Op-ed: 57% of Singaporean men think we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men

According to the annual Ipsos International Women’s Day survey, 57% of Singaporean men think we've gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men. This is compared to 39% of women.

It’s a headline that inspired divisive discourse online; look at Reddit or HardwareZone.

I’m in a relatively unique position – a guy writing for a women’s magazine. While my increased exposure to women’s issues means I probably wouldn’t be representative of those who argue women’s equality measures discriminate against men, I hope to convincingly explain why many men feel that way and point towards possible avenues for reconciliation.

Why might some Singaporean men think this way?

Imagine you’re a Singapore man. After two years of National Service, your female peers are two years ahead. You enter school: There are special bursaries and scholarships for women. You start working: There are women-only job fairs and networking clubs, and murmurs that companies prioritise diversity quotas over skill.

You start your own business: There are SME programmes only for women entrepreneurs. You see existing laws: Women are exempt from judicial caning. As the #MeToo movement empowers women to speak up, you see high profile examples such as a doctor falsely accused of molestation – with exoneration in court only years later after the damage has been done.

These examples, especially the positive discrimination policies favouring women, occur in competitive environments like school or work, where you’re fighting over a limited number of scholarships or job placements. Falling into a zero-sum mindset, where benefitting women becomes conflated with harming men, becomes an easy crutch for some to grapple onto.

What problems do these 'unfair' policies aim to fix?

It might be helpful to think about discrimination with a framework. Structural discrimination comes in two forms: institutional discrimination is based on rules, procedures and policies determining access to resources, while cultural discrimination is based on social attitudes.

Institutional discrimination against women in Singapore is largely a thing of the past. You’ll rarely see explicit discrimination against women being codified in policies, with examples like quotas limiting women to one-third of medical school intake ending in 2003.

Instead, women’s disadvantages are founded upon a more nebulous cultural dimension. You’ll see it in the biases women face at work.

Women are socialised away from careers in Stem, due to lacking familial or environmental encouragement. They bear the brunt of home responsibilities, which hinders their networking and ability to advance their careers. They’re delegated unenviable housekeeping tasks like organising team lunches, which don’t add to their performance evaluation. They’re overlooked for top leadership positions, especially in boardrooms.

Despite the share of women in the resident labour force being 47 per cent in 2022, a Deloitte study around the same time found that only roughly 20 per cent of C-suite positions in Singapore were held by women.

This doesn’t include the discrimination women can face beyond their careers, like much higher rates of sexual harassment and assault. 

While many are concerned about false accusations, these concerns are statistically overblown. According to a written reply to a parliamentary question by Minister of Home Affairs K Shanmugam, of the 250 reported cases of serious sexual crimes (rape and sexual assault by penetration) a year from 2014 to 2018, with police having charged or warned complainants for making false reports in only about 10 cases.

While concerning, if our goal is to dole out justice as far as possible, there should be more concern about the underreporting of sex crimes, even after the #MeToo movement. The Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC), Singapore’s only specialised centre for sexual assault survivors, found that around seven in 10 clients who reached out for help in 2016 did not make police reports.

These unequal outcomes are a problem that, to their credit, many corporations and governmental organisations in Singapore are trying to address. However, this often manifests as positive discrimination in the form of institutional policies. This can become a sticking point for men who feel excluded, especially as they struggle to empathise with the cultural discrimination women face, as evidenced by the gap in male-female survey results.

Tokenism carries the risk of becoming self-defeating too. “There is nothing worse you can do for women’s empowerment than putting a quota,” said Stefanie Yuen Thio, the founder of SG Her Empowerment, at a forum on inclusive workplaces in 2023. “Because there are people who will look at me on the board – and I serve on a board – and they will look at me and say she’s just there because she has two X chromosomes”.

How did we get to this point?

I’d caution against extrapolating too much from a single survey result. The survey pushes respondents into either an agree/strongly agree or a disagree/strongly disagree response, giving little space to those on the fence and creating a polarised result that might only partially reflect the situation in Singapore. Other survey results have been more encouraging regarding the progress of perceptions towards gender equality in Singapore, like this IPS survey from 2021. 

Regardless, the trends and discussion surrounding the Ipsos survey are worth engaging with.

First, understanding how we got here. Singapore has had a firm focus on gender roles since its founding. National service is often touted as a rite of passage for Singaporean sons. Traditionally, men are the primary breadwinners; while many Singaporean women were encouraged to work, this meant they had to be both good housewives and economic assets. 

These trends largely persist today: The Census of Population 2020 report found that just under three-fourths of husbands earn more than their wives, and the .

This patriarchal paradigm has been cracking, however, as efforts towards gender equality garner traction. Increasing numbers of women realise the expectation to be career women and family caretakers is unreasonable.

Many leave this family framework: A recent IPS survey found that women aged 21 to 49 were likelier than men of the same age group to find it acceptable if an individual chooses to remain single, and to agree that it is not necessary to have children in a marriage.

As gender equality movements normalise women stepping away from these traditional conceptions of femininity, no genuine equivalent has empowered modern men. American-British social media personality Andrew Tate’s rhetoric about being a “high value man” reinforces traditional conceptions of masculinity: being rich enough to flex Ferraris is rooted in being a provider; being an alpha male is rooted in patriarchal ideas of control.

Less extreme but similar ideas are echoed in the larger manosphere. I’m sceptical that these ideas can effectively combat the problems facing men. This crisis of masculinity stems from an erosion of traditional roles: Being a provider can no longer hold a family together, while historically dominant positions are being challenged.

Yet manosphere ideas double down on expectations of stoicism and independence. While they’re commendable values, an excess of them have been contributing factors to existing problems like loneliness and a reluctance to seek help. It’s like doubling down on horse-drawn carriages in an age of cars.

That said, Tate’s popularity and the allure of the larger manosphere shouldn’t be discounted: It’s a symptom of men who remain tethered to gender frameworks being left behind. Men do face gender discrimination. Not only through institutional aspects like National Service, but culturally too. Men entering caregiving or “Heal” professions face stigma.

More broadly, the pressure to be a provider creates much career anxiety: Surveys show over 40 per cent of men fear for their jobs, compared to just over 30 per cent of women. Who do these anxious men confide in? Odds are, no one. Men are socialised such that their romantic partner is their sole emotional bedrock, but even that generates anxiety for many men. Tiktoks claiming that women lose respect for their crying boyfriends don’t help either.

Singapore isn’t alone

This phenomenon isn’t isolated to Singapore. The Ipsos survey was conducted in 31 countries, and a global average of 53% of men – comparable to Singapore’s 57% – agreed or strongly agreed that “We have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men”. 

These findings are corroborated by examples from other countries. In South Korea, ‘Idaenam’ refers to young men disenchanted by the perception that gender politics benefits women more than men. They’re a demographic that’s grown from internet forums in the 2010s into a significant political force in the recent 2022 South Korean Presidential Elections. Their participation resulted in tangible policies like disbanding the Gender Ministry. It wouldn’t be fair to just rag on South Korea, though; anti-feminist movements have gained traction all over, from Arab-speaking countries to Latin America. 

This tells us that global efforts towards gender equality are finding renewed opposition, with each area having their own localised version of the backlash based on existing institutions and cultural values.

What should we do about it?

Moving towards gender equality is challenging. We need to engage with the institutional concerns many men have, like existing laws or National Service, while pushing against entrenched social norms that impede further institutional changes.

Greater empathy between genders is crucial: disparities in survey results highlight a divide in experiences and opinions. Increasing dialogue between genders can help, starting with settings like schools or offices.

For example, instead of separating classes for sexual education, why not keep them together? Guys should also understand the tribulations women go through due to menstrual cycles, especially if you want empathetic partners in the future. In turn, there could be greater discussion of men’s gripes in areas like National Service. Understanding the problems the other gender might face goes a long way in fostering acceptance of gender- targeted solutions.

In tandem, we should step away from zero-sum conceptions of gender relations. Many policies advocated by women’s advocacy groups, such as pushing employers to offer menstrual products at the workplace, don’t affect men. Some policies advocated for, like increased paternity leave, even benefit men.

Many online comments responding to the survey grumble about National Service. Feeling a sense of injustice is natural, but laying blame at gender equality efforts is misguided. Men and women face unique challenges. Finding fault with women’s efforts at gender equality won’t solve men’s issues.

For example, blaming the #MeToo movement and women’s equality doesn’t solve the problem of false accusations ruining reputations, it only inflames anger between gender demographics online. It’d be more constructive to call out social media mob sensationalism.

Instead, men need spaces to discuss problems and advocate solutions, just like women do via women’s groups. There are some, like Men’s Group Singapore, that aim to plug this gap. Perhaps popular online spaces like r/menslib, a Reddit community with content moderation that aims for a constructive and collaborative approach in discussing men’s issues, can be a blueprint for what organic men’s liberation groups can look like.