AWARE as an inclusive organisation

It is with great concern that I read the comments made by Dr Thio Su Mien reported in “Lawyer’s Key Role in Aware coup” (ST 23 April, 2009). Dr Thio has unequivocally dismissed the credibility of Aware under the previous executive committee on the grounds that it supported a lesbian agenda. She has reduced years of activism and hard work spanning a range of issues to a single sticking point - and that is Aware’s supposedly pro-gay stance. Aware has fought for gender equality and women’s rights, and the protection of battered women and other minorities such as domestic workers and trafficked women. It has worked for the legal recognition of marital rape and also advocated on behalf of single women. Do none of these endeavours count?

Dr Thio has condemned Aware’s old guard for promoting lesbianism and homosexuality, and in doing so, redefining marriage and family. However, the old team has merely brought to light the presence of alternative family structures already present in society. Such families include: families headed by unmarried mothers and divorced women, families with pregnant teens etc. These families were previously stigmatized and vilified, and have only now started to break free of prejudice because of the good work Aware has done to help the mainstream understand their plight.

Dr Thio claims that she and the other members of the new team acted out of concern and merely want to contribute to society. However, theirs is a simplified version of society, one that is a caricature rooted in the biologically constructed roles of men and women. In this version of society, there will be entire generations of lesbians thanks to Aware’s sexuality education programme. Dr Thio’s version of society is highly paternalistic and is one in which young women are seen as unable to think for themselves and easily influenced by others. Surely, our daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends have more brains than that?

She claims that all lesbians are women who have been abused by men, and are consequently rebelling as a result of this abuse. Such a view is highly one-dimensional and pathologises the entire process of a woman coming to terms with her sexual identity. It presents considered choices, no matter how well thought out, as inevitable products of a disordered mind. This demonstrates more clearly than anything else Dr Thio’s anti-feminist motivations.

Dr Thio’s decision to act stems from a belief that people are ignorant and need to be educated about the threat of homosexuality. Does she mean that anyone who does not share the same beliefs as her is ignorant and needs to be ‘taught’ what is ‘right’? Such a stand reeks of homophobia, condescension and arrogance. Such intolerance should not be condoned in Singapore.


Kamal Ramdas

This piece was submitted to the ST forums. Please feel free to circulate it if you endorse the writer's position.