Step In

Step In

True Stories of Women

Blasting Barriers,

Prepping Pampers,

and Slaying Stereotypes

Copyright © 2022 by Penang Women’s Development Corporation

Email: info@pwdc.org.my / stepinbook@gmail.com

Website: pwdc.org.my

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published in Malaysia by Penang Women’s Development Corporation

TG6 & TG7, Level 47, KOMTAR, 10503 Penang, Malaysia

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Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia              Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Women’s Leadership, Asian Women, Career Guide, Personal Transformation, Entrepreneurship

ISBN: 978-629-96622-0-4 (print)

eISBN: 978-629-96622-1-1 (ebook)

Editors: Krista Goon, Emi Yamazaki & Josephine Yoong

First Edition

E-pub formatting by Teaspoon Publishing

What would you do if you weren't afraid? asks Sheryl Sandberg, author of the book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will To Lead.

Sandberg was the catalyst for this book that chronicles two dozen women in Penang who questioned themselves at some point in their lives.

Through their deeply personal stories and experiences, you'll discover how to:

navigate family, career and life with candid advice and strategies

temporarily step out of the workplace and still make a career comeback seamlessly

become the person you want to be without losing your way

make it in a man’s world and still retain your femininity and authenticity

integrate your values and principles into the home, career, business and life.

It doesn't matter if you've just entered college or if you've been a homemaker for ages or you've been in business or career for a while now, these stories can help you define yourself and show you how to ‘Step In’ to your work, family and leadership roles as a 21st Century Asian woman.

Today, the challenges for women are many. Young and old women have questions about their worth and identity, oftentimes left to wonder on their own for answers.

This book is a great compilation of great thoughts and a necessary reminder that women from all walks of life carry a purpose. The stories of these Malaysian women who have fought and continue to fight their own battles serve to inspire all those who read.

May the women of today be bold and shameless in claiming their rightful space. May this book give the nudges and final pushes you need to transform your life!"

Hannah Yeoh

Member of Parliament, former Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development and first woman and youngest speaker of any legislative Assembly in Malaysia.

Acknowledgements

Many special thanks to all our contributors featured in this book as well as invaluable collaborators, without whom we would not have been able to publish this book.

Chan Rui Ming

Theresa Devi

Khoo Kay Khoon

Lim Jiun Yih

Matrika Sasha Nehru

Andy Tan

Settlements

Wawasan Open University

Contents

Message From YAB Chow Kon Yeow

Foreword by YB Steven Sim

Prologue by YB Chong Eng

From Lean In to Step In: The Issues

Part 1: Blasting Brain Barriers – Stories To Feed Your Mind

Of Hearts and Minds – Datin Josephine Yoong

Without A Name – Maggie Fong

The Compass In My Pocket – Mariam Lim

Shine Bright Like A Diamond – Dr Khoo Seok Wah

Claiming Your Space – Dato’ Rohana Ghani Weiler

Taking My Place – YB Kasthuri Patto

Fearless – Khoo Cheng See

Guiding Principles – Mary Ann Harris

Part 2: Prepping Pampers and Press Releases – Advice For Family & Life

Lessons Without Regrets – Emi Yamazaki

The Myth of Doing It All – Katharine Chua

A Mother’s Dilemma – Lim Siew Yean

Perfectionism is Not Perfect – Boonsiri Somchit

Making it Work Together – Muzlifah Yusoff

Raising The Bar – Dato’ Dr Florance Sinniah

Part 3: Slaying Stereotypes, Scaling Summits – Skills To Help Your Work

Leap Into The Unknown – Krista Goon

Engineering Blurred Lines – Hor Wei Vern

Crisis Survivor – Y.P Tan

Paying It Forward – Den Chiew Fung

Chances and Challenges – Dato’ Seri Maimunah Mohd Sharif

Engineering Your Vision – Dr Vimaleswari Ramasamy

Beyond The Corporate World – Mary Ang Cheng Imm

The Road Less Taken – Koay Su Lyn

Conducting Life – Dato’ Seri Ooi Chean See

Other Shoes, Other Perspectives – Mini-stories From Other Contributors

Epilogue by Dato’ Judy Cheng-Hopkins

Message from YAB Chow Kon Yeow

Chief Minister of Penang

From 1999, my life and view started to shift as I sat in the car with my esteemed colleague, Saudari Chong Eng. As a first-time MP, I would travel to Kuala Lumpur by car and back to attend Parliament and in those 8–9 hours, I was a captive audience to many tales and discussions on gender inequality. As an avid practitioner of social development, I understand that addressing this imbalance would not be an easy task. How can you persuade half the population to ‘give up’ their status and status quo for the sake of what’s morally right?

But a vision of a community-based, inclusive society took hold and if being a part of a community meant that we must include all sectors of the community, we began to wonder why can’t gender be inclusive as well?

It has taken almost 20 years, but we finally created a new and separate portfolio called Gender Inclusiveness in 2018 for Penang — the first state in Malaysia to conceive and adopt this policy.

By January 2019, Penang rolled out the Women & Family Development Committee in all 40 constituencies in Penang, to be led by all-women committees. I am also proud to say that through this policy Penang has effectively succeeded in mainstreaming gender in public policies, programmes, projects and practices, and even in budgeting.

The Gender Inclusive policy also includes an inspired target of 40:40:20 representation in organisations and committees across the board. This means that 40% of seats to be held by men, 40% to be held by women and the remaining 20% of the seats to be opened to both men and women by competition. With that, decision-making bodies can no longer be dominated by more than 60% of either gender, which in turn means that decisions taken are usually more balanced and inclusive, where the needs of different people are addressed.

We want to empower people to strengthen civic participation, we want to uplift vulnerable communities and reduce inequalities and we want to boost participation of women in community life. These goals can only be achieved with the support of Penangites as it is imperative for all of us to understand that we must join forces and work in partnerships to achieve the Penang2030 Vision.

In 2011, we established the Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC) and the organisation has been working towards transforming Penang into an advanced and progressive society through the promotion of equality among all women and men, girls and boys, regardless ethnicity, religion, gender or background.

Ever since 2014, the Penang Goes Orange has been an annual campaign in the state. I am proud to say that Penang is the first and only state in Malaysia to have such a campaign. The campaign sheds light on the various forms of violence committed against women and girls in our current society.

Penang is also the first state to implement the Mammo Penang programme, a free mammogram check-up for women above the age of 35 and it has benefited 11,834 women so far. Furthermore, for the past 10 years, the state government’s programmes like the Golden Mother Programme and Single Mother Programme have continuously helped many women in the state.

Our Pearl of the Orient is also proud to mention that Datuk Patahiyah Ismail was the first female Penang Island Municipal Council President and then the first Mayor of the Penang Island City Council. Besides her, Dato’ Maimunah Mohd Sharif was the first woman to serve as the President of the Seberang Perai Municipal Council. Dato’ Maimunah then succeeded Datuk Patahiyah as the Mayor of Penang Island but her tenure only lasted a year, following her appointment as the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in Nairobi, Kenya.

In another bold move to lead by example, Penang DAP has pledged to increase the number of women representatives in both local councils to the target of 30% by 2020. I believe that women’s participation in the workforce is important and should increase in this modern age of globalisation.

This vision of an inclusive society has taken decades of hard work and perseverance, but I do believe that social change can be led from the top leadership, gently but firmly, to persuade generations of Penangites, young and old, that being sensitive to gender issues and taking bold steps is not only socially & politically, but also economically smart.

I believe this book encapsulates this same vision — to pull the collective efforts of Penang women to reach out to the new generation of women to shed the shackles of status quo. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a gender-inclusive community to raise a new generation of Penangites to blaze new trails for themselves and their society.

That is my vision and I hope this will be yours as well.

Thank you.

Foreword by YB Steven Sim Chee Keong

MP Bukit Mertajam, Former Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports

More than three centuries ago, the unnamed author of the great Malay literary work, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Epic of Hang Tuah) wrote of a female ruler of the glorious ancient Melaka empire. Puteri Gunung Ledang, according to the story, was the last ruler of Melaka before the Portuguese conquest.

The author recorded her reign as one with justice and generosity towards all her subjects, and likewise towards all the foreign merchants and scholars… Melaka was at peace, its population increased under the nurturing care of the Bendahara, the Temenggung and the Laksamana. Many were the merchants and scholars who travelled to Melaka to trade.

The old wooden fort of Melaka was demolished, and in its place, artilleries of powerful cannons were lined in tiers around the city. The Portuguese who arrived at the region about the same time wrote of the bustling port where 2,000 ships berth daily. It was said that whoever is the lord of Melaka has his — or in our case, her — hand on the throat of Venice. Such is the grandeur, and richness of Melaka under the reign of Puteri Gunung Ledang, the first and the only female ruler as well as the last Sultan of the great Malay empire.

The story was of course part fiction — we know there was no female ruler in ancient Melaka.

In this century of Angela Merkel and Jacinda Adern, female leadership is no longer the stuff of literary imagination. But this is not to say that it is all smooth sailing for women’s empowerment advocacy. Still here in our beloved country, even in the august House of Parliament, we have uncivilised insults, masquerading as poorly as the parliamentary speeches delivered, hurled at female MPs. I was tempted to write archaic or primitive in place of uncivilised but looking back at our ancient chronicler who dared to imagine a female sultan of the great and glorious Malay empire of Melaka, I can only think of how embarrassed our forefathers would feel at our modern day chauvinism.

At least from Hikayat Hang Tuah, now a national heritage, we know our ancestors were brave enough to enthrone the more merited Puteri Gunung Ledang in place of the actual ruler in history who lost Melaka to the Portuguese, the licentious Sultan Mahmud.

A decade ago, when I first read Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In:Women, Work and the Will to Lead’, I was a newly elected Member of Parliament. My mentor and predecessor, Chong Eng, had been at the forefront of the women empowerment movement both in Penang and Malaysia. I thought she would love to read the experience of another woman leader albeit from a further part of the world and in a totally different field from politics. And love it she did. We started to gather other like-minded women (and men) from various sectors around the discussion of Sandberg’s book. The group grew organically and even after our conferences, forums and seminars have long ended, the impact of the ideas in the book continues to make its mark in the stories of real women around us.

Then, three wonderful and powerful women out of our first conference, Krista, Emi and Josephine decided to record these stories into a book.

A decade has passed since this book was first mooted. I think the first question in my mind when I received an invitation to write this foreword was, is a book like this still relevant after more than ten years?

Looking back, much has happened in the past 10 years. Just about four years ago, Malaysia went through our first ever regime change at the federal level. Pundits credited the power of women, especially mothers, wanting to change the country to provide a better future for their family, as one of the key factors for the defeat of a 60-year-old regime. Just as women played a huge role in defeating the old government, women too played a major role in creating the new one. In the past before the regime change, women made up at most two members of the federal cabinet. But the new Pakatan Harapan cabinet at that time had a radical shift; the minister in charge of cities and towns was a woman, the minister in charge of rural development was a woman, a woman was placed to lead the science and technology ministry and for the first time in our history, we had a woman as Deputy Prime Minister.

It really felt like we almost had our Jacinda Adern moment, or rather our Puteri Gunung Ledang moment.

Policy-wise, the Pakatan Harapan government launched the first ever pension fund programme for homemakers, built more childcare facilities in government offices, encouraged private initiatives in this regard, and even created funds for women in sports for the first time in our sporting history.

In 2018, renowned scientific journal, Nature, named our Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin as world 10 most influential people. However, all these were short-lived. The Pakatan Harapan government fell in just 22 months, not by democratic election but by the treacherous acts of MPs changing sides.

Today, minister Yeo Bee Yin’s job is now divided into three ministries each held by a male minister. It would take three men to do the work which one woman did in the past.

So is this book still relevant?

I think more than ever, it is. We need to remind ourselves not only of the challenging journey towards women empowerment, but also the successes we have had along this long winding way. Of course, retrospectively, even failures are valuable lessons.

The way towards an equitable society where male and female are treated justly, is really one and the same with the way towards nation building and political reforms. Chong Eng always reminds us: there is no social equality without gender equality. They are but two sides of the same coin.

We are all on this same journey, one cannot claim to be progressive without acknowledging and, even to an extent, repenting the glass ceilings and sticky floors which inhibit half of our population from achieving their aspirations and realising their true potentials.

I commend the women authors in this book for their generosity and courage to share their stories with us. We must call out the obstacles towards women empowerment, celebrate our victories no matter how small, and continue to look forward towards a more equitable and just future.

Or perhaps, sometimes also looking backwards to our honourable ancestors who wrote of a female ruler of the once mighty empire of Melaka.