Choices

There was a great big saga in Singapore over the past month, regarding the leadership of the women’s group, AWARE. I can’t be bothered reading the news, so honestly I don’t know the details, but I’m glad people came out and made a stand for what they believe in. It got me wondering if something similar could happen in Tokyo/Japan. I saw a clip of the EGM online and the differences between women’s lives in Singapore and Japan really hit home.

I hate to say this, but while women’s rights and gender equality issues in Japan have obviously made progress since, I don’t know, World War II(?), as a Singaporean woman, even though I can’t say we enjoy total equality, I definitely feel like I have more choices available to me than if I had been born Japanese. Perhaps I haven’t met the right people yet, but more often than not, it seems like the status (and occasionally, thinking) of women here is circa 1970s. Ok, maybe 1980s.

The men, though, are definitely lagging behind. Imagine how appalled I was when my all-time favourite student, KK-san, and he’s a very cool guy, made this example sentence to show comparatives:

“Feminity is more important than independence.”

I was completely stunned. I so wanted to get into a discussion about how these qualities are hardly mutually exclusive, and to enlighten him on why independence is important etc etc. For now, I’ll pray that it’s just that his English (rather, the lack thereof) that’s holding him back from expressing what he really thinks. I hope. :)

Anyhow, today I was shocked to hear from a friend that she may be going through a divorce. I never realised that she was having marital problems, much less on the verge of divorce. It feels like she’s a bird being set free from a cage, though. Hope it all goes well for her.

Listening to her story though, I was reminded that so many people are together because of age, convenience, fear of loneliness, societal pressure, etc. It’s not wrong, it’s very human… but I find it a little sad. I’ve always chosen being alone over not being true to myself. It gets lonely occasionally, but I just can’t do it. Everyone keeps telling me, “You just haven’t met the right person yet.” I don’t know. I think I’m too selfish and self-centred to be with anyone. And maybe I don’t really believe in marriage in its current form.

Don’t get me wrong. Being part of a couple is great, I believe people come into our lives for a reason. But it seems many couples reach a point where they have outgrown each other, grow in different directions, or don’t want to grow in the same direction anymore, and that is when it’s time to part. Is “till death do us part” even relevant anymore? Maybe in societies where women can’t make their own living. I simply can’t bear the thought that anyone should be together for any reason other than that they choose to be together.

That said, I’m afraid fear of loneliness might do me in one of these days.

See, in spite of my image (Vulcanian, pragmatic, realistic), I’m one of the last few true romantics left on this Earth. Alas, there has been but one discerning enough to realise that. ;)