GE 2011: Gender Equality Balance: Draft Girls to NS? Be Fair
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Yes life certainly isn't fair. However, there are some unfairness that CAN be fixed, and we should try our best to do so instead of leaving it as it is. I won't expect people born as females to just accept any fixable inequalities towards them; and the same should apply to male-persons too.
Similarly, racism or the concept of a non-secular "religious" state should never be respected.
Working overseas? I'm doing just that, and I'll encourage all reservice-participating males to take their talents overseas where they don't have to waste their time going back, and are actually better appreciated.
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
That included my friggin pay-rise when I promoted. I lost 3 months of increment thanks to that. You think having women to help will solve this fundamental issue?
Its already ONLY 2 years. Just do it.
Because unlike you, majority of us still have to serve for another 20+ years.
Its not about having women to help solve these issue of inefficiency. I've never focused on that in my discussions. The issue that I'm promoting here in this thread is the issue of gender equality; and why PES-E have to serve but PES-A women can't even do guard duties and sai kangs to help out so that the rest of us don't have to burn weekends and can have a REAL life during that extensive period. I've even developed a chronic lower back pain due to all that duties (7 to 11 times per mth, sometimes even 15!!! due to the lack of duty-capable personals), carrying the rifle and SBO, while completely exhausted working all day, and frequently overtime as underpaid and unappreciated slaves. I've seen others non-regulars who have recieved more severe life-long injuries, and all they get is a downgrade w/o any real compensation; which can be paid for my taxing our "foreign-talents" and non-serving females higher.
It is NOT all right (especially not as a non-volunteered NS personal) to have to get a significant part of our (males) youth burnt away like that. We sacrificed our career and weren't even properly paid or compensated; and still have to risk sever punishments like fines or DB (I've avoided any form of punishments, including extras, while doing my time in NS btw). I have already wasted my 2.5 years in NS, and I'm still PES-B even though I'm anemic and have collapsed sever times due to heat-exhaustion just from road-marches because I don't sweat enough and I have poor physique (underweight no matter how much I eat). The only reason I'm not having to go for reservice is because I'm working overseas contributing to research elsewhere instead of within SG, because I don't want to do reservice and meet with those regular aholes inside ever again.
Besides, are people born as females truely as incapable as some of you people think? Isreal enlists female-people into their military as combatants (not just for sai-kangs, duties and all). Is our military so incapable and so "cannot make it" to be able to make things fair? If it is really the case, then what's the point of even wasting our time being forced to serve such an incompetent organisation? Why not invest on frightening technological research into offensive (moral breaking) deterrents that requires only button pushing that even any PES-C female-personals can perform.
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I understand threadstarter's intention of this thread but please you do not have to scold vulgarities at others.
Back to topic, I have to agree with threadstarter that females should also serve NS. National Service, national security, serving the country shouldn't just fall in the hands of just one group of people, Singaporean males but it is the responsibility of all and every Singaporean. So shouldn't it be more reasonable for all Singaporeans males and females to do national service, since the govt had emphasize the importance of national security?
Today, females also demands sex equality among their male peers. In that case, shouldn't they serve NS as well to prove their capabilities to match their male peers? There are also females who are much stronger and probably more eager to serve the country. Look the the US army, there is no differentiation, Males and females together go to trainings, go to real time war in places like the Middle East. Although US soldiers are not forced conscripted soldiers, however, the females proved to be as equally good as their male peers.
If the arguement is that having females in active units may hinder training, the SAF should do a screening to all females to determine which are the ones suitable for combatual units and which are not. However I feel that as long as the training program is correct and well organised, and probably proper seggregation can be done for different groups of soldiers, be it males or females, training both male and female soldiers are still possible.
For those are not for combatual units, they can be assigned to other provisional vocations like store personnel, cooks for cookhouse (hence save the costs of outsourcing), medics and MOs, drivers, guards or other vocations that females can do as well, if they are not suitable for combatual units. Rather than having PES D and E personnels, males and females, still serving the army whilst being "untouchables" in some aspects, hence wasting SAF money and degrading efficiencies and wasting time of these people, where they can be more useful in the society working instead. I think that the PES D and E people can still contribute much to the workforce if not in the army.
Having females in the army will also balance out the senseless macho-ism and egoness within the males in the army. One of the SAF rules "Care for soldiers" doens't really apply in what it is said from the mouth. I guess the need for some femanism is needed to emphasise this pharse, as females tends to be more compassionate and caring, rather than pushing soldiers to the limits by male egoness and dirty politics and senseless and inefficient punishments with thousands of push ups everyweek, driving soldiers into madness and hatred.
However the great irony faced by NS personnel is that they are not properly rewarded for the 2 years that they have sacrificed in their lives, and on top of the 2 years forced conscriptions, they still have to waste their time every year to come back for ICT, IPPT and still get penalised (e.g, RT, fines, DB) during these periods of times. It is adding more stress to their lives where life is already so stressful with health, career, money, famil, etc. And the annual ICTs as mentioned by members in their former posts, are disrupting their work, career advancements, and threatened by their female collegues and foreigners who may snatch their ricebowls, and this is especially so for males who need to support a family.
What angers most Singapreans is that today the career landscape is getting more competitive because more foreigners are snatching away jobs, be it blue collar or white collar jobs. The greatest irony is that the govt blamed their own citizens for not being productive enough, do not go for enough upgrading courses to keep themselves relevant and competitive in the job market. However I would like to ask these people, given how much time is wasted on these annual IPPTs and ICTs and how disrupting and exhausting these activities are, how can we be more productive than foreigners, and how are we able to find time and energy for upgrading courses, because of these annual useless activities, and time spent on OTs in work just to clear backlogs because of these annual useless activities.
A real fact that I faced from my university studies, the foreign students are much younger than me when they graduated, a few even have their own business even they are almost the same age as me. I was pretty envious and also upset about this because if I am the same as them, I might probably got my degree even way before I reach 25 and just like these people, being able to continue to stay relevant to the society, able to land myself a better job prospect, as being younger and having more energy and vibrant than the age I got my degree after I served NS.
The most upsetting thing now is that I am not even properly compensated after ORD, just a useless piece of COS that doesn't prove any worth in helping to find a job. I still need to pay high COEs and ERPs just to buy a car, else everyday have to squeeze like a sardine in a MRT to work and even ICT, facing some grouses from people who don't even serve NS, saying we are smelly and dirty. I also have to queue and pay ridicularsly high prices for a small HDB flat. Worse, just to get myself a job, I have to risk the competition from a larger population, means more people, more foreigners, with sacarstic remarks from the govt saying we are not as good and productive as foreingers and we do not have enough upgrading to stay competitive which ironically our time and energy is wasted in these useless annual activities.
I don't see the great deal of repaying the SGD9000 to us as it is nothing to the time and youth we had sacrificed for NS. I will feel more appreciated if I can comfortably afford my own wheel and roof, being able to get a job much easier after ORD and have the flexibility to choose our own ICT timeframes to use more time to focus more on our career, stay relevant to the working world, and spend more time with my family and friends, which are more relevant problems that we are facing now.
Lastly to threadstarter, many of us understand your agony about this, but since you have gone through all these shit, no use of complaining but focus on what you should do instead. Downgrade, migrate and leave Singapore or go for a sex change. I agree that there is too much sexism in this country resulting an inbalance treatment between both sexes and thus resulting in too much social problems in this country.
Maybe you should think for your next generation. Think whether you should get married and have a child and let him suffer like you are serving NS in future. For what I see how this ungrateful govt is treating us now, I don't see the need to have more offsprings in future to suffer just to afford their selfishness and million dollar salaries, plus their continuous blaming on their own citizens where their own policies to protect themselves contradicts to what they should serve the people instead.
Also your frustrations on having to cut your hair, dye your hair black when going to ICT. I think this is nothing much as compared to applying exit permits to leave the country. This is certainly one of the most insulting rule to us, Singapore male citizens and as a citizen of our own country, who have shred our blood and tears, sacrifice our time and energy, be it during 2 years of NS or 10 years of ICT cycle, have to be treated like a criminal, to seek permission to leave the country where a citizen has the right to leave the country freely as long as they have a passport. I certainly feel more like a prisoner rather than a appreciated Singapore citizen.
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Vicamour, I have never used "vulgarities" or personal insults at others unless they initiated it first at me (you would realise if you had, somehow, followed the lengthy exchanges). Other than that, I whole heartedly agree with you.
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Originally posted by Phorum Noob:
Vicamour, I have never used "vulgarities" or personal insults at others unless they initiated it first at me (you would realise if you had, somehow, followed the lengthy exchanges). Other than that, I whole heartedly agree with you.
I'm sorry if I've overlooked your earlier comments.But some people have the passion to serve the army so just let them be. We don't have to disagree with them. They are doing the right thing but probably under the wrong mindsets guided by this govt.
On top of my earlier comments, I feel that 1 year of NS is good enough, 3 to 4 months of BMT, and 8 to 9 months of getting to learn about the unit and the basic stuffs in the unit. More familiarity training in the unit should only be carried out during ICT cycles.
At least 1 year of being detached from the real society is till not as bad as 2 years, and can quicky get back on track with civilian life and move on with the society.
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Originally posted by Phorum Noob:
Besides, are people born as females truely as incapable as some of you people think? Isreal enlists female-people into their military as combatants (not just for sai-kangs, duties and all). Is our military so incapable and so "cannot make it" to be able to make things fair? If it is really the case, then what's the point of even wasting our time being forced to serve such an incompetent organisation? Why not invest on frightening technological research into offensive (moral breaking) deterrents that requires only button pushing that even any PES-C female-personals can perform.
What if they are pregnant in line of duty? Do you expect them to go all out?
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Originally posted by TIB1167D:
What if they are pregnant in line of duty? Do you expect them to go all out?
Then they should be granted temporary leave and/or accessed accordingly + military conscription law should have rules to discourage this from happening, etc, there's always a way. Again, other countries have successfully enlisted females (and even in combat positions), no reason why we couldn't.
And what about Vicamour's post above? Don't you think there is a serious problem about the way things are currently? Even if you disagree that females are good enough to serve (which I disagree), there are other ways to make it fairer, i.e. properly compensate people who had endured the insanely long NS during their youth (as highlighted by Vicamour above), perhaps, by raising taxes on females and and the so-called foreign-"talents" (who tend to be paid higher anyway). A lot of you just completely dismisses the out of hand because you can't refute it, or come up with any viable solutions.
The "yes its unfair, but life isn't fair, so we shouldn't do anything about it" attitude, IMO, is just screwed up.
Originally posted by vicamour:
I'm sorry if I've overlooked your earlier comments.But some people have the passion to serve the army so just let them be. We don't have to disagree with them. They are doing the right thing but probably under the wrong mindsets guided by this govt.
Nah, no need for apologies. Its not reasonable to expect you to have followed the messy discussion in detail. In some way I'm asking for it anyway with my hyperbole to relieve some steam. Talking about NS, and thinking about the kind of people I've met while I waste away my 2.5 years inside, and the general unfairness and silly machismo-expectations males face in today's society just makes me full of anger. Can't even articulate myself properly anymore.
I vent, but I never go for personal insults unless someone does it first w/o posting anything of intelligence or of relevance. I was earlier called "ball-less", but it is not this that got to me, but the disgusting macho-attitude that being a male you are expected to have "balls" (at least what that silly expression signifies). I totally hate the expectation that males have to be tough and fearless all the time (or risk being rediculed) while women don't have this ridiculous societal pressure. They can even act manly w/o being insulted or even threatened with physical violence. The only emotion male-persons seem to be allowed to freely express by society seems to be anger. I've even been called a girly-boy (in an intended offensive way) or even worse (a "fagg") just for the way my face look! As if there's a choice in that or that its even a "bad" thing to not look like the aggressive thick, hairy and macho masculine-mould instilled into us by the machosimo-western media. But again, that is for a different topic.
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Raising tax on females????
All I read from you is nothing but how males are treated unfairly etc etc etc.
Like I said:
You can just migrate, or do something more drastic if you crave what you perceive you missed out on, so much.
You are also missing the point raised by others, or should I say, ignoring, the fact that basic training is useless.
All these dua kang wei from you are made possible by those who do not sleep tonight.
Fail to train them properly and rest assure you'll see plenty more Mas Selamat cases to boot.
But really....what is doing NS compared to giving birth and monthly cycles?
Why don't you answer that?
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In the society, I can say almost all employers dislike the idea of NS and reservice. Before I got enlisted, I had a chat with a superior in my company as I am quite ok with her. She said she hates the employees suddenly got reservice or younger one like me got to enlist, short handed all of a sudden, especially during peak period. I had a few friends and cousins also faced problem with getting a job or a place in uni when compared to the female counter-parts or foreigners. When getting a job, the foreigners and females tend to have at least 2 years of working experience, whereas a fresh ORD NSF had zero compared to female, normally it's the female who got the job and us as man, had to find job again. We sacrifice our prime time of career and youth for 2 years of treated unfairly, under-appreciated and underpaid job. When the females outside there are getting all the job opportunities and time to study for a degree. I, myself, lost 3 job opportunities because of NS, not to mention 2 of them are high paying job. I also lost my time for socializing, I know some may say weekends can do all the socializing, but with society like this, a lot of my friends are working on weekends. With so many laws in sg siding with females, it's hard for us males to have a real equality. Now since so many females are trying to get equality with males, let them had a taste in NS. One forum-er stated about giving birth and monthly cycles for females, what about the men who had to bear all the responsibility as a working man, father, husband, son-in-law and son? We men had all the burden put on to us because of stereotyping, since now the females want equality, let them have it.
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Raising tax on females????
All I read from you is nothing but how males are treated unfairly etc etc etc.
Like I said:
You can just migrate, or do something more drastic if you crave what you perceive you missed out on, so much.
You are also missing the point raised by others, or should I say, ignoring, the fact that basic training is useless.
All these dua kang wei from you are made possible by those who do not sleep tonight.
Fail to train them properly and rest assure you'll see plenty more Mas Selamat cases to boot.
But really....what is doing NS compared to giving birth and monthly cycles?
Why don't you answer that?
Well, you are missing the points again, and the fact is that I had already addressed that irrelevant point (but refuse to address it over and over again since I had already successfully refuted it). But for your benefit, the discussion isn't about shortening NS further, its about gender equality. That was just one proposal amongst many. There are many ways towards achiving this, and I and others have provided some constructive suggestions on how this may be accomplished. You are just being close minded and dismissive.
Suggesting that I change my gender? That is just plain retarded man. How would that even fix modern-day society's unfairness towards males in general?
Having females to "specialise" on guard duties (for instance), and taking away the burden on unmotivated and overworked forced-NS soldiers could probably prevent another "Mas Selamat" like case more efficiently. Just one of many instances. What are the PES-D and Es having to waste their youth in NS anyway, while PES-A females just get a free pass to start their career life, and don't have to return to reservice every-year, cut their hair off, and piss off their employers, etc. Why won't YOU answer this then?
Giving birth? At least that is a choice, and not all females will get to find a boyfriend and get married anyway. Monthy cycle? You are compairing apples and oranges here with both the trite arguments. As I've already elaborated, even though the world isn't fair, but there are some things that we still CAN do something about, like NS. On the other hand, we can't stop females from having periods. And how is period comparable to the medical conditions endured by some of those PES-Es? Personally, with the severe disadvantages and immense sacrifices NS have cost us men (as elaborated above by henshin in his last paragraph), I'd rather have the inconvenience of periods; but I don't have the choice. But at any rate, as I've said, its apples and oranges to compare those with the current male-mandatory NS (which CAN be fixed).
Regarding the tax increment for so-called "foreign-talents" and local non-serving females and males, a bunch of lame emoticons is all that you can come up with?
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It just isn't fair. Change the situation to suit ourselves instead of running away from it.
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Originally posted by Junyang700:
inefficient due to work processes. they have got enough people... just that people arent doing anything.... lengthy chains to get things done.... and all the arrowing here arrowing there... nothing gets done at the end of the day.... =X
That is because our boys dont like ns. All arrowing arises. I dont you, you do, you do I dont do. -
You just said it:
You would rather have periods.
So....the path is plain to see...?
No?
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
You just said it:
You would rather have periods.
So....the path is plain to see...?
Irrelevant and stupid. Is this all you can refute out of all the points I've covered? Grow up!
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Originally posted by Phorum Noob:
Irrelevant and stupid. Is this all you can refute out of all the points I've covered? Grow up!
Of course that's all I can. And I should.Its the mother of all points, and you pointed it out yourself.
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Of course that's all I can. And I should.Its the mother of all points, and you pointed it out yourself.
And you're just a retard, as I had expected.
This is not an insult. Its just a diagnosis. Go away if you have nothing intelligent to contribute.
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SpellBreak: http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1390/topics/426941
A "recent" open topic exist. ;-) Post here instead.
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Originally posted by vicamour:
I'm sorry if I've overlooked your earlier comments.But some people have the passion to serve the army so just let them be. We don't have to disagree with them. They are doing the right thing but probably under the wrong mindsets guided by this govt.
On top of my earlier comments, I feel that 1 year of NS is good enough, 3 to 4 months of BMT, and 8 to 9 months of getting to learn about the unit and the basic stuffs in the unit. More familiarity training in the unit should only be carried out during ICT cycles.
At least 1 year of being detached from the real society is till not as bad as 2 years, and can quicky get back on track with civilian life and move on with the society.
Many parents and even the boys prefer the ns to cut short to 1 yr.Why waste the boys time (2 yrs)?
If you want the girls to be ns, they may work in admin office and not in combat field.
Boys (1 yr combat + training) Girls (1 yr admin work in office)
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Also, our boys and girls go for ns, while the rest (foreigners / prs) boys and girls can go to work after graduating, started to climb up the coporate ladder while our local boys and girls still serving ns. Do our dear govt want this to happen?
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Originally posted by likeyou:
Agreed.
But nobody knows what's inside army life is.
Advertisment on mindef etc...are all propaganda.
I heard from my friend son (who is currently in the army), they are still practising big fish eat small fish, learn to act blur and dont b a hero if you want to survive in the ns. 'keng' when possible.
Sigh!
Ya I agree. In NS You must know how to keng and play Taiji. Don't be a hero cause hero always die first. Nobody will recognize your effort! People will only said that you are foolish and a moron!
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i would prefer the females enlist to do national "civil" service...there are many old folks and handicapped needed help...that would minimize the need for FT nurses etc....and at the same time let the sg women "suffer" a little hardship which in turn could be useful as a wife if she ever gets married...
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there are many unfortunate sections of our society needed a lot of help....enlist sg girls on national service mandate .....life is not just about shopping...there are so many things sg women can do
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Originally posted by Fcukpap:
i would prefer the females enlist to do national "civil" service...there are many old folks and handicapped needed help...that would minimize the need for FT nurses etc....and at the same time let the sg women "suffer" a little hardship which in turn could be useful as a wife if she ever gets married...
This is a very good idea,actually it not call suffer it quite meaningful too.
I have being to the hospital in and out last year due to poor health, i can see that there are growing amount of elderly with lack of nurses especially in govt hospital since NS is known as National Service,it does not mean that women have to be enlisted to serve the army,it can be something that it meaningful to the society too.
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Originally posted by KenPlus:
This is a very good idea,actually it not call suffer it quite meaningful too.
I have being to the hospital in and out last year due to poor health, i can see that there are growing amount of elderly with lack of nurses especially in govt hospital since NS is known as National Service,it does not mean that women have to be enlisted to serve the army,it can be something that it meaningful to the society too.
They (ladies can do admin jobs, or in the hq).