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Hair

by Goh Li Sian, Change Maker. This piece was written for the Body/Language creative writing workshop, co-organised by We Can! Singapore and Etiquette SG, and performed at the Singapore Writers’ Festival 2014.

In my purple tank top, I yawn and stretch
Sleepy! A hard day’s work. Sensing vulnerability
My mother picks up where we left off,
Though I try in fewer words to tell her things are different now.
She says, “You know, you could.”
I say, “No.”
She says, “Just once-“
I say, “I don’t want to.”
She says, “Why not?”
I say, “We are not discussing this.”

My mother has tried before,
When the tweezers she favoured failed,
Razors, epilators, wax strips, waxing salons,
Until we’ve arrived at this final solution
To troublesome body hair
On troublesome daughters
Lasers!

My mother couches her disgust in tact,
Telling me, “Your father has asked me to bring you to a salon you know.”
Of course, when the noble patriarch says “Shave,”
It’s my job to say, “How close?”
Or brings it up in lighter moments, snapshots that could almost be happy-
“You like this dress? Sleeveless, you know! When you wear it, you must shave,
or wear a jacket. Some people may be offended. I’m just telling you.”
Ah, that bogeyman Some People.
How to explain to my mother, who is not just Any Person,
That I know Some People
And they have nothing to say about my body and how I choose to adorn it.
If they ever did,
I would choose to have nothing to do with them
The way I cannot have nothing to do with my mother.

On my mother’s head rests thinning hair
She dyes chestnut brown,
Disdaining jet black, her original shade, as “too harsh”,
Disdaining long braids that stretch to other ladies’ waists,
Or supermarket cashiers who pick at their hair before checking out her groceries
Shrinkwrapped packages of meat.
“Too dirty,” she says,
And I turn away, stifling casual rage.

My mother’s never shaved her legs in her life,
Has been known to exclaim wonderingly
Over her daughters’ layers of fuzz,
On shin or forearm.
Where does it come from? she asks.
After all, “Me and your Pa have no hair!”

I know where, but don’t say
Secret teenage hours spent locked in the bathroom
Experimenting with a baby blue plastic razor and shaving gel
Before I gave up. The rush of ritual:
Smoothing the gel. Running the razor. Over inches of pubescent limb:
Shin, calf, thigh.
Elbow to wrist, even inside of forearm, smoothed over sides.
Fingers, phalanges to knuckle.
They say
The hair never grows back the same way again, new growth sprouts
Against the follicle, not with,
Springing back with a vengeance against this tree-trimming,
Asserting its existence.

My mother uses tweezers to pick and pick at the armpits
I snuggled under as a little girl,
But to do the same to the hair on her pubic area
Would be inconvenient and obscene.
I try to explain why I feel the same about the fur under my arms,
Knowing a lost cause when I see one.

“Why?” my mother says, a plaintive moan,
And I turn silent, examine the clothes on the rack,
Rows of dresses without sleeves,
Stifling the impulse to swear,
Stifling the reason, “Can’t be fucked.”
Stifling the reason, “Fuck you!”

The hair under my arms
Is coarse and prickly at its roots, but curls
Into the softness of pelts at its tips
I have a sweet lover, who understands this,
Who would stroke the hair there,
Kiss it, a rest stop on the way to his final destination
Sniff, tell me that he adored the way I smell

This is not a battle in a war, but
A piece of the puzzle
She never will understand.
Sometimes, I suspect my mother would like me better
Bald as a newborn,
As sweet smelling
Infantlike,
Hairless.

lisianAbout the Author: Li Sian works for AWARE. She enjoys trivial conversations with close friends and makes shy jokes in less intimately-known company. After five months of living at home, she is proud to announce that she is still resolutely hirsute.

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Fat Woman

by Manessa Lian, Change Maker and Body/Language creative writing workshop participant. This piece was performed at the Singapore Writers Festival in November 2014 and Breakthrough: We Can! Arts Fest in December 2014. 

When I was a child
I first learnt that bigger was not always better
Because those were the days
They sent the biggest kids for classes
Extra classes after school
Which should have been fun
Because we actually got to roller-blade
But because everyone knew who those classes were for
Nobody wanted in
We held our breaths
Our Physical Ed teacher
Scanned the class for those whose sizes did not conform
Singling them out with a crook of the finger
I was one of them

When I protested for being one of the chosen ones
The PE teacher turned to the class
And duly informed them that I was a time-bomb
A walking health time-bomb
I would drop dead any moment
From a heart attack or a stroke
All because I refused to attend the extra class
I went, of course reluctantly
Walked away without getting any smaller
Except for my self-esteem
I learnt little about roller-blading
Mainly how to fall safely on my butt
And I had the honour
Of having the cracks in the courtyard attributed to my name
It was the year we learnt about Hiroshima and Nagasaki
So I had a new nickname: Fat Woman

Eventually I left school
But I realised I never truly left school
The mocking eyes of the classmate who felt entitled to take my sandwich
Turned into those of the waiter
Who judged what I chose to order
That was why I chose to buy my clothes online
Because when I cannot be seen or heard
I cannot be judged
But I have always wondered
Why the need to pay more for a few more inches of fabric?
What was normal, what was plus-sized?
Maybe it was just like my high school friends
They insisted I pay more for our shared lunches
Because who would believe someone of my size didn’t eat more than they did

So I worked hard
So that I could pay
For the right to dress up and be beautiful
For my lunch appointments with the same high school friends
Even if all they talked about were the people
That they had the freedom to love
Not for me
I learnt the freedom to love was never for me
Many people would love to have a fat friend
Because it would make them look thinner
And because it’s hip in this era to say
“I don’t fat-shame!”
As long, as I stayed platonic
But when I forgot my place
I turned into a terrifying Godzilla
Striking horror into the hearts of the innocent
“Shameless! Get away from me, FAT bitch!”
When all I wanted to do
Was to love them
But
Some people’s love is less equal than others
Especially when you have a nickname like Fat Woman

My nickname is Fat Woman
But unlike Fat Man
I was taught never to explode
And incinerate all those who have ever hurt me
Instead I am expected to implode
Slowly
Killing myself from within
But there are other ways of dealing with bombs, isn’t it?
I fought hard
To exorcise the demons that others had planted onto me
Sometimes in the depth of the night
I would recall the things I did not want to
Reopening all the wounds that nobody could see
Inflicted yesterday on this body of mine
But when dawn comes
I defuse myself.

About the Author: Manessa Lian writes because she loves, and because she loves, she writes. Through her writing, she hopes to get people thinking and talking about various social issues simmering below the surface.

 

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Boyhood

by Kelvin Ng Jiawin, Change Maker and Body/Language creative writing workshop participant. This piece was performed at the Singapore Writers Festival in November 2014. 

Dear 12-year-old Kelvin,

You are more than a simple three-digit test score, so
Don’t quantify your existence as a numerical term,
Don’t reduce yourself to a statistic that says nothing about you,
And don’t force yourself to see your image in white, able-bodied, cisgender, straight men;
Also, you’ll learn how to say “fuck you”
In a B-grade horror movie starring a white, able-bodied, cisgender, straight man;
But it’ll take you much longer to learn
How to say “fuck you” judiciously.

Dear 13-year-old Kelvin,
You came from an all boys primary school
Masquerading as a missionary boarding school with its fancy art deco facade,
And this may seem like a major revelation to you, but:
Men are not from Mars, they’re from Planet Earth;
Women are not from Venus, they’re from Planet Earth;
So stop trying to be a pseudo-Martian and just, you know, be yourself.

Dear 14-year-old Kelvin,
Just because everyone around you has a girlfriend,
Doesn’t mean you have to have one.
Take some time off, and get to know both herself and yourself better.
Also, banish the word “friendzone” from your vocabulary;
Expel it, exile it, extradite it altogether,
Because friendship should never be an insult.

Dear 15-year-old Kelvin,
You catch yourself stealing glances at the James Franco-lookalike in class,
And you catch yourself playing Born This Way on repeat a little too much;
Now repeat after me:
One: That is entirely normal,
Two: That doesn’t say anything about masculinity;
And three: What is masculinity, anyway?

Dear 16-year-old Kelvin,
You don’t have to take an all-science course just because you’re male,
You don’t have to force yourself into a sport you hate just because you’re male,
You don’t have to install DOTA2 on your laptop to get street cred just because you’re male.
I wish I could go all Butler on you — and read her, you’ll love her —
You literally don’t have to do anything just because you’re male.
(By the way, yes, I mean literally — check your privilege.)

Dear 17-year-old Kelvin,
You know what people say? That eating disorders are for girls only?
You’ll learn how insidious that twisted illusion is,
You’ll realise that there’s no point starving yourself and tasting the acidic tinge of your bile every recess,
You’ll discover that there’s so much more to life than trying to look like the Abercrombie and Fitch model gazing down at you, disapprovingly, when all you’re trying to do
Is to get to Kinokuniya across the street.
You learned the word “fuck” five years ago, now say:
Fuck body standards, fuck anyone who thinks you’re too fat, fuck anyone who thinks you’re too thin.

Dear 18-year-old Kelvin,
You just watched Boyhood,
And you can’t help but feel slightly alienated;
But remember:
You don’t have to see your image in a white, able-bodied, cisgender, straight man.

Sincerely,
19-year-old Kelvin.

pic1About the Author: Kelvin Ng is a debater by training and part-time poet. His biggest accomplishment is remembering all the lyrics to Beyonce’s ***Flawless — both the original one and the Nicki Minaj remix — so that must mean something.

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Sexual Assault: Jokes and Desensitisation

by Delia Toh, Change Maker


AssaultJust a few weeks ago, popular American Youtuber Sam Pepper uploaded a video of himself pinching the bottoms of women on the streets as a prank. Most women in the video expressed discomfort, but he laughed it off and insisted it was “just a prank”. Closer to home, at a social event I attended, two men enacted a rape scene on stage in an attempt to amuse the audience. Last year, men were up in arms about Ministry of Defence’s ban of a verse about a soldier threatening to gang rape his girlfriend.

As a 22 year old woman, I can attest to the fact that the fear of sexual assault is very real. From a young age, we have been told never to dress provocatively or walk home alone at night. I am fortunate to have never experienced sexual assault, but I have heard many harrowing accounts from my friends, some of whom are victims of sexual assault. The issue of sexual assault is and will always be a part of my life – when it happens to loved ones, when women subconsciously fear for our safety, when women accept taking added precautions to prevent sexual assault as part and parcel of our daily lives.

Sexual assault is a serious matter. Rapists are most likely someone the victims know and trust. Contrary to popular belief, the rapist who leaps out of bushes to rape women passing by at 2 o’clock in the morning is the rarest kind of rapist. As such, when people make light of sexual assault among friends or on social media, it normalises the idea of sexual assault. Someone who already has the intention to violate another person will only receive further validation from these jokes.

Victims of sexual assault rarely seek the help they need because of the stigma and victim blaming they have to endure if they choose to speak out about their experiences. Without a supportive environment, they would only suffer further, especially if people, even their loved ones and peers, treat their experiences as a source of entertainment. I believe people generally refrain from joking about murder victims – it is time we extended that basic respect to victims of sexual assault.

Ultimately, a joke is not merely a joke – it can reflect dangerous attitudes. It is not about whether or not the person making the joke would act on it; it is about the kind of environment we’d like our future generations to grow up in. It is time we treated sexual assault as the grave and inhumane crime that it is.

deliaAbout the author: Delia is a second year Chemical Engineering undergraduate at University College London. She has enjoyed blogging since her secondary school days. She would now like to move on from raving about school work to raising awareness through her writing. She strongly believes people are more different than similar, and that individuals ought to be valued for who they are inside.

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Beyond the Facade

by Change Maker, Michelle Shobana

It has never been a norm for my family to talk about issues of gender stereotypes, sexual orientation, body shaming and dating violence. Of course, this does not mean that these issues were not faced; it just meant that no one could ever talk about it in the house.

mich1Having spent my childhood around my elder sisters, I grew up quickly. At a young age, I observed in silence the issues they faced. When my sister was physically assaulted by her partner, I couldn’t understand why she still wanted to stay with him so badly. But I remember holding her hand and telling her she deserved better. The rest of my family preferred a different approach, hitting her as well as threatening to disown her. I know this is never a good way to solve any problem; my sister left him eventually and that was what they wanted.

During my own adolescence, I had to face my own issues. I became aware that my sexual orientation differed from other girls. I felt differently and could never quite find the words to say when they talked about boys, I just nodded and smiled. It was also around this time that I found myself comparing my body with other girls. I was always a chubby child and never though much of it until then. This was when things started to change.

I picked up the habit of vomiting after a meal. It never really made much of a difference to my body, but I always felt better after doing it. This was a habit of mine for three years. In addition to this, I started self-harming and did it every day before school started. Because I did not know how to, I never talked about these issues to anyone.

I knew my sexual orientation would never sit well with my family, because they had expressed such strong negative sentiments towards anyone from the LGBT community. This intensified my other issues, and my eating disorder and self-harming continued.

However, it started to become clear that my issues were affecting me.  I had constant headaches that would last for weeks at a time and had no medication that could alleviate it. My poor physical health affected my grades. My family found out about my bulimic and self-harming behaviour and called me attention-seeking. I was beaten up for my issues and because they saw my behaviour as an act of disobedience. They threatened to disown me if I did not fix myself.

By this time, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone else because being hit by your parents is used as a common “disciplining” tool in Singapore. When I voiced these issues to my family, I got hit even more and was told that I was not an “American”, but an Indian and I should stop thinking of freedom. This comment still affects me today because it shows how narrow their idea of my future is, without any consideration of individual expression or freedom.

mich2Gender stereotypes also play a part throughout my life. Till today, I am forced to put on makeup so that people wouldn’t be put off and will have a good impression of me. The shorter my hair got, the more makeup I had to apply. The more I was forced to apply makeup, the more I refused to do so. So caught up with what people would think and say, my family refused to see the possibility of actual happiness as a diverse family, with each member being able to express themselves freely and help one another achieve their dreams. I hated the idea of living in a box. That was not me.

I only stopped my bulimic behaviour and self-harming when I was enrolled in tertiary education, and I met the woman who put my life back on track. She threw away my blade and applauded when I finished my meals. She told me I look better without make up, and ensured that I always did my best in everything I did. We fell in love, which made me stronger than ever. It was then I realised I had to fight for freedom, no matter how small the scale.

There is little to no talk about gender stereotypes, sexual orientation, body shaming and dating violence within families. Any attempt to discuss these is met with awkward excuses, negative comments or even violence. As Change Makers, we need to break the taboo and make it communicable to individuals from varying backgrounds. Violence is not necessarily physical, it can be emotional abuse too. Victims face all sorts of emotional turmoil when unable to communicate their feelings to their family.

I know because I have been there.

michelleAbout the Author: My name is Michelle, doing my 2nd Year of Information Technology in Republic Polytechnic. I aim to be a teacher, to help individuals in their education academically, and through self-awareness. I see a future where my partner and I can live happily, without being called out for being different. In my spare time, I listen to rock music and take each day at a time. 

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Beauty and Body

by Charmaine Teh, Change Maker

rbk-empowering-illustrations-carol-rossetti-whitney-deWe live in a society where our appearances are constantly under close scrutiny. Due to rigid societal standards, picking on someone for their weight, whether they are plus size or skinny, is common. The media portrays the perfect female body as a skinny physique with killer abs or a flat tummy with the infamous thigh gap, and for the guys, a chiseled, muscular body. This sends the message that these features would automatically make you happier, more popular and more desirable.

Beauty is constantly being redefined. Currently, the media equates skinny to beautiful; and if you aren’t skinny, you can’t possibly comply with society’s standards of beauty. Anything other than that, you are not fitting in. It has become so ingrained in us that we may find ourselves alienating or disliking a person simply because he or she is fat. And if you are not skinny, you may be called names like ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’, which are meant as insults.

I used to be a victim of ridicule because I was chubby and stood out from my group of friends like a sore thumb. I had thighs that rubbed together when I walked and a tummy that bulged out when I sat down. Someone thought I was “ugly”, and saw fit to ridicule me. I was constantly humiliated for my size and it was a huge blow to my self-esteem. Even though I weighed 51kg standing at 1.57m, I started feeling ugly and believed that I was severely overweight. I turned to starvation by surviving on only one meal per day. On days when I felt ugly and fat, I would binge on food and then exercise excessively to account for the calories I had consumed. I became increasingly self-conscious about my body. I would never leave home in clothes that could not conceal the extra bulges I was trying to hide.

Although I was never medically diagnosed with any eating disorders, it did not mean that I was not harming my body. Within a month, I became obsessed with losing weight. I ate nothing but a plain toast for breakfast and drank water to stave off my hunger for the rest of the day. I felt weak all over but I saw it as something I had to overcome in order to lose weight. To make things worse, I was participating in intensive trainings for my extracurricular activity thrice a week. I was constantly hungry after training sessions but reminded myself that the only way to be skinny was to stick to my strict regime of excessive dieting and exercising.

body image2Why did I allow my beauty to be defined by anyone else but myself? I thought that by being skinnier, I would become a happier and more beautiful person but I only felt depressed and disgusted at myself all the time. I had forgotten that I am an unique individual who deserves to feel beautiful because I am born beautiful, regardless of how I look.

What I am trying to say is that no one should feel ashamed of their body simply because they are not as skinny or muscular. Everyone should be able to feel comfortable in their own skin even if they do not conform to societal standards of beauty.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the body type the media portrays. Therefore, my message to anyone out there who feels insecure about their body is that the next time you feel inferior because you do not have rock-solid muscles or a thigh gap, just remember that your body is unique and that you are beautiful. Don’t let the media or society tell you otherwise.

photo (2)About the Author: Charmaine is a final year student at Ngee Ann Polytechnic pursuing Psychology Studies. Her interest in gender equality first sparked when she mentioned that her ex-netball coach was a male and someone had exclaimed ‘Guys can play netball too?’ She holds strong to the belief that no matter how big or small a change is, it is still something significant and thus we should never stop trying to advocate change in the society.

 

 

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Disarm the Body Police

By Vincent Pak, Change Maker

Transitioning to a more relevant society today will, more often than not, be met with resistance, especially one with largely conservative Asian values such as Singapore. The dos and don’ts of how a woman should behave and carry herself is contested and policed everyday; they are incessantly subjected to the critique of the public. A woman’s right to her body is her own, but sexist societal standards still deem an open-backed dress as ‘slutty’, a short skirt as shameless.

Would we do the same to men? image

The week-old Takashimaya saga where a lady was shouted at by an older woman for dressing ‘inappropriately’ was the talk of the town. The older woman was angered by the lady’s open-backed top that revealed her bra, and warned her not to dress like that in public. A simple case of exacting personal moral judgement on the youths of Singapore.

The so-called appropriateness of a woman’s choice of clothes has been debated ad nauseam, but it is never acceptable to belittle her because of that. A browse through the comments on forums and Facebook will surface a common and disheartening sentiment amongst the peeved netizens: the lady should have covered up.image_4Imagine if it was a man wearing low cut jeans that revealed his briefs. I dare presume that the incident would never have happened. The double standards we enforce on girls and women harm them. We cite reasons like shame and modesty to police their bodies, and denigrate them when they fall out of our own standards. A woman who embraces her sexuality is frowned upon, while her male counterpart is cheered on for doing the same.

We place value on a woman’s body, and deduct it accordingly when she loses her virginity, or dresses revealingly. There is an inherent problem in the way we objectify and govern their bodies like it is our own. When will we realise that body-policing and body-shaming is simply another form of violence?

Alarmingly misinformed netizens went on to slut-shame the lady for inviting trouble with her revealing outfit.

image_3

image_1image_2The freedom of opinion is a right, but we must be aware of the sexism that coats what we read, hear and watch. The lady’s outfit may have offended the older woman, but we should seek to understand that it is not in anyone’s jurisdiction to police someone else’s body. The incident reflects the prevailing sentiment that a woman must display decency and dignity, and that is a stereotype we have to unlearn.

The next time you label a woman solely based on how she dresses, remember it is her prerogative, not yours.

4

About the author: Someone once told Vincent that liking pink as a favourite colour was perfectly fine. That was enough reason for him to subscribe to feminism, because it allowed him to drink strawberry milk with confidence. Still serving his National Service, Vincent enjoys the occasional fantasy that sexism is dead in the military, but stalwartly trusts that he won’t be in denial someday. He is passionate about naps, and prefers baby blue over pink now.

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Redefining Masculinity

A recount of the struggles of navigating and defining masculinity and what it means to be a “Real Man”
by Robert Bivouac

When I was 7, I had an operation done on my left ear. I couldn’t eat at all for 12 hours before that and I told myself I would never go hungry again. Back then I didn’t know what calories were and I got a dollar a day in allowance, just enough to buy a bowl of lor mai kai for recess. I knew it made me feel full, so I think I ate that at least twice a week, and on the other days I ate things like pork bao and those chicken-flavoured Petit Brunch crackers.

When I was 8 and our class was held back for recess I cried. I remember the teacher’s name. I think it was Mr Wong, or Mr Fong, or something. I don’t actually remember the teacher’s name but I remember what he did. He went over to my desk and looked me in the eye. He had this habit of puffing his cheeks up before he spoke. I don’t remember why I remember that but I remember what he told me. He told me that I was a boy, and boys don’t cry. I was a boy, and I was going to be a man in a few years, and men don’t cry either. I tried to stop crying and after I did, and he let us go for recess, some kid came up to me and told me I didn’t need to eat recess anyway. That was the first time I realised I was fat, and it was only the first time.

G44A0821In hindsight it was mostly the boys who bullied me, and in hindsight I should’ve known it was going to get worse in my all-boys secondary school. Literally the second week of class in Sec 1 someone had already broken my stuff. I think it was a pen, but eventually someone smashed my calculator. There was this thing going on where they’d take my stuff and run around with it because they knew I was fat and slow and I couldn’t catch up and when I couldn’t catch up they called me names. I remember being called a bunch of slurs strung together the way someone who doesn’t really know what they mean would use them. I remember my classmates pinning me down or slamming me into walls. I remember I was so physically weak that hitting back became an excuse for them to hit way harder. Someone threw a chair at me once and then someone threw me into a chair, and then into a table, and then into the lockers at the back of the class. I didn’t cry.

I didn’t cry, but I was short, I was soft and I was physically weak, and to top it off I was in choir. I spoke a lot in class, did better than every single person who came at me and went up every week to challenge the principal during assembly. I didn’t know my place, apparently. In a school full of boys I was not a man, and I didn’t know my place, so that was all the excuse they needed. When the school counsellor and house head were brought in to investigate they told me what they’d heard. My “friends” thought they were training me to be a real man, as if all the insults, stealing and hitting could “fix” me; as if I needed to be “fixed”.

10458342_775298422505091_3667291884959981461_nThe thing about being “fixed” is that if you need fixing, that means you’re broken, as if not being a “real man” means you’re broken. See, if you’re a man, but not a “real man”, it seems you’re doing something wrong and if you’re doing something wrong, you need to be taught a lesson. It’s not just kids who do this. Like, turn on the television some time and you’ll see a bunch of “real men”, doing really manly things. “Real men” are strong and violent. “Real men” work hard and protect their families (which, of course, they want). “Real men” are attractive, or else “real men” are heroic, and “real men” always get the woman (and it’s always a woman), even though sometimes they really shouldn’t. It’s not all the time, but the implication is this: this is what a “real man” looks like, this is what he does and this is how he does it.

Guys, we’ve been caught. We’re told by these so-called “real men” to “be a man” when we’re hurting, when we’re sick, when there’s nothing else you can do but they want us to do it anyway. We’re told that if we don’t look or act like “real men”, we don’t deserve to be men at all. We’re something less than men if we aren’t “real men”, something they have permission to dominate, to hurt and to exploit. Frankly, guys, I’m tired.

I’m tired of this “real man” crap. All men are “real men”. We are men simply because we choose to identify as such, and nobody gets to decide otherwise. Not your parents, not your friends and certainly not anybody who thinks taking your stuff and hitting you is a good idea. We need an understanding of manhood that doesn’t exclude people who don’t fit the traditional idea of a man. We need to acknowledge that men who can’t or don’t want to find a partner, who aren’t straight, who were told they were something other than men at birth but consider themselves men, are real men. And yet, we also need to acknowledge that the men who do bad things? The men who hurt other people? The men who hurt me? Are real men too.

If we want a more inclusive understanding of manhood, we need to accept it’s for everyone, not just the good guys, and we need to do our part, as men, to fix it. Real men still do bad things, but good men stop them. and you, every single one of you boys and men in the crowd, can be a good man.

If you see a man who’s angry because he can’t get laid, tell him he’s got a problem. Tell him his problem is not that he can’t get laid, but that he believes he needs to get laid to be a real man. Tell him that he’s already a real man, and that no matter what he does, he will never deserve to get laid. Tell him that maybe he’ll find someone, or maybe he won’t, but either way it’ll be alright. He’ll still be a real man.

Youth at the event came up with different gender stereotypes they'd like to break. Warning: images in this mirror might be distorted by socially constructed notions of beauty.If you see a man going off about women, saying they’re the cause of all his problems, tell him he’s going in the wrong direction, and maybe ask him why he feels that way. Take his rage and point it at whoever told him women were to blame, because they’re lying. Tell him that’s who he needs to be mad at. He needs to be mad at everyone who told him being a man meant getting his way, meant automatically getting more respect than women, meant not being told he’s wrong. That’s who he needs to be mad at.

If you see a man harassing someone else by being sexist, homophobic or sexually aggressive, tell him to back off. Tell him he needs to back off, and that he doesn’t have the right to demand they shut up or do things just because he’s a man. Tell him being a man doesn’t make him more correct than anyone else, and that he really needs to stop. Say it firmly and with conviction and maybe the threat to report him to his teachers, or his superiors at work, or, if there really is no choice, the police.

Your voice is a vote, guys, and these are only some of the issues. All men can, and all men should, work together to make being a man something less aggressive, less exclusive, less sexist, and more proactive. We need to save our brothers from this myth that only some men are real, and other men are less real, and women are perhaps even less than that. We can play our part to help end violence by and against men, but only if we try. And we really have to try.

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Mass masculinity: Society, stereotypes and self-identity

by Lim Wei Klinsmann, Change Maker

Ask anyone what qualities are ideal in a man, and you’re likely to get the same answer repeatedly: confident, chivalrous, muscular, intelligent, rich. Every man – regardless of his personality, preferences or culture – is expected by mainstream society to meet this ideal of masculinity.

Those who do not are often deemed inferior for their inability or unwillingness to act out this very narrow set of personal characteristics.

I have always wondered if the people who mock those who do not conform to these expectations realise how oppressive their actions are.

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My personal guess is that a very small proportion of the men in society naturally fulfils society’s requirement for “a real man”. As for the rest, the gap between who they are and who society expects them to be results in, at best, internal conflict, and at worst, being ridiculed and outcast by others.

It is no doubt difficult to endure ridicule or be ostracised for not ‘fitting in’. However, it’s equally difficult to pretend to be who we are not, everyday. Everyone makes different decisions when struggling with this dilemma, and experiences different consequences.

Personally, for me, there was a lot of controversy that I had to put up with when coming to terms this ‘masculine ideal’.

When I entered secondary school, I was a skinny, soft-spoken and shy boy who found it extremely difficult to befriend anyone. This made me a target for physical and psychological bullying. People would point out how I wasn’t as well-built as other guys, how I was not supposed to be flamboyant, and I was mocked for not “being a man”.

This constant barrage of reminders that I was not good enough made me question my own identity and left me at a loss. I felt helpless and worthless because I was only accepted by a handful of people, and ostracised by the majority.

Despite this, throughout my 4 years in secondary school, I never regretted being the way I was. While the bullying I faced in school was painful, the idea of being false to myself just so I could be like everyone else felt even worse. When I saw my other friends acting in stereotypically macho ways, it seemed clear to me that the behaviour was fake.

Even today, I still get the occasional comment about how I dress and carry myself. But I have come to embrace the fact that I am different. Yes, it would have been a lot easier to just give in and be like everyone else – I could have conformed to keeping up a stereotypical appearance of being ‘a real man’. But that would not have been me.

My hope is that people will eventually realise that there is no one ideal for what one half of the world’s population should be like, and always challenge this idea. It is to our collective benefit to work towards destroying the stereotypes that society holds over everyone’s heads, and instead, celebrate the unique, infinitely interesting things that make each individual special.

With that, I pose one final question to you:

“Who are you going to be?”

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The Boys’ Club

by Visakan Veerasamy

I had a few buddies in NS whom I used to smoke with. They were decent, likeable guys, a mix of people from all over the place brought together by compulsory conscription. As our time in the army drew to a close, some of the guys decided we all ought to go clubbing together to celebrate. I’d always preferred kopitiams to clubs, but I decided to give it a shot anyway.

“Eh, make sure you bring girls ah!”

“Yeah, sure thing man!”

I said I would, but I didn’t. Why? At the time, I explained it away by telling myself that bringing friends along would “complicate” things unnecessarily.

Now that I think about it, it’s obvious that I didn’t want to introduce any of my female friends to my army buddies – at a subconscious level, I didn’t feel like I could trust the boys to treat my friends with respect. I instinctively knew that these two different worlds I inhabited couldn’t be allowed to collide. It could get ugly if they did.

When I met up with my friends on the evening of our clubbing plans, everyone was already drunk; they weren’t even in the club yet! They’d bought cheap drinks from elsewhere and had commenced getting plastered while playing drinking games on public benches. There were playing cards everywhere, soaked in beer and liquor.

My friends were with other people I didn’t recognise, who all looked really, really young. I received lots of hugs from drunken strangers who could barely stand straight. The girls – I later learned they were still in Junior College – wore heavy make-up to pass the bouncers’ scrutiny, and looked visibly uncomfortable in their heels, tugging awkwardly at their mini dresses. They coughed as they smoked.

And then something happened that I will remember forever. One of my buddies gave me a sleazy smile and wink, a gesture that told me he thought of these girls as prey – and that he expected me to participate in this ploy too. “Eh, look what I just snagged,” he seemed to be saying. “Not bad, ah?” He kept pushing drinks into the girls’ hands, with insistent encouragement for them to keep drinking, cheering and laughing.

One of them said she had a boyfriend. My buddy put his arm was around her waist. Was she uncomfortable? Probably, but I couldn’t be sure. In the haze of alcohol, smoke and peer pressure, nobody really knew what was going on.

I didn’t know how to deal with the uncomfortable situation back then – what were the rules of engagement for when your friends were plying girls who were too young to drink with alcohol, and it was clear they did not have good intentions? The girls were complaining about how Project Work was silly and pointless. I joked about how it was just preparing them for the working world, which was going to be more of the same. My buddy’s solution to their complaints? “Drink more!”

So I did. I joined in. If I drank my share, I reasoned to myself, everybody would get that much less drunk. Truthfully, though, I really just didn’t want to be sober in a difficult situation that was making me so uncomfortable.

I wish this story had a clear black-and-white ending, but it doesn’t. I got increasingly uncomfortable and ended up breaking away from the group to find myself a spot on the dance floor, where I tried to let the music drown out my thoughts. This was supposed to be a happy, fun experience. It wasn’t for me. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for the girls I had just met. I think everybody went home separately that night, some of them crying and vomiting, all of them broke, but, thankfully, otherwise unharmed.

I’m glad for my story’s anticlimactic ending. The same scenario could have had so many alternative endings, which occur every day. Painting my friend as a single-minded lecherous rapist-in-waiting would be a gross misrepresentation. It was not, and rarely is, that clear-cut. I didn’t intervene that day because it didn’t seem like things were that bad. If the girls were truly upset or uncomfortable, surely they’d have said something, right? Just because my friend winked at me and put his arm around a girls’ waist didn’t mean anything, did it?

I know better now. Those young girls wouldn’t have said anything. And even if they had, they probably would’ve been mocked or ridiculed, told that they were being “sensitive” or “spoilsports”. If the guys had tried to take advantage of them, I can’t help but feel that things would have gone badly if nobody else said anything. If I didn’t say anything. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing.

If I ever find myself in a situation like this again, I will do exactly what I should have done that day: taken them aside and asked them directly if they were okay. Or taken my friend aside and told him that what he was doing was not cool. I could have even found an alternate activity to disrupt the uncomfortable situation.

All of this was years ago. Since then, I’ve learnt that so much of sexual assault happens in the grey areas between yes and no, between fear and uncertainty, when no one – especially people who are indirectly implicated – really knows what to do or what’s going on.

I’ve learnt that it’s not something that happens to strangers. Some people really close to me have been raped or sexually harassed. And more importantly, I’ve since reached a painful realisation: I am a part of this problem. Because those who are raped are not strangers to me, but neither are those who rape. The rapists and sexual abusers aren’t monsters who emerge from the sewers, pathologically afflicted and lacking a conscience. They’re ordinary folk who live among us. We serve NS alongside them. We smoke cigarettes with them. And when we laugh at lines such as “kill the man, rape my girlfriend,” we make them feel more comfortable about treating others with disrespect.

So, no. It’s not cool, it’s not funny, and it’s definitely not okay.