Woman Up: Manning up to the problems of toxic masculinity in Singapore’s society & More Trending News – UP Jobs News

NO PLACE FOR TOXIC MASCULINITY, AT WORK OR HOME

At a company where he used to work some years ago, Mr Shai Ganu had a senior colleague who would bang his fists on the table during meetings and tell people to “shut up” and perform tasks exactly the way he wanted them to. 

“That is a form of asserting dominance, which really should have no place in today’s workplace. It’s just not respectful, and it does not respect differences of opinions,” said Mr Ganu, who is a committee member at BoardAgender, an initiative to advance more women into senior leadership roles and boardrooms.

“If you have a domineering alpha male boss, he generally makes it a point to diminish the importance and prominence of anybody else in the organisation, particularly subordinates or team members, because he wants to maintain the alpha status.”

Such men also tend to hog the limelight, keep credit to themselves and have no desire to nurture those under their charge, Mr Ganu added. 

While such behaviour may have been common and accepted in decades past, it is now to the benefit of companies to stop enabling it, he said.

“You’re disenfranchising a group of talent because they can’t shine, or are not being allowed to.”

He also pointed out that disgruntled employees could leave scathing comments on company review sites such as Glassdoor, which would only make it harder for the employer in question to hire new staff.

“In this war for talent where everybody is struggling to find the right people for the right jobs, is it worth the risk?”

Outside the workplace, too, some are pushing for more expansive definitions of masculinity.

Among them is a trio of interns from advertising agency BBH Singapore, who launched a two-week social media campaign on July 1 called Redefine Masculinity.

Ms Kang Jingyi, 21, Ms Kirianne Lim, 22, and Ms Ong Tze Kym, 21, told TODAY that when they were given a brief by their bosses to launch a social campaign to address a current societal issue that is occurring in Singapore, they thought about the National Service experiences some of their male peers related to them.

This included hearing verbal insults that degraded women, or being labeled a “gu niang” (roughly translated from Chinese to mean like a lady). 

“Repetition of such terms caused some of them to have negative views about men who are not physically strong or built,” said the team.  

The team added that they were tired of the stereotypical narrative that masculinity is embodied by a “successful, career-driven man, who must support his wife, kids and parents while showing no signs of struggle or weakness”, and that a man who is “vulnerable, modest, a feminist, empathic” is not a “true man”. 

Such ideas, the team noted, actually harm boys and men too. 

“These norms expect boys to be ‘manly’, and penalise those who are unable to earn or prove their masculinity through bullying, harassment, teasing and physical violence,” they said.

After discussions with organisations such as Aware, United Women Singapore and Dads for Life, the trio came up with a series of Instagram posts on the benefits of expressing one’s emotions, and affirmations that men are still men even if they do not conform to traditional gender norms. 

What they promote, they said, is “positive masculinity”, which can be expressed in many healthy ways and give boys and men an opportunity to stretch beyond the confines of traditional norms and explore their true selves and desires.

“Examples of such forms could include being emotionally vulnerable, not being competitive and even challenging gender roles such as being stay-home dads,” they said.

Mr Kelvin Seah, who has been a stay-home dad since 2018, can be said to reflect positive masculinity in action. 

“I think one of the most clear-cut, so-called definitions of masculinity is your ability to be the breadwinner or the main breadwinner of the family,” said the 50-year-old father of two boys, aged 11 and 13. “So my decision runs counter to that kind of a cultural stereotype.”  

His decision was made when in 2017, his younger son was diagnosed with moderate autism, which prompted him and his wife, Ms Shaw Hui, 50, to reassess their parenting strategies.

Eventually, the couple agreed that Mr Seah should be the one caring for the children while Ms Hui heads out to work, as they agreed that their sons need a positive male role model to feature heavily in their lives. 

And Mr Seah said he knows all too well what it is like not to have one, as his own father was emotionally absent, so he was all the more determined to be a better mentor for his sons.  

“Values are caught and not taught. If a parent is absent, how will they catch it? And where will they get their role model from, if not their father?”

When asked how he would teach his sons about masculinity, Mr Seah said he would tell them to consider carefully whether those gender norms fit in with the way they were raised and the way they see the world. 

“Maybe there will be occasions when (the norm) doesn’t align with values that you hold dear, or where you don’t really feel comfortable,” he said. “Then, you need to be free to say, ‘No, I don’t have to follow society’s script.’”

I have tried to give all kinds of news to all of you latest news today 2022 through this website and you are going to like all this news very much because all the news we always give in this news is always there. It is on trending topic and whatever the latest news was

it was always our effort to reach you that you keep getting the latest news and you always keep getting the information of news through us for free and also tell you people. Give that whatever information related to other types of news will be

made available to all of you so that you are always connected with the news, stay ahead in the matter and keep getting today news all types of news for free till today so that you can get the news by getting it. Always take two steps forward