Stop Undermining Women and Feminists

Person A brings up a sound logical argument proving there is a bias. Person B retorts by giving examples of non-bias situations instead of engaging with the first argument, stating that the existence of these examples proves that the converse is true. In actual fact, the examples of non-bias does not refute the evidence and given examples of bias.

Just because a Malay Muslim woman working on an offshore oil platform experiences career success and personal satisfaction (http://www.ismaweb.net/…/offshore-engineer-majority-of-wor…/), it does not mean that all women now get equal pay or career opportunities across all sectors. Just because Meryl Streep is paid higher than any other actresses in the world, it does not simply mean that all actresses are given equal salaries to their male counterparts in a film production.

The failure to recognize this non-dichotomy might stem from an inflexible mind

—to hold something as an absolute with no room for further discussion or questioning on the point. In other words, they do not tolerate any alternative views. Some women in Isma may very well accept their pre-ordained social position as secondary to their husbands, but they don't speak for all other women who feel maligned by the fact that they need to be told by MEN that their priority is to be with their family at home since this is what God has intended.

I am aware that I'm not a woman. I don't have to be one to support women's rights. Isma's examples of a few working mothers don't erase the fact that there is still gender inequality in this country with deep cultural and religious attachments.

So please excuse some of us for getting ticked off by the 'homemaker' statement (http://www.themalaymailonline.com/…/isma-feminism-making-wo…), because we are all keenly aware of what is being inferred here by a representative of the old Malay Muslim male majority. (Gives you a version of 'old white men in America'.) They can downplay all they want by shifting the discourse on women's rights to a media misrepresentation of their previous statement, but there is no distortion of the fact that Isma still holds women in lesser position than men in our society.