How Were You Brought Up As a Woman?
Contributing Writers | Betty Pu and Rachel Hau
Photographer | Audrey Lim
“If you keep on doing this, you won’t be able to get married!” This is one of my mother’s favorite line whenever, being an unfilial kid, I refuse to do as she wishes.
She yelled this sentence repeatedly throughout my upbringing. She said it on the car when I relaxed my legs on the window pane, when I refused to wash the dishes, when I spilled soup all over my lap and made a mess while eating, when I spoke too loudly in the mall, and when we had trivial disagreements in the living room.
My lack of femininity has always been a joke that runs in the family. During dinners with my entire extended family, somehow it always ends up being a topic of conversation — my bleak prospect of getting married. Nán rén pó, a Chinese derogatory used to describe women with crude and unattractive manners, is amongst the top terms that my family uses to describe me. “Be a lady,” my favorite aunt would always whisper by my ears during meals. I can still hear her even as I type.
I never truly questioned all of this for the most of my life. As a female I ought to act in a certain way so I may appeal to men. It is so ingrained in my society that it at best annoys but never bothers me. As I grew older, my family also gradually stopped commenting on my lack of femininity. Then some day I realize perhaps I have grown closer to what they consider a “woman”. Somewhere along the line, I have stopped putting my legs on the window pane, stopped spilling food all over, and stopped speaking too loud in the mall because they are not attractive traits.
As a woman I was raised to evaluate myself based on how attractive I am to men. I may never truly believe that women’s value should be evaluated so, but late at night as I walk through the city, advertisements still feature campaigns like “impress your man, get a facial treatment”. I have grown used to this notion without believing it. So, how were you brought up as a woman?
“My childhood was filled with playing at the park as often as sitting in a bank cubicle.
Growing up, my dad would take me to his workplace at a bank in Toronto at least twice a month. I would sit in his cubicle, occasionally peer at the strange arrangement of signs and numbers flashing on his computer screen, before turning back to my assortment of children’s novels. These repeated visits led me to have familiar faces with my dad’s co-workers, an expert navigation around the trading floor, and reading and re-reading the bank’s annual report more times than a seven-year old could care to remember.
Which is why it shouldn’t have been a surprise that at thirteen, I became keen on a banking career.
‘Not just any employee — I want to be the CEO.’ I said to my parents one evening. I had just finished reading a Forbes article on the gender divide in the financial industry and was feeling particularly disillusioned and impassioned.
My mom could not hide her scoff of discontent. My father took a different approach, trying to patiently explain to me that women did not become C-level executives. My response, ‘why?’, prompted one of the most heated family arguments I can remember.
I looked to my mom for support. My mom was raised in the aftermath of China’s Cultural Revolution, in a country ridden with political turmoil and persecution from broken promises. Yet she self-funded her way through college, and made enough money to become financially independent and emigrate to pursue a new life in a Western country.
Now, she was sitting across from me at the dining table, after twelve years of being unemployed in a country where she couldn’t speak the language. When I looked to her for support, all I got back was the mention of my gender.
This was repeatedly mentioned — my gender, her gender, his gender… by the end, I was fed up with being called a woman. I didn’t realize naming my gender would be used as an argument to muffle my dreams. I didn’t think my mom would be the one to use it against me.”
Betty Pu, Co-Founder and President of Yale-NUS Women in Business, the most pre-professional nerd you’ll ever meet, loves coffee mugs and John Oliver.
“I have found that to be a girl is to be a bag of walking contradictions. I have been taught that I should be strong, resourceful, grit my teeth through tears, but also be soft, vulnerable, defer to authority. I often alternate between feeling comfortable and uncomfortable with the desire to be seen as feminine.
Most days, I enjoy the ease of pants that can be paired with almost anything, but I remember an instance during my time at an all-girls school. I was upset when, during a class performance, my fellow classmates decided I should be in the half that had to dress as boys. Never mind that being seen as feminine might be a social construct. I wanted to have the ability to switch between graphic tees, jeans and printed dresses, if I so wished. Perhaps this sentiment remains — feeling that I can only appear strong and independent, or conventionally attractive and small-boned, not both at once, yet ultimately finding myself to be a negation of all the qualities I deem feminine.
I am often told I am greatly blessed as a girl growing up in Singapore. Yet, there are still moments where I question if my experiences are taken less seriously, because of my gender, and because of my personal inability to hold my ground. I refer to an experience with pain as an example. In secondary school, when I tripped and fell onto a drain grating by the school running track, I picked myself up and limped to a first aid station. I was told that the injury didn’t look serious, although blood was dripping down my skin. I unflinchingly applied an alcohol swab to the oozing wound on my leg, and soon forgot about the experience. Having one’s pain dismissed as inconsequential may not be a problem unique to women. But I think the pain and discomfort of women have often been taken lightly. And I hope that we will recognise that it is not about wallowing, but making sure pain with real consequences is not dismissed. Perhaps, in recognising pain in its different forms, joy and other positive emotions will also be more deeply experienced by both men and women.”
Rachel was born and raised in Singapore. In her free time, she can be found lingering in front of museum didactic panels and conscientiously photographing her meals.
