United Women Singapore is Spotlighting Gender Equality - Men's Folio
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United Women Singapore is Spotlighting Gender Equality

  • By Men's Folio

United Women Singapore is Spotlighting Gender EqualityPresident of United Women Singapore, Georgette Tan believes that the betterment of society can be achieved by everybody — regardless of gender.

The first time I volunteered for a Girls2Pioneers camp for school girls, I saw how their faces lit up as they figured out the answers to solve the STEM challenges and it was so uplifting — knowing that I was a part of building the pipeline of future women leaders in STEM.

For United Women Singapore (UWS), we aim to create safe spaces for everyone, regardless of gender, ethnic and socio-economic background, to have conversations around sensitive topics while ensuring inclusivity and opportunities for connection and collaboration. UWS is a local non-profit organisation with an IPC (Institutions of Public Character) status — advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality, and aims to build a pipeline of women leaders and influencers in Singapore.

We work towards narrowing the gender equality gap through education, raising awareness, and advocate on issues such as anti-violence and women’s empowerment. UWS hopes to cultivate a society where every individual recognises the immense value that girls and women can bring to their relationships and interactions at home, the workplace and the community through their skills, strengths and capabilities. We also hope that boys and men advocate for girls and women to create a safer and more supportive society.

The common thread amongst the issues experienced by women in Singapore is the issue of personal safety. Even in Singapore — while it is a relatively safe environment for girls and women in comparison to other countries — the recent growing number of cases of family violence, sexual assault and harassment reflects that there is still an undercurrent of harmful gender norms within our community, and a disregard for the dignity of girls and women.

In our joint research study with IPSOS conducted in December 2019 titled “Challenge the Apathy: Shedding Light on Domestic Abuse in Singapore”, we learned that one in four participants do not consider the behaviour of hitting a spouse to be domestic abuse. This result has shown us that there is a pertinent need to shift society’s perception towards zero tolerance for violence against women.

Violence against women is a manifestation of power and control, and it is used by the perpetrator as a tool to assert dominance and maintain gender inequality. The belief that it is socially acceptable to commit gender-based violence is influenced by negative social norms around what it means to be a man and a woman in society.

One of the prevailing gender stereotypes is that men cannot be victimised. The abuse could take many forms, and violence against men is just as serious as violence against women. Men also experience domestic and sexual abuse. They may even find it more difficult to seek help due to the negative gender stereotype that they would be seen as weak or less of a man if they came out as a victim.

 We believe that early engagement of boys through advocating healthy concepts of masculinity is essential to shatter harmful gender stereotypes and therefore prevent gender-based violence. It is important to help boys understand that dominance, aggression and violence are not healthy tools of emotional expression, and there are positive ways to redefine their masculinity beyond negative gender stereotypes.

The “Male Allies” programme serves to encourage boys and men to advocate for gender equality for women. One of these ways is for men to participate in advocating for women in the workplace by changing the perspective of gender equality being a zero-sum game to a value system that will bring benefit to the organisations, themselves and the community.

We believe that every individual, regardless of gender, has an innate willingness to help and support a fellow human being in times of need. Everyone has a collective responsibility to make the community a safer place. If you see a person being victimised, take the first step to say or do something. You can be an active bystander by safely interrupting the situation, lending a helping hand to the victim or simply lending a listening ear.

We will launch our UWS Boys Empowered inaugural Community Summit on 20 November 2021 where we will bring together experts from various sectors, in Singapore and globally, such as sports, business, education and health along with youth ambassadors to speak on ways to engage boys and men to be allies for gender equality. We also aim to empower them with skills to make positive changes for the community in their respective areas of influence.

Georgette Tan’s opinion piece first appeared in the August 2021 issue, click here to catch up with our September 2021 issue.