Since the Permatang Pauh by-election nomination day on 26 April 2015, PKR candidate Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has been subjected to the most chauvinistic personal attacks by her opponents.
Among others, she was called a recycled candidate, a grandmother who should focus on taking care of her grandchildren instead of running for office, and latest, MCA vice president and Deputy Minister Chew Mei Fun accused of Wan Azizah of using “housewife antics”.
Such vicious personal attacks on Wan Azizah actually exposed UMNO-BN’s chauvinist and misogynist view about women.
Najib contested 10 times in the same seat since 1976, is he “recycled candidate” too?
Prime Minister Najib Razak is a 10-termed MP for Pekan having contested 10 times since 1976 in the same seat. Anwar Ibrahim the jailed Opposition Leader himself has contested in the Permatang Pauh seat since 1982.
No one will call these men and others, “recycled candidate”. Why then was Wan Azizah attacked as such? Is it because she is a woman?
Why is being a grandparent now a bad thing for politicians?
I am also surprised that now being a parent or a grandparent is a negative point for politicians seeking public office. How many parents and grandparents are there among our Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen? Should they resign en bloc including those from Barisan Nasional?
When I became a parent, I developed a better understanding of the needs of parents and family in law- and policy-making. For example, I have raised on the need for better and more affordable childcare facilities to enable families to have double income. My colleagues and I have called for baby nursing facilities to be set up government offices, including the parliament. I have also spoken in parliament about the need for social security for our unpaid caregivers at home, who in our context are mostly women housewives.
Why is now being a parent and grandparent a bad thing for politicians when the experience should enrich us and make us more humane lawmakers and policymakers. What is politics if it is not about building a better future for the next generation?
UMNO was progressive, 63 years ago
The George Town Municipal Election in 1951 was the first election in our country. At that time, there were only two women candidates, and one of them was from UMNO, Che Wanchik Binti Abidin. She put her job as, “housewife”. There was no embarrassment in being a housewife at that time even in UMNO. How low UMNO has fallen today.
There is nothing embarrassing in being a housewife, and moreover Wan Azizah was a Royal College of Surgeon gold-medal medical graduate, the President of a major opposition party, a former two-termed MP as well as a state assemblyman.
In Parliament, I have highlighted that housewives contributed RM 36.4 billion a year in what I call “mommy tax”, in the form of lost income when they work without pay as caregivers at home. To put things in context, in 2012, individual income tax contributed RM23 billion, and Prime Minister Najib Razak himself said that the newly introduced GST will bring to the government RM23.2 billion in revenue this year.
The army of housewives are the builders of this nation as much as CEOs and Directors. UMNO-BN has no right to look down upon housewives.