Nowadays, it is not hard to accept that women are able to be leaders as there are many examples of women who are known for their successful achievements from all around the globe. The achievement is not just because they got all A’s from their exam papers but far more than that. For example, Jacinda Ardern the 40th prime minister of New Zealand known for her leadership skills in handling the terrorist attack for the mosque shootings, the volcanic eruption in White Island, and the Coronavirus outbreak were thousands of cases registered in every country every day and New Zealand was able to maintain just one case.
All these problems were taken care of by Jacinda Ardern in one year, and that is so amazing. Another example from our country is Noor Neelofa Mohd Noor. A Malaysian actress, television presenter, and entrepreneur. She is known for her beauty and brain, and that is something that our youngsters would value.
Moving back to the context, women are generally known for their sensitivity. They get really irritated very easily and are sometimes explicable. Some will keep these irritations to themselves and usually will blow up at random. Women are known to be expressive and sometimes they make it difficult for other people. The reason why this happens is that women are taught to accept a lot of things growing up, the stereotypical thinking from society, women find it hard to get support and understanding from close ones, and constantly being overly sexualized by men. Hence, we are here, to discuss the problems that modern women are still facing.
The first problem is being sexualized and objectified by men simply because of the way they dress. Catcalling is a common way that is used to make a woman feel uncomfortable when they are outside. For example, girls wearing bodycon dresses walking by the streets, and there will be guys driving cars and bikers honking or whistling to the girls. Another way used to make women uneasy is by staring.
Men would just stare obviously at your body without making any sound as you walk past them. They would usually stare at you like a piece of meat and make you feel really uncomfortable with what you are wearing. Lastly is by asking inappropriate questions that are offensive. Usually, these questions come from our close ones. The reasons why these people are doing this are because some men considered certain inappropriate clothing as an invitation.
Some women would change their way of clothing just to feel safe and comfortable but they do not feel satisfied or happy about it. While others would continue with what they are comfortable with because it makes them feel confident about themselves and creates awareness among people and their friends to educate them. The second main problem women in Malaysia are still facing is with purchasing their personal care products. Before diving deeper on this point let’s learn what is personal care? Personal care is very general and is used to refer to personal hygiene and toileting, dressing, and also personal appearance. Personal care is used by everyone, technically.
Men and women use personal care to shower, clean up themselves, but women use it more frequently and pay more attention to detail on certain products. For example, the products could be sanitary pads, feminine hygiene products, and undergarments. The factors of these problems are sweating, menstruation, and vaginal discharge. These products are used to prevent body odour, as we as women have body smell as well. Also, it is very important to take care of our hygiene and to maintain good health. The problem only starts when women feel uncomfortable buying personal hygiene products and undergarments from the store as certain women get weird stares from men and some women feel like these things should be private and cannot be seen by strangers. This is why some women prefer to go to certain stores where there is no crowd. If not, they would prefer to browse online grocery in Malaysia just from home and wait for their products to be delivered.
All these problems should not be problems as we live in a generation where we can educate and provide more understanding of these matters. Honestly, a choice can be made by an individual, and we live in a big society where we all would want to be accepted for who we are. Stereotypical thinking should be put away and some people really need to grow up. If each of us does our part in accepting other people, we are basically creating a better world for our future generations and they will be truly thankful.
