It is always the women who get the raw end of the deal. Women are punished before the men, if they have committed the same "offence", or for being forthright.
When companies scale down their activities, like in a recession, it is the women in the workforce, who will first be made redundant. It is usually explained, that men are the breadwinners.
In the run-up to an election, the women play important roles, albeit at the lowest level of participation, to mobilise voters, distribute leaflets and vote. Women comprise half the party membership, but they are rarely called upon to advise in decision-making.
Last month, two women were sacked from their parties. One was Hamidah Osman, the Wanita Umno Baru head, in Gopeng. The Umno Baru secretary-general claimed that she had participated in an opposition event.
The other woman was Malacca MCA Wanita adviser Kian Sit Har, who founded the Wanita MCA, in Malacca, in 1975, and has been a party member since Merdeka.
MCA was unhappy about her attendance at the Bersih 3 rally, in 2012, and the Kita Lawan rally, this March, to protest against the jailing of former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Hamidah's own political baggage might make readers unsympathetic towards her sacking. In 2008, she uttered racist remarks which earned her the title, "snake-woman".
In 2013, she was blacklisted by Bersih for political violence, when she roughly handled PKR's Gopeng candidate, and forced a press photographer to delete some photographs.
When she was sacked, Hamidah called a press conference, to shame the Umno Baru supreme council, and to urge other party members to save the nation.
Meanwhile, Kian was nonchalant about her sacking, "As a party member, attending activities of other political parties, listening to ceramah to improve knowledge or to take photographs with other political party leaders, it shows that even though we are from different parties, we are still friends.
"So I did not see any big problems in this. But today, the party (MCA) is of the view that I violated its rules and have decided to sack me."
Although other people had criticised Najib's handling of 1MDB and the RDM2.6 billion donation which appeared in his personal bank account, Hamidah drew Najib's ire.
She claims that she has been made a scapegoat, because the Umno Baru hierarchy were afraid to censure former PM Mahathir Mohamad, and former DPM Muhyiddin Yassin.
In Kian's case, former party president Dr Ling Liong Sik had attended the Bersih rally in Perth, but he has not been sacked.
Kian participated in Bersih 3, after party president Chua Soi Lek said he had no objections. She had been photographed at the frontline of the protest, sporting a yellow T-shirt and cap.
Kian stressed that the demand for clean elections and the controversies surrounding the Lynas rare-earth plant, in Gebeng, were issues which MCA supported.
The intolerance and desperation displayed by Umno Baru and MCA will only hasten the party's demise.
Two women who dared to do and say, what they thought was right, were punished. It is not that the parties cannot distinguish between right and wrong, justice and injustice, but that its leaders are self-serving. - http://theantdaily.com/
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