Published May 5, 2009

THE AWARE SAGA
Just what was all that big fuss about?

Whatever people hated about the ousted new guard, its stand on women's rights was still the same as Aware's: pro-women

By JAIME EE
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FINALLY, it's over. I would say, 'Thank God', but then I wouldn't want to be accused of, you know, trying to start something.

Yet as the old guard of Aware celebrates its triumph, and the ousted new guard slinks off to lick its wounds, one can only step back and ask: What the heck was all that fuss about, really?

For the past three weeks, women were fighting with other women over something that had nothing to do with what Aware was created to do 20 years ago: celebrate women, uphold and protect their rights. After the feminist equivalent of WWE Smackdown at Suntec City on Saturday, I'm not sure what there is to celebrate about being a woman.

Yes, we can raise our collective hands and say, yeah, we made sure those self-righteous newbies can't shove their ideals down our throats. We're a multi-religious society and no one religion has the right to take over a secular organisation to spread its own doctrine.

All well and good but in the highly charged process, did every negative stereotype of women have to be laid bare for all to see and cringe at? That is, that hell hath no fury like a woman (or ex-co) scorned; women are over-emotional, territorial and prone to hissing when angry; no (straight) male in his right mind would intervene in a fight between women; the world's wars would be a lot shorter if all soldiers were female.



What I'd like to know is, apart from proving that women can be as nasty as men when they fight, what exactly did this battle achieve? Did we come away from this saying, 'Yay, this has been a great milestone for women and Singapore?'

Sure, we can all agree that the old guard of Aware well deserved to get their organisation back simply because we like them a lot better, but did the whole country have to get pulled into the fray?

This is not some moral victory for women or society in general. While it was the leadership of a women's group in question here, women's rights were never at risk.

Whatever people hated about the ousted new guard, its stand on women's rights was still the same as Aware's, ie pro-women.

Rather, people see the victory as one against steeplejacking - a term used to describe churches which infiltrate secular organisations. Did we stop some rabid religious group from infiltrating our multi-religious society and planting anti-gay thoughts in our minds?

Ego vs ideology

Are we seriously that impressionable to think that a group of anti-gay lobbyists who hijack a women's group can singlehandedly change our social order?

Somehow, I don't think so. Maybe we should just look at the battle for what it really was: a 20-year-old women's group, well-respected for its work and good intentions, but somewhat long in the tooth and suffering dwindling membership and interest. With just 300-odd members, it had been cruising contentedly in its comfort zone. Suddenly, it gets hijacked by a group which doesn't believe in voicing its concerns about sex education programmes in the normal way, ie, complaining to the relevant authorities.

So what do you get? A struggle between ego (the old guard caught unawares) and ideology (the newbies) that should have stayed internal instead of turning into a national issue. Makes you wish the newcomers had just taken the old guard's advice and started its own group. But being corporate women who know a thing or two about back-door listings, they probably knew it would have been easier to push their agenda as Aware rather than as Women Against Gays.

One of the ousted exco members said that she didn't think the 3,000 women at Saturday's event represented the views of some two million Singaporean women. She was right. There are women who think this went way beyond reason and that the self-righteous label isn't restricted to just the ousted newbies. There are women who think that parents should know what their kids are being taught in school, and if they don't like it, they can jolly well campaign for it to be changed. You don't play Christian Militant Ninjas and mount hostile takeovers.

And there are women who think that with its new lease of life, Aware can go back to what it does best - being for women, and about women.