Imagine if you were to bring the Talebans to Singapore and hand to the Taleban the task of allocating the relative number of places in Universities for men and women based on the students' GCE 'A' level study results. How would you expect the Talebans to accomplish it?

They would desire to ensure that abandoned men win and win big. They would stack the cards adjacent to women students by manipulating the statistics. How? Well, imagine a lessening system where:

(a) The scores for each subject for all students would be totaled up; (b) The average score for each topic would be calculated from the total; (c) examination results for each guy that exceeded the average in a unmodified subject would be final a weightage of 'one benefit X' (where X is a fragment depending upon how much his score exceeded the average); (d) In contrast, psychoanalysis results for each girl that exceeded the average in a final topic would be given a flat score of 'one';

And the school management system Talebans would proudly conclude from such a tapering off system that boys were far along to girls in intellect for this and that subject based on the number of X's that they calculated. And what nearly the stop of the subjects? The Talebans would point their rifles at you and rule taking into consideration a straight viewpoint that the score was equal for boys and girls for the additional subjects based upon the flat 'ones' that they calculated. By this reasoning, the Talebans would conclude that boys were higher to girls and more the academy places should be allocated to boys.

We would have a civil achievement on our hands. The feminists would be going on in arms higher than the Taleban's bigoted methodology!The reader might think that the above scenario is far away fetched. And thankfully so. But something thesame happened in 2005 at an exalted and august international supervision - something thesame but considering the genders reversed. And it is unbelievable that there is no civil encounter yet.

In 2005, the World Economic Forum published a explanation called Women's Empowerment. The credit contained lots of data, tables and charts and load full of scientific sounding statistical concepts. The savings account concluded at page 16 that:

""True models of gender equality attain not exist. definite the lamentable international picture, no one who studies the gender gap can doubt that no country in the world has still managed to accomplish it...We wish that this fake provides the impetus for policy makers to add to their faithfulness to the idea of women's empowerment, and to concentrate the political will, sparkle and resources, in concert in imitation of aid agencies and civil action organisations, to create gender equality a reality.""

That school management system was quite an indictment of policy makers across the globe, including that of the allied States of America who ranked 22nd in the world in back Sri Lanka (war torn country at that period facing a civil war) and Colombia (country facing drug trafficking gun-totting warlords). Singapore ranked 65th at the rear the African nations of Ghana, Uganda, Namibia, and Botswana. How did this arrive about? A clue would be found tossed into the codicil at page 21 where it was avowed that:

""This scale obscured the fact that for some variables several countries have reached or surpassed the benchmark of equality. For example, in quite a few countries a unconventional proportion of girls than boys attend auxiliary school. According to the previous method, the summit stand-in country Sweden, where there are 1.26 girls to all boy in supplementary school, received a 7, whereas countries that reached equality, such as Korea, received a score of only 3.04.

""In the current index, before every the variables are gap concepts and are calculated as a ratio of female values to male values, each flexible is scaled upon a 0 - 1 scale where 1 is defined as the equality benchmark. The distribution is truncated at this equality benchmark for that reason that in the previous case, Sweden and Korea each receive a score of 1.""This clue showed that prior years' reports captured both statistics where women surpassed men as competently as where men surpassed women. However, by the times of the 2005 report, unaided statistics where men surpassed women were captured to support the conclusion that there was no gender equality. This was achieved by neutralising all statistics where women surpassed men - ie truncating such statistics to '1' for equality. This bigotted methodology was a mirror image of the imaginery Taleban explanation above.

The 2005 methodology hid the true variety in women's achievements, and more particularly, that in many areas, women surpassed men in their achievements. The bigotted get into adopted by the 2005 bank account leaves a reader following the suspicion that: if areas where women surpassed men were taken into account later equal weightage, they would checking account the supplementary areas relied upon by the 2005 report.

An different slant upon the real gender statistics might be found in an article entitled Gender Divide: http://www.warrenfarrell.com. The author observed that women were under-represented in various fields and leadership positions not because of gender discrimination but because (a) women had more simulation style options - ie more options for enlarged work-life balance; and (b) women had priorities that led them to alternative paths extra than straight in the works the corporate ladder.

In Singapore, the Women's Charter was last century's affirmative behave for women based on the gender inequality of the time. Half a century ago, had a gender equality survey been conducted upon third world Singapore, there was tiny doubt that it would have presented a mighty achievement for its affirmative legislation. Half a century later, there is general parity amongst number of men and women studying in our Universities and in our workforce. There is good doubt whether the Women's Charter is still needed in first world Singapore today.

Several aspects of the law found wanting has been discussed in various articles within this series on Men's Rights. What is left is our acquit yourself relating to matrimonial asssets. In the allied Kingdom, Baroness Ruth Deech, a former lecturer on relatives piece of legislation at Oxford college circles has once on cd to say that London had become the divorce capital of Europe because of British Court's generous awards of marimonial assets to women at divorce. Her observations suggested that even though the distribution of matrimonial assets might have been fair in the midst of divorcees at the subjugate end of the economic scale, its application at the upper end of the economic scale was: (a) unfair (disproportionate to the effort put in); (b) demeaning to women (ie to the majority of who were presumably honest and hard working); and (c) encouraged play a part marriages (ie by women who married wealthy men for money). following this forceful indictment of divorce laws in the united Kingdom, it is period for Singapore to examine our own divorce laws.

If you asked Paul, a divorcee who had to transfer his half of the matrimonial home to his ex-wife, whether the discharge duty was fair in Singapore, you would be answered considering a resounding 'no'. He would tell that the intimates Court applied a double standard. true to the spirit of the Women's Charter to guard women, the intimates Court was quick to order Paul to own up every his bank records, expenses receipts and new chronicles that might trace to school management system hidden assets. But as soon as Paul applied for disclosure of his ex-wife's archives to smack how investment further was allegedly paid out by an insurance brokerage company in cash and disappeared (instead of through the banking system), the family Court was incredulous and asked him why he was tracing the wife's assets behind the main focus should be upon his (the husband's assets). The relatives Court declined to order the disclosure.

If you asked Paul, he would moreover say that the family Court relied too rigidly on the ideal of a 'clean break'. The intimates Court felt that divorcees should have a tidy break from each other's hold on top of joint assets. He had lived taking into account his wife and child in a era estate irritating for enbloc sale for several years. The sale was aborted subsequent to the economic downturn came. The couple quarrelled on top of child support issues (including the loss of keep from property investments) and the expected enbloc sale was all they had left to climb out of their financial mess. He offered to purchase the ex-wife's allocation of the matrimonial home. The Court played alongside the possibility of the enbloc sale and ordered Paul to transfer his ration in the matrimonial home to his ex-wife. A few years later, the enbloc sale succeeded, and his ex-wife reaped the windfall.

And if you try to placate Paul by maxim that the windfall was for the fine of his son? In that case, the transfer should be to someone to keep in trust for his son, he would retort.Ex-husbands battle tooth and nail to prevent their assets from falling into the hands of their ex-wives. But most ex-husbands would fight less if their assets were to fall into the hands of their children. This brings us put up to to the question whether a intimates Charter may be more agreeable for today's Singapore.

The Women's Charter was last century's affirmative be active to guard women. Naturally, the intimates Court thought that the best showing off to protect the amalgamation of the child was for the husband to school management system transfer the matrimonial house to the wife who had care and control of their son. This was the end purportedly in the interests of the child. But it's unexpected plus was the ex-wife. And it generated a lot of unnecessary litigation greater than distribution of matrimonial assets.

A relatives Charter upon the extra hand will, by its completely name, suggest that the legislation is for the interests of every parties. as soon as such legislation, a relatives Court may be more interested in the assets of both husbands and wives, and more diagonal to transfer a father's assets/windfall to his kids (rather than from ex-husbands to ex-wives).

Finally, in the manner of less of a windfall, women may be less ready to head for the divorce court. If a girl could be shocked that her competently regarded and skillfully beloved dad was unfaithful, she might see her unfaithful husband in a better lively as without difficulty -- just taking into account the wife in the unexpected bill Sex Lies and Videotape."