Fighting for gender equality in the face of social injustice

There have been many times in these past few months that I’ve asked myself what’s the point of working on achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment when Malaysia is epically failing at social justice.

How do we encourage women and girls to stand up and demand for a place at the table when the table has been hijacked by self-serving thugs? What do we tell to people who have been deprived of opportunities over decades of quota-systems that we need to maintain a minimum of 30% quota for women in decision-making levels? How do we tell people to report to the authorities when they witness abuse committed to women and children when we know the authorities themselves are abusers of power?

It is easy to drown into the overwhelming sense of injustice, anger and disappointment of our current national situation. Is it futile to fight against patriarchy when there are much bigger threats to us?

But, as a feminist in this day and age, it would be dangerous to think that patriarchy is the only struggle that women face towards achieving true equality. It is fallacious to think and insist that women’s subordination and subjugation stems only from male privilege.

In the 2014 Global Gender Gap Report by World Economic Forum, Malaysia was ranked 107 out of 142 countries for gender equality. This comes as no surprise as even though girls outperform boys in secondary and tertiary education, we have a serious problem in retaining women in the workforce. On average, for every RM10 men in Malaysia earn, women earn RM8.40. Clearly we do have a gender imbalance problem.

However, to fully understand the causes of gender inequality and to bring about true and substantial equality, we need to look at other forms of oppression women face besides patriarchy.

Feminist writer Audre Lorde once said “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

Just like people do not have a singular identity but are made up of various intersecting identities, so are their struggles, oppressions and privileges. And what are women if not people? 

Women, like men, face class, race, social, economic and many other forms of oppressions. The intersection of various oppressions is known as kyriarchy.

Kyriarchy is a term that is fairly new to most of us, me included. Coined by the feminist theologian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, kyriarchy refers to the social system that keeps multiple intersecting oppressions and subordinations in place.

In our country we have women without formal employment, who make their living through odd jobs or by selling things they make at home. We also have women who are working day and night as care givers and housewives who are not compensated for the work and time they spend looking after others. We have women who are forced into modern day slavery and sex slavery, whose lives are in constant danger.

There are women who come from marginalised communities with little to no access to education and healthcare, both in urban cities or rural areas. These are women whose voices are not heard and they have no representation. How are their needs being heard when, in general, women’s participation in decision-making and politics is very low?

What happens to these women when even the middle and upper-class Malaysians start feeling oppressed by the current system with its rampant mismanagement of public funds and widespread corruption?

It is when I am faced with this question that I understand why it is pertinent to continue the work towards making gender equality and women’s empowerment a reality and one of the thrusts of social justice.

In his remark at a Council on Women and Girls event, US President Barack Obama said: “You can judge a nation, and how successful it will be, based on how it treats its women and its girls.”

How do you think Malaysia will be judged? – August 16, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.