Glass ceilings of reinforced concrete

==================================
IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
==================================

Wednesday April 23, 2008
Glass ceilings of reinforced concrete
COMMENT
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Separation by gender and age are these days outdated to say the least. It leads to ghettoizing of concerns, rather than mainstreaming them.

GIVEN the grumbling and rumbling among many women in the last general election about the number of female candidates, perhaps it is now time to think in ways more in keeping with the times.

The fact remains that while there are separated groups of people representing different interests in the main political parties in government, there can never be a truly fair way of selecting candidates.

In many countries in the world these days, political parties are not, like they are in some of ours, divided into Main, Wanita and Youth divisions. Nor are these divisions even further divided into Puteri and Putera divisions.

These separations by gender and age are these days outdated to say the least. It leads to ghettoizing of concerns, rather than mainstreaming them.

For instance, as long as women’s concerns are debated only within Wanita circles, they will remain forever isolated and marginalised. Rarely will they become mainstreamed in debates in the main body of the party.

That special slots have to be given to these concerns in this day and age smacks of condescension, as if women’s issues are unimportant and not also national concerns.

The way it currently works is that women are given seats on supreme councils only by virtue of holding a post within their own wings. Generally, that means they have to be heads of their wings. This means that the representation of women on supreme councils will never exceed two or three at best.

What this ensures is that these women will never feel able to voice out the issues that are important to their women constituents, even though women make up a substantial proportion of overall membership numbers.

When one is a minority on important decision-making bodies, one tends to be meek on gender issues because there is rarely much space allowed to discuss them.

The feeling is that one is entering a boys’ club and therefore must play by boys’ rules. And talking about the plight of women who are discriminated against in the courts by male judges, for instance, doesn’t play well in that club.

The solution would be to do away with these reserved spots for women heads and allow for any woman member to stand for elections for any post directly. Not only will this allow more talent into the pool but will also reflect a party more in sync with the world.

What’s more, because there are more women members, the chances of women winning these seats are higher. Even better, the men will also have to woo the women’s votes and therefore have to display some concern for women’s issues.

We should no longer tolerate the type of gender and age apartheid that occurs in our main political parties. The separation of members by age is even more laughable than the gender one, especially since definitions of youth are elastic to say the least.

While young people may need more experience to lead, that’s not to say that the young have no leadership qualities. And why not have a woman leading all the youth members? Or indeed, the entire party?

When our politicians interact with other politicians from elsewhere, they often find themselves facing very different set-ups. The male president of the party may find himself meeting with his counterpart from another country; but who may be female and young.

Does that make discussions any less important or different? If other people are putting their best people up front, why can’t we do the same? And who’s to say that our best leaders are necessarily men?

At the moment, the way our political parties are set up, they are not only unattractive to the young but also to the most dynamic types of women. We already have glass ceilings in the workplace, but in political parties the ceilings are made of reinforced concrete if you are female.

Just look at the recent discussions as to who might stand for presidential and vice-presidential posts. Not a single female name among them. Does it really say anywhere that women are excluded from these posts?

If our largest political parties truly want to reinvent themselves and attract the young, they have to re-look at their own structures.

They have to erase the lines that separate their members by gender and age and focus on talent. Only then will they bear some resemblance to real life, where every day women are breaking new ground in many different occupations.

We have women nowadays who are heading central banks, securities commissions and supervising the building of large buildings, leading men and women.

Yet, if they were members of these political parties, they can only lead their own sex and no more. How ironic!

Read More

Living in denial

==================================
IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
==================================

Wednesday April 9, 2008
Living in denial
COMMENT
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Denial is a dangerous trait to have because it blinds us to problems we need to confront in order to solve them

ALL the years I spent working on the AIDS issue, one of the biggest problems we faced in many countries including our own was denial. When countries deny that they even had a problem, or when, if they had a problem, it was not big enough to warrant serious attention, then national responses have nowhere to begin.

Indeed many of the countries that have some of the worst epidemics today started off being in denial, and then had to face facts once they became literally “in their faces”.

Denial is a dangerous trait to have because it blinds us to problems we need to confront in order to solve them. We act as if everything is fine and dandy and there is no need to find creative solutions to anything.

As a result, the problems continue to fester until one day they burst out into the open. Just like the AIDS epidemic, by the time that happens, the problem is hard to contain anymore and people who need not have suffered, do.

Denial is often also the first response of people who have been told they have a grave, maybe fatal, illness. They can’t believe it is happening to them so they try and put it out of their minds and refuse to get treatment.

The subsequent delay thus results in their illness becoming more advanced and treatment becoming more difficult, even ineffective. Then there is no use for regrets and “if onlys”.

I read some of the statements made by some of our current leaders these days and it reminds me of those struggles to get governments to understand the AIDS problems.

People at the top presume to understand what people at the lowest strata of society experience even when they live vastly disparate lives. They believe that everyone’s experience is the same as theirs.

Thus when some people are happy they have gotten some high-salaried job, they believe that everyone else is happy too, quite forgetting that others did not get that same job.

They also think that when they ask people if they are happy, they are going to get a response that is wholly truthful. Why should anyone tell the truth to someone who so obviously has no empathy with him or her?

I cannot help but see symptoms of denial in some of the so-called analyses of the last elections’ results. There is no better indication of this than when blame is placed on individuals who do not agree with them, rather than on self-reflection.

The most courageous admission to make is “we screwed up” but deniers rarely ever do this. That’s also because denial is a form of cowardice.

To face problems squarely and to admit that you yourself may be at fault is courageous. To then deal with the problems realistically and intelligently takes even more courage.

And courage is exactly what we need right now, not the fear factor. Our people have shown what courage they have, by leaping into the unknown and voting in people whose abilities they only suspect but do not know for sure. They deserve in return to be treated with respect, to be led courageously.

I used to bemoan the constant sacrifice of realistic and correct policies on HIV on the altar of political expediency. Nobody had the courage to do the right thing because they thought it would cost them their popularity, especially at the polls. As if saving lives could ever be an unpopular thing to do.

I see the same thing happening with almost everything these days but most especially in the political field.

The difference is that the politically expedient thing to do is to take those steps out of denial. Instead we find denial after denial, blindness after wilful blindness, deafness after deepening deafness.

How nice to live in a world where we see nothing and hear nothing, where we live in splendid isolation. How comforting to see obvious losses as wins, to see obsequiousness as respect. If only all of us could live such cocooned lives.

Read More