For many years, women have played a huge part in the world with great social, economics and also political achievements. But there was a point in time the female gender were greatly oppressed to the point where the disparity of treatment between men and women caused the latter to be empowered and vie for the change which was so deserved.
It happened in New York in1908, where 15,000 women marched in solitude to fight for better pay and the right to vote as a citizen. This action was seen as one of the pivotal changing points which made a difference to the world for both men and women alike.
Roughly a year after that, the Socialist Party of America decided to observe Feb 28, 1909, as Women’s Day to commemorate a strike which happened on the date a year before, making it the earliest recorded observance. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly invited members of the UN to proclaim March 8 as a day for women’s rights and world peace and since then, March 8 officially became International Women’s Day (IWD).
Throughout the years, the IWD is now more about unity, celebration, reflection, advocacy and action.
In conjunction with International Women’s Day today (March 8), New Sarawak Tribune spoke to Jane Dripin and Lina Soo, both empowering and inspiring women who shared their experiences and opinions regarding different issues which women face today.
Dripin, 52, is a member of the Sarawak State Women & Family Council (Majlis Wanita & Keluarga Sarawak or MWKS), a group consisting of women who advises and consults Ministry of Welfare, Women and Community. She currently heads her own event planning company known as Creating Efficiencies. Dripin’s work is mostly centred on helping the community however she can. Currently, she is working on helping educate young women on how to be more confident in speaking the English language through her company.
As a political activist, 59-year-old Soo has always been vocal about her views on the issues surrounding Sarawak and it made her to be a somewhat controversial character here in the state. Despite that, she has never allowed any setbacks to stop her from voicing out what she feels is right. Soo previously wrote and published two books titled “Sarawak – The Real Deal” and “Sarawak Chronicles – Letters, Agreements, Laws and International Treaties.”
As both women are in different lines of work, they each had different answers when it came to defining career success. Soo, who feels that being an activist isn’t a career as much as it is a voluntary community service, defines it as being happy doing something fulfilling while enjoying what you do. Dripin, on the other hand, felt that career success is when she achieves goals she had set out for herself.
“I define it as being where I had wanted to be at the start of my career. Let’s say, for example, my goal is that I want to educate 10 young women in the English language by the end of the year. I have my plans, strategies and operational tactics on how to get to it. At the end of the year, I would look back and ask myself ‘How have I trained these individuals to speak better English and help them be more confident in even just speaking the language?’ Where I am in my own goal defines career success and it isn’t defined by what others have set out for me or even think I should be,” she said.
Since both are working women, one might think that they are wholly against the phrase “A woman’s place is in the home.” Instead, Dripin and Soo aren’t entirely against the phrase since they interpret it differently.
“There are many ways to look at it but I personally feel that it depends on what you want to do. If you decide to be a full time mother, then the place for you would be in the home. But make sure you do what you have to do to ensure that your home is a happy place. Although I am a career woman and someone who is community conscious, my place is also still in the home because I need to be able to educate my own children first in values that are important to me and the community. We start from the home and to me, the home is where the woman has a lot of control,” Dripin explained.
Soo wholeheartedly agreed and added that “Everything starts from home. We have to have a complete home first before going out to serve the society.” Both Dripin and Soo are single mothers and have been matriarchs of their own families. While they are both working women, family is still a priority to them.
In life, there are issues which are faced by everyone. Dripin and Soo believed that the issues faced by women their age involves more of the internal factors linked to the mentality of the individuals.
“In general, I would tell women to love yourself, be kind to yourself and always have confidence in yourself. I think that women lack the confidence and we have too many complexes, making it easy for society to influence us. Society tells us to buy and wear expensive brands just to be confident. We have to be what we are. Also, I feel that we have to remember that we are allowed to make mistakes. If we make mistakes, we have to forgive ourselves and carry on to be a better woman,” said Soo.
Dripin, on the other hand, said that finding balance between work and family can sometimes be tough. “I have 2 teenagers because I married late and they are at the stage where they need me a lot. So an issue I face is that half of me wants to excel in my career and whatever I set out to do in my community or church or in my work but the other half would be looking to be there for my family. Sometimes I ask myself, am I spoiling my children because I want to be there for them all the time?
“My parents also need my attention due to their age. My father is 81 and my mother is 79. My mother has some health problems like asthma and currently can’t walk very well. I would put my work on hold to take them to the clinic. I would sometimes even forgo lucrative jobs which pays a lot but I turned them down because I would have to be away from my family. I could easily go to places like Australia to work because I have friends and clients there but can I just pack my suitcase and leave my children and family here while I work? So I have to learn how to balance the needs of my family and my career,” Dripin elaborated.
In terms of the situation for Sarawakian women, both of them agreed that there have been advances compared to 5 to 10 years ago.
“I think that due to technological advancements, urban Sarawakian women now have more accessibilities to information and knowledge readily, thanks to the Internet. But there are pros and cons to this. The pros are that we get more educated as we have access to information to read, understand and be aware of what is happening in the world today. In terms of education, more girls are going to universities compared to boys (in 2013, it was revealed that 75% of Malaysian university students are women) and more girls are getting educated. From that angle, women have progressed and I hope that with the knowledge, women will be more empowered, holding high decision making positions.
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“But there are cons to information accessibility. We have young girls at risk of getting exposed to things like child pornography, drugs, being sex slaves and also teenage pregnancies – which is on the rise now. Teens are beginning to experiment on negative things they are curious about, which they learn from the internet. This is why I stress that women need to be more at home and be there for our children to educate them on using the information good and self-improvement,” Dripin explained.
Soo also agreed that there are advances in education for women as there are more women graduates now compared to 10 years ago. “But I feel that the number of graduates aren’t reflected in the board room. The business industry is still dominated by men and the same goes for politics. So even though women may have the paper qualifications to prove it, we still need to have the confidence to be who we can be. We have to realise that we have yet to achieve our full potential. So we have to go and prove their worth as equal human beings to men,” she said.
On the topic regarding the importance of education to the younger generation, both Dripin and Soo stressed that it is important to have an educated younger generation since it will be detrimental in developing our state and nation.
“Once I was in a meeting which consisted of people working in sales. During the meeting, they said that a degree isn’t needed to succeed in this line of work and that even an SPM school leaver could be successful with the right attitude. This way of thinking didn’t sit well with me because I felt like they were belittling education. I do agree that if you have the right attitude towards hard work and perseverance that we could succeed but I’m concerned that these people would send the wrong message to the younger generation about education by telling them that the young don’t need to go to school to earn a lot of money,” said Dripin.
“Attitude can be picked up outside of class but education teaches us the logical way of thinking and there are times we learn to apply the knowledge we get from the classroom to what we do so that we can achieve our goals. So yes, education is important and we have to know the basics of reading, writing and counting at least.”
Soo felt that education is the only way for change in order for Sarawak to develop. “First, we need to learn the basics of reading, writing and counting. After that, we learn to analyse. Analysing is what we learn in schools and colleges. One of the major problems we face here is that the literacy rate here is still very low and a high percentage of the population don’t even have the basic 11 years of education. To be an advanced society, we have to strive to achieve 100% literacy rate. I wish to see every Sarawakian child get at least the minimum 11 years basic education and as many as possible to go for tertiary studies,” Soo explained.
Soo and Dripin revealed that their mothers are their biggest female role models as their mothers were the ones who have nurtured them to be the empowering female figures they are today.
“My mother has always been my role model and I have always admired her for who she is. She was only able to get a Primary 6 level education because back then she was very poor and it was during the Japanese occupation in WW2. So she had to work at the age of 14, starting as an assistant nurse at the 7th mile Hospital Sentosa. She is a quiet woman who isn’t as sociable as my father. During her off days, she would decline other activities and preferred to spend time with us (her children). We were her priority. I recall how she would buy English books by Enid Blyton and read to us the simple English from the books.
“She also taught us to remember our place in the society because when I was younger, I thought of my father’s driver and mother’s maid was my own and I gave them instructions like my father and mother would. My mother sat us down and said that ‘Your father’s rank (as a government official) belongs to him. The driver, hired by the state, also belongs to him. You have no right to tell the uncle (driver) what to do. Remember that you are just like any other ordinary person. But you have the power to be who you want to be on your own’,” Dripin reminisced.
“As I grew older, I admired Oprah (Winfrey) because I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be out there to do things but I didn’t have the guts. My mother would tell me that ‘You can admire her but don’t make yourself feel bad that you cannot be like her because everyone has their own gifting. You are you in your own capacity’,” she added.
Soo recalled the kindness her own mother had always shown to everyone else. “My mother is the kindest person I know who never has an unkind thought about anyone. For that, she taught me that we should treat everyone with kindness and love. Now the world is so full of hatred and it needs to be reminded that we need to treat everyone like that, with love and humanity. That’s what I love best about my mother. So I try to be like her in that aspect.”
The love and kindness shown to both these women taught them that these attributes are among the best in any woman. “I think that women have the perseverance and endurance to do anything they have set out to do. They’re in it for the long haul and no matter what it is, family and loved ones will always come first. Because of that, women can endure anything,” added Soo.
“In my mind, the best attribute in any woman is the capacity to love. When a woman loves, she loves unconditionally and that sometimes gets them into trouble. Sometimes women become victims of domestic violence because we love too much that it becomes grey. Like what Lina had previously said, we have to learn to love ourselves or we get confused what love is. We also tend to forgive easily that even if there had been injustice done to us, we say it’s alright. I’m not sure why we do that,” explained Dripin.
Given their age, Dripin and Soo have been through a lot things in life. Despite that, when asked about the advice which would be given to their younger selves, Soo said that she had no regrets at all. “I can live with myself and the decisions I have made.
At the end of the day, we face ourselves and God and as long as our conscience is clear, we have nothing to fear at all.”
Dripin however, said that she would tell her younger self to be wiser when making certain decisions. “Because of our great capacity to love people, I didn’t have enough wisdom to see who really loves me and who doesn’t. For that, I would tell myself to be wiser when it comes to giving my heart away. I will tell my younger self to not be so naïve as well, because I tend to trust people too much. Be wise and discerning. Learn to watch and observe people before making decisions,” she continued.
To conclude, both Dripin and Soo have some advice to all women out there.
“My advice is to be true to yourself. Be wise. Learn to listen to your own instincts and sometimes, follow them. Also, be sure to read and read as much as you can. Those who can’t read should be enrolled in classes to learn how to read,” Dripin said.
“Love yourself and what you do. Be educated and confident enough to push borders. Go out there and do what you want to do to realise your own potential. Don’t be afraid that there could be people holding you back. Just do it,” added Soo.
As we observe and celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, let’s take into account all the women in the world who are inspiring and empowering in their own way. It’s as Dripin’s mother said, everyone has their own gifting. So we shouldn’t feel bad if we are unable to be just like someone we admire. Instead, we should be even more empowered to be our own inspiring role model to the future generations.
