The role and status of women in Malaysia have undergone a profound change back from 61 years ago when Malaysia first gained independence. Having a better access to education, employment opportunities and changes in the socio-cultural environment lead to more progressed changes among women in Malaysia. They started to participate effectively in many aspects of development of the country. These aspects include key areas such as education, health, employment, and their voices in decision-making process. Decades ago, most of the women do not have much says in the politics of Malaysia and their opinions tend to be overlooked. However, changes in the legal and institutional framework eventually allow them to have their rights protected and their status improved. They have gained more autonomy than before by occupying various professions and positions in both the public and private sectors. Not to mention that the deputy prime minister of Malaysia is now a woman.

            Nevertheless, there are still Malaysian women who still remain within the decisions of their family to stay at home and become a fulltime housewife despite of their ambitions and dreams of having a career of their own. This usually happened in rural areas where there is lack of awareness on women empowerment. I believe a lot of households still practice gender role where they believe that women have to cook and do the house chores while men go to the work. The traditional society used to believe that by knowing how to cook, dress appropriately, talk gently and being feminine makes a Malay woman a woman. This notion of how woman should act or behave has changed by times with education and development. Even though most of them have their own career, some find it hard to manage their time well as a working mom. I personally think that this has something to do with the stereotypes of gender role where mom should do the cooking, dishes, laundry and other house chores despite of working at the office. Malaysian employers should consider providing child-care facilities to help out all the working moms.

            Education has been vital for personal development of women in Malaysia be it formal or non-formal. According to the report by Ministry of Women and Family Development of Malaysia (2003), in order to protect the right to education for Malaysian women, Article 12 (1) of the Federal Constitution guarantees equal right to education for all Malaysians. This increased access opened up many opportunities for the women to voice out their opinions or ideas and share their knowledge and skills with the public. “A report authored by the Penang Institute in 2016 found that the difference between female and male enrollment in public universities has increased in favor of females from 67,734 in 2009 to 86,798 in 2013. About 45% of engineering graduates in Malaysia are female, compared to 17% in the United States.  Hence, the current trend is likely to grow even further in the years and decades to come!” (Khan, 2017).

            Nevertheless, there are still few challenges that need to be overcome such as unequal educational opportunities between urban and rural areas. More focus needs to be given to the women in the rural areas to prevent their marginalization from rapid development in the urban areas. Also, gender gap still exists between men and women when it comes to high-level positions which include decision-making. From the year 2004, 30% of public sector employees in Malaysia are women as announced by the Malaysian government, but majority are engaged with low-level clerical work rather than in decision-making roles. (Cheh, 2018). Hence, there should be a policy where there is a balanced representation of both men and women in politics parties, boards of directors and other high-position level.

References:

Cheh, S. (2018, March 3). What Malaysia really needs to do to empower women, according to rights activists. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/

Khan, N. (2017, October 7). Women in Malaysia more empowered today. The Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com.my/

Ministry of Women and Family Development of Malaysia. (2003). The Progress of Malaysian Women Since Independence 1957 – 2000. Retrieved from https://www.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/WomenE/ProgressOfMalaysianWomen.pdf