Relatable: Create long term solutions to tackle women's issues

SHAH ALAM - Traditional gender roles saw a shift when the world was hit with the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were laid off from their jobs.

All Women's Action Society (AWAM) Programme Manager Lilian Kok said some men had to take over the domestic role.

“With this kind of narrative that's happening and existing around, it is a good opportunity for women to come up and help the family.

“Because when we talk about the family unit, it doesn't really benefit us (women) within the community,” she said as a panelist during Sinar Daily’s talk show, Relatable dubbed “Budget 2023: What Women Want”.

Kok added that with a healthy family structure comes a healthy and successful country.

With the Budget 2023 allocation, she said the government should aim to create a sustainable and healthy unit on a family level that is able to amplify towards the community

Weighing on the same issue, DAP assemblyman Lim Yi Wei said it is a good opportunity to reshape the narrative about parenting as women are usually associated as the caretaker of the children.

She said there are cases where both husband and wife are working individuals but the woman is expected to take care of household matters.

“They are both working but the wife is the one supposed to take care of the children, do laundry, cook, make sure the kids are sleeping at the right time and all those things.

“Let’s say the kids are misbehaving, we often hear the phrase ‘Didn't your mother ever teach you?’ But why don’t we ask men the same question?” she said in the programme.

She added that if the Women’s Ministry could do a campaign discussing co-parenting, healthy parenting, taking on equal responsibility, marriage as a partnership through Budget 2023, it would definitely have an impact on society.

This, she said, would not only impact the girls but also the boys because they will have healthier role models to look up to.