The women at work
The women I have talked to are very strong willed knowing that can do the same job as any man and their work habits show it. Not depending on their counter parts they Singaporean woman stands on their own two feet and rely on no one to make ends meet. Determine to be the best she can be she is strong willed and will decide for her self what is best for her.
Striving for the same things as the guy the need to work long hard hours is there also. So many of the same draw backs the men have as do the women. This is reflected in the age that couples are getting married at now a day with the average age being in the mid-thirties.
The women off work
After work many return home to handle matter there that is required in the house or to study for a class. The gym or dance class may be a stop along with meeting up with girl friends for some coffee or tea. Over all when you consider the population size of the country and number of Singaporean females out on the town it think it is pretty safe to say that most do not do a lot of clubbing once they are in the late twenties to mid-thirties. They find other ways to pass their evening hours unlike the men that you will find out on the town.
In the clubs you’ll find the Singaporean woman fairly easy to talk to as long as you keep your wits about you. Mess up and she’ll have no problem telling you to get lost in a heart beat. She is not reliant on the guys buying her drinks since she has plenty of her own money to start with.
Now in the clubs the guy have to be careful due to the laws in Singapore, if a guy insults, uses foul language or touches the woman in a manner she finds offensive off to jail he goes. This is all part of the Woman Act in Singapore. So having this kind of backing going for them is good as it keeps the guys in line know what could happen.
The down side to some women in the clubs is that they set their sights very high when it comes to men meeting them in the club; while they will talk to you chances of getting much farther could be slim for the average guy. This is especially true for the Chinese girls in the 25 to 35 age range, the Malay girls are some what easier to deal with and the Indian girls you have a different set of rules to play by to get to know them.
Another item for the 25 to 35 year old group is the chance of getting a reputation for going to the clubs to much and dating a lot of different men. While this is self imposed by themselves it restrains the women from sleeping around, lets just say as much as they would like to, they have their fun but it is kept low key so others will not be aware. Now of course you will always have those girl who sleep with everyone think nothing of it that is only normal in and part of world but on average hard to find! If you don’t think so sit out a bar at night and see how many good looking women you see leaving with their girl friends and the number of guys leaving alone!
Singapore girls - a challenge to love
Star, Malaysia
February 13, 2005
Insight Down South By Seah Chiang Nee
EDUCATED and financially independent, the new Singaporean woman is running into a wall of male traditions that is leaving some holes in their relationship, including marriage. The trend had been building up over a couple of decades. In few other countries have women made larger strides in education and careers than in Singapore. During the past few decades they have caught up with, and even overtaken, men in fields they had once dominated. In university, women still outnumber men 55-45 with many moving strongly into subjects like media, mathematics, law and engineering, among others.
Recently girls won seven of the top 11 awards for A-level Physics, which had long been a boys’ domain. Island-wide, women have moved into the highest ranks of the corporate world and commanded artillery units or police divisions, as well as trained jetfighter pilots. Ten women, aged 20-40, are planning to climb Mount Everest.
In short, the new female is able, confident and more than holding up half the heavens, but not getting equal success in their relationship with men. This is running smack into a traditional male value of wanting to be seen wearing the pants, causing a growing “incompatibility”. Better education has also led to the woman being perceived as too ambitious, self-centred and materialistic, not qualities that promote romance.
As a consequence, more men are choosing their brides from abroad, especially from China, Vietnam and most of all Malaysia, where historical links remain strong. I attended five weddings in the last eight months that reflected the trend. Four of the brides were from Malaysia and China and only one was local. I was told this was becoming a trend that government matchmakers have failed to correct. One groom with a Johor bride said he had found Singaporean girls too materialistic and demanding. “One specifically set a condition: no living with my parents. She wasn’t happy dating on public buses.” The women’s relentless pursuit of a career had come at the expense of learning to do simple household chores like cooking, ironing or looking after babies. “If you want to marry a Singapore girl you must be prepared to eat at hawker centres for life,” one male cynic said. A marriage agency owner told a radio interviewer how some of the girls had, on the first date, plied the men with questions like: What is your degree and earnings? Do you own a condo? “And they’re surprised when they didn’t get a second date,” she said.
Others find them picky, untrusting and calculative towards love and marriage. Results of recently released research have found that one in five Singaporean wives is hiding her assets from her husband for fear that he will squander them or in case the marriage fails. This 20% here compares with France (7.2%), USA (7.6%), Brazil (9%), Romania (12%) and Britain (16.8%). But there are more hoarders in Japan (38%), Saudi Arabia (32%) and China (21%). It doesn’t inspire trust. Another sign is the increasing number of cases when a private detective is hired to check on the spouse.
Pre-marital contracts are also becoming more common among people who want to keep their assets out of their spouse’s reach in any divorce. Almost six out of 10 women say in a survey that they are not submissive, while two-thirds believe they could live without men.
The changing female attitude is, of course, only half the cause. The other is the man sticking to a traditional view that it is his right as head to leave the babies and household work to his working wife. One in two women here have a job. The social impact is a growing number of single women, especially university graduates. A growing minority is marrying Westerners. This has prompted a newspaper reader to urge her well-educated peers to revisit some the traditional feminine traits. Her letter followed reports that more Singaporeans, including young professional males, were turning abroad for brides. She said she had worked in Vietnam and found the girls there feminine, their speech melodious. “They work hard without complaining, carrying loads of cloth and vegetables in the market stalls and food places. Simple, gentle and hardworking, it’s hard not to fall in love with them,” she added.
As for the Malaysian ladies, she finds them “neither loud nor argumentative, (but) pander to the boys’ needs. Not as doormats, but as cheerful assistants, who see it as their obligation to help their men without expecting anything in return.
“Not that they are stupid - oh, no, the Malaysian girls I know are smart and hardworking, with careers of their own.
“But when it comes to matters of the heart, they play the docile, giggly girlfriend with as much aplomb as their Vietnamese counterparts. Again, it’s easy to see where their attraction lies.”
In contrast, the Singapore girl is twice as likely as her Malaysian or Vietnamese counterpart to stride away in a huff or throw water in the male’s face or hold a public screaming or crying fit. “The Singapore girl debates and argues impassionedly. She wants to win at all costs and treats her love conquests like those fought in the office arena. She may be pretty, yes, smart, yes, but, oh, so demanding.”
The Singapore girl, in short, is a challenge to love, she added.
Although she may, at the end of the day, be a supportive and faithful spouse, the barbs hiding her soft interior are daunting to the suitor.“She is materialistic, and loves being so. Shopping is a major hobby, and looking good is absolutely essential. The man is but another accessory, a helper, chauffeur, bag carrier.” There are, however, some 200,000 men who have a poor education and a low salary. Their prospect of marrying a Singapore girl is slim. One emotional man said online: “I’m fed up with life. Can’t even find a date let alone a wife.” For him and the rest, salvation lies in Vietnam or China.
Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com
Singapore girl
Time to play the ‘little woman’ Girls here are smarter, driven but do they better good partners than neighboring girls?
Letter in Straits Times. Nov 4, 2004
A FEW weeks back, I was intrigued when two male friends started lambasting the Singapore female and exalting the China girl.
It was not because of the concept of cross-matching across countries. That has been going on for centuries now, and I, being half-Peranakan, should be the last to raise an eyebrow about outsourcing for mates. Rather, it was the mindset of the men that was interesting.
‘China girls are so pretty and have lower expectations,’ said one. Added the other:
‘Singapore girls are too demanding, they have a long list of expectations.’
Each glanced at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to put up an impassioned defense of the hard-to-please Singapore woman.
I half-smiled, waiting for the ‘prawn-peeling’ issue to surface. This was the mode of conversation I would have expected from 50-year-old single or slighted men, but coming from the mouths of 22-year-old boys with bright futures was a stunning revelation of the mindset of the young Singaporean male.
Either they have no originality or Singapore girls are really too much to handle.
The news of the past two weeks confirmed the latter for me: Young 20-something men going to Bintan for cheap sex; 30-something men going to Vietnam for quick marriages. What is going on here?
I have been to Vietnam, and I love the place. The girls, true to form, are slim, tall and soft-spoken. Every word is punctuated with a smile, even when you are driving a hard bargain with them.
Their speech is melodious, and they work hard without complaining, carrying loads of cloth and vegetables in the market stalls and food places. Simple, gentle and hardworking, it’s hard not to fall in love with them.
So too are Malaysian girls. Having friends who are dating these girls, I have observed that they are generally of the ’saccharine’ variety. Neither loud nor argumentative, they pander to the boys’ needs.
Not as doormats, but as cheerful assistants, who see it as their obligation to help their men without expecting anything in return. Not that they are stupid - oh, no, the Malaysian girls I know are smart and hardworking, with careers of their own.
But when it comes to matters of the heart, they play the docile, giggly girlfriend with as much aplomb as their Viet counterparts.
Again, it’s easy to see where their attraction lies.
I cannot comment on the Chinese girls or the girls from Bintan, but I can contrast the Malaysian and Vietnamese girls I know with Singapore girls. We are, generally, extremely driven by ideals and emotions.
In an argument, the Singapore girl is twice as likely as her Malaysian or Vietnamese counterpart to stride away in a huff or throw water on the male’s face or hold a public screaming or crying fit.
Not for this girl are soft, barely audible replies. The Singapore girl debates and argues impassionedly. She wants to win at all costs and treats her love conquests like those fought in the office arena.
She may be pretty, yes, smart, yes, but, oh, so demanding.
The Singapore girl, in short, is a challenge to love. Although she may, at the end of the day, be a supportive and faithful spouse, the barbs hiding her soft interior are daunting to the suitor.
She is materialistic, and loves being so. Shopping is a major hobby, and looking good is absolutely essential. The man is but another accessory, a helper, chauffeur, bag carrier.
Her girlfriends egg her on, smiling at one friend as her boyfriend picks her up after class each day and cheering the girl who unceremoniously dumps her cheating boyfriend in the middle of the road.
Girl power, we think unanimously. We are not going to be one of those docile wives who nod their heads and cook for you at the slightest command. We are not going to have wool pulled over our eyes by your romantic nonsense. No way. We are women of the new age, liberal, free and… single?
Somehow the whole idea of women’s liberation in Singapore seems to have come at the expense of our love lives. We have assimilated Western role models of strong women without taking into account the men that are alongside us.
I have no answers, short of comforting Singapore women with the fact that pets make quite good companions.
However, for the sake of government procreation policies, I think it’s imperative that a compromise be struck between the Singapore woman and man, before the Singapore born and bred woman becomes a relic of the past.
I remember an interview years ago in which a prominent local host, very much an image of the career-driven Singapore woman, said that with her then boyfriend, she played the role of the ‘little woman’. Perhaps therein lies the secret weapon that Singapore women need to cultivate: a softer un-barbed personality for matters of the heart.
Wong Mei Xuan (Miss)
Straits Times
Oct 23, 2004
