In yet another tragic episode of Lets Tell Women What To Do, the Malaysian Ministry of Women and Family Development have asked women to “Tiru nada Doraemon,” or use Doraemon’s tone while speaking to their husbands. In case you’re wondering, no, this isn’t satire.
In a social media post that has since been taken down, a visual of a male and female caricature drying clothes reads “Jika melihat pasangan melakukan sesuatu yang bercanggah dengan kehendak kita, elakkan dari berleter – gunakan perkataan ‘humorous’ seperti ‘cara sidang baju macam ni lah sayangku’ (tiru nada Doraemon dan diikuti dengan gelak manja)” (“If your spouse does something that you do not like, don’t nag him. Use humour and tell him ‘this is the way you hang the clothes, my darling’ using Doraemon’s tone while giggling.”)
This, unfortunately, is merely the tip of the iceberg. A series of posters released by the Ministry say that it’s a woman’s responsibility to change their behaviour in order to avoid conflict at home.
Another cringe worthy post says that women need to put makeup on if they are working from home, and not focus too much on work until they ignore their families. This post has also been down.
At press time, Minister of Women and Family Development, Rina Harun has not made a statement on these horribly misogynistic posts.
On the Ministry’s website, they claim to have a vision to achieve gender equality. These posts appear to be completely the opposite of their vision.
Dear Ministry of Women and Family Development, if you think that it is appropriate to tell women how to live our lives in this day and age, you evidently do not believe in gender equality.
Any post or phrase that stems from the thought “Men are going to be like that, it’s the women who need to change,” needs to be thrown into the domestic waste bin along with your Covid-19 soaked PPEs.
Someone actually conceptualised this, while another designed it, someone else issued a set of amendments and one or more persons approved it. The fact that posts as vile as these passed through various levels, without anyone thinking “What in the world are we telling women to do?”
For a ministry that claims to want gender equality, it seems like all these posts have all been created by people entrenched in the folds patriarchy.
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