies (other countries), both genders are seen equally moving progressively forward but for us here in Asia, we have yet to reach this level.
Education
I strongly believe that, with education, women can rise from their traditional roles as just ordinary housewives and become be more than what they are capable of. With the help of the internet technology, women could do extra ordinary tasks.
For example, a housewife with a technical or skill education can perform other tasks while looking after her children at home. It has been proven countless of times, in other countries, even in our country housewives could earn lucratively without her leaving the premises of the home.
Education plays a significant role in raising the standard of women in the society.
But what about rural women where resources are limited due to the infrastructure not being implemented in their respective district? Some rural women I see have the potential to develop their products to a higher level but due to limitation in many forms, they are not able to progress further.
So, this is where the government plays its ultimate role to provide the necessary assistance in order for these women in the rural areas to have the share of empowered progress.
Provide the necessary infrastructure such as road; give as much assistance as is possible to lift them up from their daily routine mundane life.
I do see some rural women being given assistance by urban women to help them becoming sustainable, but this is done privately and initiated on a personal capacity.
The government does provide assistance and programmes to rural women to help them achieve better standards of living but still much has to be done and activities in this area need to be intensified.
What I really want to see is that government giving the assistance all out until they reach a financial independent status.
Literacy programme for rural women
During my past terms of office, we actively promoted literacy programmes in the rural districts and there was impact and changes in some ways. We were able to raise their standard of living to certain degrees. I am happy to note that these programmes are still on-going.
Some products produced by rural women have the potential to be developed and upgraded to be commercially viable, and these are the spheres where we want to be of assistance till they are self-independent.
VISION
Education for all women
This is the vision that I would want to happen, education for every woman regardless of their economic status, be it in the urban or rural areas, so that, they could generate their respective resources along with men, so that the gap of inequality with men would be narrowed.
I believe, in the process of building Malaysia as a developed nation, women can contribute significantly towards the economy, and also socially and culturally. Women too are engine of growths in the society.
DE: Do you think we can achieve the 30 per cent quota woman participation in decision making?
Noni: That actually saddens me that until today, we are not able to make it a policy where at least 30 percent of women sit on the higher level participating in the crucial decision making.
Asian society in most cases does not accord the same equality to women as that to men. Despite this, we women must not give up to agitate for equal status as men in all walks of life.
A policy or some written law should be executed, but till todate, it remains to be seen whether it is going to happen or not.
This is where the authority (government) must look at this seriously and to make it a law, put it in print, so that the directive is legalised.
There are a lot of issues that only women could understand and able to solve for other women. For example, divorce cases (Syariah court). If you put man as the Syariah judge, the divorced woman may not get the fair judgment. She definitely is being misrepresented. It needs a woman to understand another woman’s pleas.
In fact, there was a woman judge before, and we were thrilled with the appointment. However, she was then transferred to another department and, now back to man judge being given the top position. Can’t we appoint a woman judge, I am sure there are plenty now who are capable of handling this area.
I am not saying women are picked because they are women. No, what I mean is they still must meet the standard requirement of qualification and merit. Give them a fair opportunity to carry out responsibility in the society so that women in general can be represented in numbers.
I am sure by now, many women have surpassed the test of time, broaden their knowledge and increase their awareness, emerge as women of the millennial and transformed accordingly.
DE: What kind of struggles do you see in the women over your previous two terms as chairperson and the development taking place?
Noni: Like I said, women are lacking in representation in the upper level. I want to emphasise that when there are equal number of women and men in the decision making level, I am sure the result would be much more effective. We cannot be giving almost all-men sitting on the higher level as it doesn’t give a fair outcome on the other gender.
It is, therefore, so important for the government to be more open in selecting the capable people to sit in the decision making group.
Another struggle is that, in the family women would always be the one putting off her career when there is a choice of a spouse who could stay at home looking after the children.
I have seen many cases where the wife earns a higher salary than the husband, but she has to let go of her career to be fulltime housewife while the husband works.
Why can’t it be the other way round as the justification is that the wife’s salary is higher? Can’t men learn to handle the household chores and let the wife earn the money instead?
However, in this digitization era, I can see more women, especially the younger ones coming up with various ways to get extra income by doing work or business through the internet from home. This has become obvious and I am happy that it is happening in our society, too. But in terms of numbers, there are still not enough women really emerging as successful and independent businesswomen in general.
DE: What steps should the government take to help women, especially those in business?
Noni: Before, I answer that, let me share my recent experience while in Indonesia. I saw how businesswomen who were once producing cottage industry products emerged to be entrepreneurs. For example, the products that were used to be produced in their household such as fritters, soy sauce, sambal, women accessories and many more are given new “facelifts” where the packaging are of higher quality. Their government give full assistance in the branding of the products. They believe that brand imaging can help sustain the business.
But what is happening to our women, although there are assistance given but on branding their products and packaging very little. Even if the government assists, the women could not meet certain criteria due to the ‘exorbitant’ fees being charged.
Now, to what extent have the government helped our women in their respective business? I understand that some women already have their products but are unable to continue in developing it as they could not afford pay the fees imposed them and other ridiculous requirements.
Therefore, I plead and request the authority to look at the policies of some government agencies such as Sirim, make it practicable for the applicants, make it friendly-user and most of all affordable for all in general.
The fact that these agencies’ main objective is to assist the society in their predicament, it is therefore, and all the more they should be giving a leniency in their applications.
Even getting the “Halal” certification is so difficult, it deprives the applicants from pursuing further. Another thing is, while the nation upholds the transformation of being the Industrial Revolution 4.0. and the preparation towards digitization, we are still far behind.
What are we doing with our women in the rural areas? How do you expect them to go into all this internet of things when the basic infrastructure is almost non-existence.
The road going to the rural areas such as Pitas, Paitan, etc, are only developed on the front, what about the real rural area, it is still the same as you went in decades ago. Even the basic needs are not provided for, how are we bringing them into another level of competency?
There should be one-stop centre established throughout the districts for the women folk in the rural areas to display their finished products so that those in the marketing sectors are able to view them and access as to their commercial viability for the market at large.
DE: How do you look at the scenarios in today’s era and what is the significant thing for this year’s Woman’s Day
Noni: With this year’s theme as “Balance for Better”, I am delighted to see more women (of the millennial) have the ability to go on par with men when it comes to the knowledge about digitization, internet of things in cyberspace and so on;
where in my era, it was totally unheard of. I witnessed an era of women in the past where knowledge on the internet is zero. I guess in this context, our theme is relevant.
But I earnestly hope and still hoping that there are also other areas where the equality is being truthfully practised and carried out wisely.
As for now, we have yet to bring on so many issues on gender equality. To be a better nation with society of quality, let us uphold the “balance for better” in order to have better living conditions for all.
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