Women make up half of the voters. Yet, they may not realise the power and influence they have. Could it be because they aren’t angry enough?

SOMETIMES you need to get mad. So red-hot, spitting mad that you are galvanised into action.

That happened to women in America and they used their vote to express that fury.

The result: a thumping victory for Barack Obama in the last US presidential election.

It was women who blind-sided all the pundits who had predicted a very close fight between Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

So what happened?

Many analysts say American women voters fought back against the Republican Party’s so-called War Against Women.

Karen McVeigh and Julian Borger, for example, wrote in the Guardian that in doing so, the women sent a powerful message to the US Congress that any attempt to “redefine rape or interfere with hard-won reproductive and other rights will not be tolerated”.

McVeigh and Borger also wrote that women voted in record numbers against Romney for their survival; unmarried women reportedly backed Obama by a huge margin over Romney over economic issues.

“When you look at unmarried women, they are very often the head of their families or taking care of elders. What they saw in Mitt Romney was someone who had disdain for them…. He wanted to cut after-school programmes, Head Start, food stamps and job training programmes,” McVeigh and Borger quoted Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organisation for Women, as saying.

With our own crucial general election looming, where do Malaysian women voters stand?

In terms of numbers, we are impressive.

Many reports say women make up half of the 12 million registered voters.

Even in the 2008 GE, women voters were already a force to be reckoned with but the number of women who were voted in as MPs was a dismal 22 out of 222.

And as I found out from Honey Tan, a long-time activist on women’s rights and gender equality, the number of women in the state assemblies is even lower.

That came up when I was interviewing Honey for a segment of GE13: The Showdown, a series of short chats with politicians and activists on SwitchUp TV on Star Online.

Honey’s view is that neither political coalition has done enough to promote women’s causes or field women as candidates.

Yes, there are encouraging statistics on women but Honey explained that we should go beyond the stats to really understand the picture.

For example, women make up 62% of undergraduates but why do we only have a women participation rate of 46% in the workforce?

That’s a rate much lower than other East Asian countries.

It is an issue that TalentCorp is also puzzling over.

Undoubtedly, more Malaysians, men and women, are politically aware and interested in the electoral process, as shown by the huge jump in the number of new voters and participation in civil movements.

Yet, do women voters know what they want from their elected representatives?

Are they angry enough over issues like rising crime, personal safety, childcare and higher costs of living to send any kind of message to both coalitions?

I don’t think so. I think the majority of women are a complacent lot because life is still good for most.

We have the vote, free and equal access to education and healthcare – rights which we take for granted because we never had to fight for them.

Neither do the majority of Malaysian women feel unfairly targeted nor under threat, the way their American counterparts did.

In Honey’s view, a pro-women government would amend the Federal Constitution to allow women the same rights as men with regard to citizenship status of foreign spouses and for women to confer citizenship status on their children even when the child is born outside of Malaysia.

Thanks to my job, I have long been aware of this double standard and whole-heartedly support a change because it is obviously the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, I think the majority of women have no inkling of the existence of such gender discrimination in the Constitution.

And even if they had, would it make them angry enough to rise up like an unstoppable force?

I don’t think so.

Malaysian women simply don’t know their own strength and don’t consider themselves as game changers.

We don’t see ourselves as a homogeneous group with shared problems.

We are divided along the same old lines of race, religion, language and income differences.

That’s why even though party leaders are awestruck by the number of women voters and want to woo us, they aren’t really serious about it either. At least that’s what Honey says.

For what it’s worth, here’s a bit of advice to politicians from this woman voter: learn from the Republican Party’s painful lesson.

Don’t alienate us and don’t make idiotic, outdated remarks about women’s roles in the home and kitchen, our bodily functions and rape.

And tell me how you are going to make Malaysia a safer place for my daughters.

> You can catch the writer’s interview with Honey Tan on SwitchUp.TV on Star Online. E-mail feedback to junewong@thestar.com.my

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