Cuepacs and the gender dilemma

comment The reality that Malaysian women are fast outperforming Malaysian men, especially in the civil service, is a fact that the Cuepacs secretary-general must accept.

If there is a real threat to the nation’s progress, it is this attitude of holding back those who achieve and perform for the benefit of those who do not.

Ahmad Shah Mohd Zin insists that there should be other types of criteria other than “academics” when selecting civil servants. He wants the government to take into consideration emotional strengths, ability to cope under pressure, leadership skills and other skills.

Is he implying that women do not have these skills? As though answering his own question, he proceeded to hit below the belt by raising the spectre of ‘maternity leave’. So much for persuasive concrete arguments: is it any wonder why women outperform men in the civil service, and hence their consistent rise in the hierarchy?

A cursory survey of public universities and private colleges reveals a startling pattern. The gender ratio is not only levelling out but women are overtaking men, especially in the social sciences and increasingly even in professional courses.

When I was an undergraduate in Universiti Malaya (UM) in 1992, there were already more women in the arts stream than men. But in the hard sciences like engineering and medicine, there were more men than women. Now nearly 20 years later, the women in my year at UM, have gone on to become successful managers, contributing greatly to the nation’s progress.

There is a hidden cost to all this progress and the story is a human one. As a result of work pressure and simply because they are concentrating on their careers, women have decided to delay getting married and those who are married have decided to have fewer children.

Some Malay women have decided not to marry at all often being unable to find a suitably ‘qualified’ husband. As one of my friends tells me, ‘How can I go home and obey someone who is intellectually inferior’?

A more tragic pattern is slowly developing and lawyers can attest to the fact that highly-paid professional women are willing to give up child custody in divorce cases owing to the fact that having a child is not only added pressure but limits their prospects for career advancement and finding a new mate.

These may be some problems that arise from the great strides that women have made in the last three decades but it certainly does not warrant curtailing their progress. As we aspire to be a high income economy, what we need is talent and if women are consistently outperforming men in “academics” than it is time some men prepare themselves to be house-husbands!

In short, there will come a point when we expect the man of the house to be in the house. There is no shame in this at all.

Reward talent

Instead of limiting women and adding even more barriers to impinge on their progress, obstacles that they will just vault over, we should all think carefully about boys. More than 40 percent of Malaysians are under the age of 20. We are indeed a young country.

If we look at the statistics, boys do miserably in our schools. We all know that boys mature slower than girls, their attention span is shorter and they need to be physically disciplined.

At St Xavier’s Institution (SXI), the school that my grandfather, father and I attended, the La Salle Brothers knew that the cane was mightier than the pen. Boys react positively to discipline, regiment and respect those who wield power unconditionally. Yes, a few are scared, but the majority does very well indeed.

Simply look at the recent STPM results. Among the four highest achievers at SXI, three out of four were boys. If the future is all about special skills then we have to prepare ourselves for a world where a small number of people will have to work to support the rest of us. The words of Winston Churchill come to mind: “Never has so many owe so much to so few”.

Cuepacs and other labour organisations must realise that the new catch-phrase is talent and “academics” is the only real measure of talent. Leadership skills can be acquired through training, but talent is special and therefore warrants special treatment such as more pay, more perks and a nicer working environment.

Is it fair? Absolutely, and if we do not want to give them these perks, those concerned will just go to Singapore and other places that will welcome them with open arms.

Malaysia continues to suffer from brain drain because we think social engineering is the answer to our ethnic imbalances. We decided to create more universities to even out the number of graduates from each ethnic group.

In the end, we have more than 600 degree-conferring private institutions of higher education and some 22 public universities - more than the United Kingdom, a country of 54 million people with more than 800 years of university history.

The net result: we have lowered quality to such a level that employers cannot recognise quality because there is no quality control. We are now telling our young people that they need another degree and get further into debt even before they draw their first pay-cheque.

While we have screwed-up magnificently owing to our myopic obsession with ethnicity, let us not repeat the mistake by restricting women by putting more obstacles in their way. Just as parents are beginning to realise that girls can have a career and contribute to the nation, we must not curtail their enthusiasm with imaginary threats.

If there is a problem with under-achieving boys, it is not because women are just better than boys. The reality is that if individuals put their mind to it and put their nose to the grind-stone, they can do much better than their peers.

Perhaps it is time for a woman to helm Cuepacs. Perhaps then can the increasingly worrisome trend of boys and men falling by the wayside be really rectified.

Overhaul education system

As for our education system, we need to have a complete overhaul and establish a 20-year plan for its development. We need to trim and impose stricter quality controls on private education and bring this more in line with national goals.

The idea of an Apex university is good but must be followed up with a human resource revolution. Offer those who underperform a Voluntary Separation Scheme, and implement a stringent recruitment process. There should not be any form of discrimination except based on talent and skills.

One more thing, Ahmad Shah also said some nasty things about the blind. At UM, I know of a blind lecturer who was also my tutor back in 1992. He has the right qualifications and has consistently outperformed his peers when it comes to research and presentations. He is Malay, has a wife and is a real myth-buster. So yes, a blind person can do just as well if given the chance.

The reality that most people cannot accept is that, when human beings face challenges, they often do better because they learn to delay gratification and build up the capacity for hard work. The women of Malaysia have learned that lesson and that is why they are “better at academics somehow”.

We have no right to drag them down to the level of the mediocre. The government should put its foot firmly down on this matter. It needs to send a clear message that Malaysia will no longer tolerate compromises on quality and standards, and that this is a country that practises meritocracy. Let the civil service be the first place to have these new KPIs.