A hundred years ago on this day, streets full of women marched in St. Petersburg, Russia, to demand change from their government. Four days later, the corrupt Tzar was toppled and women achieved the right to vote.
A hundred years on, many countries choose to mark this date with apolitical celebrations. But the history of the 8th of March is much more than that, and this history should remind us that it is more pressing that we note the inequalities that still persist for women. It is more fitting, moreover, that we demand the change that is still owed to women today.
Mind your own body
To begin with, Malaysian women still had to contend with moral policing over the past year. Whether it is about what we wear or who we move about with, someone has had something to say about what women can or cannot do. The most recent infamous example was the ‘Thaipusam Spraying Group’ threatening to spray-paint women whom they considered “inappropriately dressed” at Thaipusam events. Besides women’s physical safety, it attacks women’s right to autonomy over their own bodies by asserting that other people – specifically men – have the right to control them. There was also the case of the Transmalaya Buses owners, whose policy of segregating men and women on their buses restricted women’s freedom of movement under the pretext of protecting them from sexual harassment. This justification is a flimsy smokescreen, considering how the company also said they were placing women on the right side of the bus so that they could be supervised by the driver through the rear-view mirror.
State agencies too, have to be held accountable for the shrinking of women’s rights. In September 2016, the Health Minister reiterated that pregnant mothers infected with the Zika virus should not be allowed to opt for abortions, simply because “more than 90% [of the babies born to such mothers] will be all right.” This restriction of women’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare violates our right to decide what happens to our bodies, which is guaranteed as a right under Article 12 of the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Politicised religion
This assault on women’s freedoms is often enabled by federal and state Islamic authorities. While these bodies have jurisdiction over Muslim Malaysians, two troubling patterns have made themselves clear in recent months.
Firstly, whenever decisions are protested on the grounds that they infringe upon women’s human rights, Islamic authorities have chosen to shield themselves by accusing critics of being ‘anti-Islam’. In the case of the Transmalaya gender-segregating policy, the Perak mufti, Harussani Zakaria, dismissed opponents as Muslims guilty of challenging “God’s laws” and non-Muslims who indiscriminately “disagree with any Islamic laws”. We do not believe that discourses on issues of gender are inherently anti-Islam, nor do we think that such ‘religious’ defences are valid. When Islamic authorities make such defences, attempts to seek redress for women can run into roadblocks masked as religiosity, leaving women with no way forward.
The second trend is one of overzealous policing, to the point where some authorities overreach their jurisdiction. In April last year, the Federal Territories Islamic Department (JAWI) raided a beauty-pageant fundraiser held by transgender women, arresting the charity event’s organiser despite lacking a warrant. With no legal basis for their actions, JAWI acted unlawfully in their attempts to dictate what Muslims can or cannot do.
Transgender people are people
The raid of this private event furthermore underscores the continuing persecution of the transgender community, in particular transgender women, in Malaysia. A closed-door affair, the fundraiser was private, but JAWI’s actions, which have been described as a “bully-boy tactic”, arguably intended to intimidate and humiliate. Trans people are still not free to live with dignity in the country, as evidenced by the decision of the Court of Appeal in January to overturn last year’s landmark National Registry Department (NRD) ruling. That ruling by Judge Nantha Balan would have recognised the transgender male plaintiff as legally male, setting a resounding milestone for transgender rights.
But we took one step forward and two steps back. That ruling was overturned, and just last month, we witnessed the tragic, outrageous murder of Sameera Krishnan, a 26-year-old transgender woman. The police have decided that this was not a hate crime, but activists and friends and family disagree.
All women should be free to take a walk and not fear for their safety in public. All women should be free to be themselves, and all women should be free to live their lives. Evidently, we still have a long way to go.
All I’m askin’ is for a little respect
Finally, everywhere we look, there seems to be no reprieve from the objectification of women. There was an uproar in the world of politics – where women already struggle in a male-dominated profession – when Gerakan politician Baljit Singh joked that parties fielding women candidates should go for someone “beautiful, sweet, energetic, sexy, and can give it her all”, and moreover that he saw DAP’s Dyana Sofya as a “young Malay girl” and nothing else. It is almost unbelievable how casually he reduced women to their bodies and appearance, and how glibly he later defended his comments as innocent, warped at the hands of scandal-hungry media.
The world of business did no better. Firefly published a repulsive ad that featured pictures of women’s bottoms and legs in their flight attendants’ uniform, with the words “50% off” written on their bottoms. The ads also came with taglines like “Firefly sticks to you”, “Ooopps…we did it again”, and “Come grab it real fast”. It is almost as if they were unsatisfied after commodifying parts of women’s bodies and so went onto play on connotations of molestation and sexual assault just to sell their products.
Planet 50-50 by…?
There are some redeeming points in this otherwise bleak picture of where we stand. Firefly’s advertising strategy backfired and had to be cancelled after a three-day uproar. Baljit Singh received great backlash, with Dyana Sofya speaking out to say that, unlike him, her coalition encourages “intelligent, dedicated, and brave young women to join politics”. And out of the whole Thaipusam furore was born a beautiful art project called This Body is Mine, which celebrated women’s bodies and bodily autonomy, inspiring women of different backgrounds to stand together in solidarity.
That is the Malaysia we want to live in. It is a place where women speak and move about without restriction, and where the minds and ambitions of intelligent, dedicated, and brave young women are respected without reserve. The Malaysia we want to live in is simple, but getting there is not. To get there, we must stand together even as religion is politicised to divide us. We must keep fighting for change in our streets, our courts, and our everyday lives. Change will take its time, but we must not take ours.
Happy International Women’s Day, Malaysia.
Sincerely,
All Women’s Action Society (AWAM)
8th March 2017.
