Viva la femme!

 

Social media is now rife with all kinds of postings that are glorifying intelligent, independent and strong women. Why? This is the result of the video that was posted on social media by a doctor as well as motivational speaker Muhaya Mohamad in which she called for women to dumb themselves down in order to get married.

Both women and men are condemning her. The women are angry, rightfully so. They defend the fact that they do not have to be subservient to men. Men are angry and offended and are defending their women partners and friends by expressing how they are proud of them for being intelligent, independent and strong.

I could definitely jump on the bandwagon and wax lyrical about my wife, Sheril A Bustaman, whom I totally adore. She is opinionated, intelligent, strong, aggressive and fiercely loving and caring over me and my children. We are partners in every aspect of life, from raising and taking care of our little family to building our little media company.

We are definitely equal partners in all that we do and we complement each other. Where one is weak, the other is strong. We tag-team well and no matter what people say, we are so comfortable with the way our relationship is and constantly try to be even better. I don’t think we could have achieved whatever we have achieved if she was just bodoh-bodoh.

Oh dear ... I think I just unintentionally jumped on the bandwagon and accidentally waxed lyrical about how intelligent, independent and strong my wife is! My apologies!

It’s not that I don’t have a reaction to the video that Muhaya produced (which has now been deleted). I definitely do. But I don’t think being reaffirming intelligent, independent and strong women is the reaction. Now I’m trying to invalidate what everyone else is doing. By all means, we need to show our support anyway. How dare she ask women to act dumb. Right?

My reaction is that maybe the good professor might just have a point. However, the point she had is a little misdirected. Her advice shouldn’t actually be aimed at women. It should be aimed at men. The fact is that men always seem to think that they are intelligent, independent and strong just for the mere reason that they are men.

It’s like they have this sense of privilege that makes them automatically feel like they are intelligent, independent and strong. For many of them, they aren’t even intelligent, independent and strong. At the very most, they are just mediocre or, if we want to be generous, average. Yet, they strut around like they are the saviours of the Earth.

Come on, we all know these people. These are the men who are the most loudmouthed, egoistical and testosterone-filled. They are usually the most annoying and, if you observe carefully, they are usually single. They lament that it is shocking that they are without partners because who wouldn’t want to be with them, right?

Some even justify their singledom as being intentional because they are supposed ‘players’! Yeah, right. I can bet that they go home lonely every night. And, of course, they would probably lie in bed and continue being shocked at why they are single or alone at that particular moment. They are usually sexist too and treat women as mere objects.

There is no hope

I’ll give you an example. Take a look at our Parliament (when it used to be functioning). We had so many male MPs who would be making all sorts of sexist remarks against the female MPs. The men would then get all shocked and upset when these women argue back and question them.

So for these men, I would say to take heed of Muhaya’s advice. It would be a good idea for all of you to take that abundant self-confidence and tone it down a little. The only thing is that the doctor’s advice is for the individual to act dumber than they actually are. For these men, they need to act as dumb as that's what they are actually are.

If they did, they wouldn’t be so loudmouthed, egotistical and annoying and maybe then, they would actually be able to snag a partner. No promises though. I don’t know of any women who would actually want to be with a man who isn’t intelligent, independent and strong. So maybe there is no hope.

If you think about it, Muhaya did say that men can’t handle intelligent and strong women and that’s why women had to act dumb. So who are the real dumb ones then? The men, right? So she should be asking the men to step up instead of women. Again, misdirected advice.

Oh, well. Maybe Muhaya’s advice really isn’t of any good at all no matter what the context is or who it is supposed to be for. I guess it's for the better now that the video has been deleted. 

Bad advice of all times. I would probably equate it to being just as bad or even worse than the "advice" given by anti-vaxxers. So let’s just forget all about it. - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. He had waited so long for a change in the system and he is not willing to settle for a half-past-six change. And then the Sheraton Move happened. Visit Fat Bidin to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.