the problem with national service

The first step to gender equality in Singapore

In the last week of August, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong made two event appearances that would feature in the news: the first was his very first visit to Pulau Tekong, where he interacted with the recruits undergoing basic military training; and later that same week his second event would be to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the PAP’s Women’s Wing. The two events could not have been more different.

His message for the Women’s Wing event was one of opportunity and representation: the PAP recognised the importance of women’s political participation to champion women’s and Singapore’s development, and pledged to push for more women representation in Parliament. His message for the recruits was guised in opportunity: that the Singaporean man’s training in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) would give them strong foundations to put them in a good position to overcome future challenges.

The public discourse surrounding National Service (NS) is never an honest conversation. While the government and Lawrence Wong would only ever use the language of privilege to describe NS, the truth of the matter is NS is not a privilege, but rather a sacrifice. The Singaporean male today does not feel privileged to be serving his nation, and has not for a long time. When NS started in the 1970s, Singapore citizens made up more than 90 percent of the country. Today, that number is closer to 60 percent. It begs the question who is the Singaporean male sacrificing for? And therein lies the fundamental problem with any talk of gender equality in Singapore - it will necessarily run into the original sin of National Service.

So when PM Wong refers to the training a man receives in the army as an opportunity, but in the same week talks about actually furthering opportunities of women in Singapore, it comes across as incredibly unfair.

The problem with gender equality

Singapore has come a long way in bridging the gap between the genders. Are there still problems to solve? Probably. But outside of Scandinavia Singapore has come as far as any country in solving this problem.

If we are to solve the problem of gender equality it would be to provide equality of opportunity rather than the equality of outcome. The two are often conflated and it makes any conversation about gender equality that much more difficult. The former ensures that everyone, regardless of gender, has a fair and equal chance of succeeding in any field that they choose, but not that every field would end up having an equal amount of gender representation. For example, as reported in the Straits Times, although the number of male pre-school teachers has doubled in the last 5 years, male pre-school teachers still account for less than 1 percent of all pre-school teachers. Does that mean that there is some systemic discrimination against male pre-school teachers? Maybe, but more likely than not it is the case that fewer men want to be pre-school teachers than women. Equality of outcome would dictate that there should be an equal amount of men and women pre-school teachers, but not every difference in outcome is evidence to some kind of systemic discrimination or inequality. It is therefore important that we strive for equality of opportunity over equality of outcome.

The problem is that so much of politics is performative today, that PM Wong feels the need to advertise that the PAP will be fielding more women candidates for the upcoming election. It is lazy policy to force an equality of outcome then point to that as evidence that there is equality of opportunity. But such is the hallmark of PAP policy making, the case in point being the Reserved Elections, where the PAP decided the people of Singapore were too racist to elect a minority president, never mind that in the very next non-reserved Presidential elections Singaporeans overwhelmingly voted for the minority candidate. Should Halimah Yacob been unable to win the presidency, the evidence of the outcome would have been proof of the need to protect minority rights, not that Halimah Yacob was a bad candidate.

In this vein the narrative that the PAP are pushing for women’s rights because they are fielding more women candidates is proof to the fact that gender equality is happening - the equality of outcome has become more important than the equality of opportunity. The assumption is of course that having more women candidates is good in and of itself, but what is stopping there from being more women candidates in the first place? If there is some kind of systemic or unfair discrimination in play, let’s find it and get rid of it. The mere fact there are less women in politics is not proof that such discrimination exists. What is a more beneficial policy would be policy like the 10 extra weeks of shared parental leave announced at the National Day rally speech. Such policies tackle the root causes of inequalities rather than trying to game the outcomes.

But if Singaporean men are feeling like they are increasingly left behind in today’s world, then PM Wong tells them they are wrong to feel this way:

If they feel their concerns are not adequately addressed, men and young boys then out of a sense of insecurity, some may see the movement for equality for women as a movement against men.

You see, if men feel like their problems are increasingly overlooked in society, then it is because they are insecure.

The problem with leaving men behind

In many areas of society, women have already caught up to men. This is a good thing, and it shows how far society has come to combating gender inequality. Education is the great equaliser, and it is a good way to measure who have been given opportunities in society. Today, men and women attend and graduate from university in equal amounts, a far cry from the 1960s where the men outnumbered the women 5 to 1. In many countries, women far outpace the number of men graduating from university.

The gender pay gap is at the lowest it has ever been. The current unadjusted pay gap stands at 14.3 percent. That sounds bad, but adjusted for age, education, occupation, industry and hours worked the number drops to 6 percent. According to a paper by the National University of Singapore and the Ministry of Manpower, this 6 percent could be attributed to any number of unmeasurable factors, and there is no evidence either way that any of it is attributable to discrimination. Where there is evidence of systemic or even individual discrimination, of course it should be rooted out and destroyed.

But so much of our discourse and language today is centered around empowering and enabling women that it is inevitable that men feel left behind. Anyone who has worked for a Multi-National Company (MNC) can testify to this phenomenon: it is not uncommon to find diversity, equity and inclusion quotas for women, or some kind of internal program aimed at furthering the progression of women. Where are the same programs aimed at furthering or helping men? The Singaporean man born today will be facing a society in which he had played no part in the historic oppression of women, but yet is constantly made to feel like he has to atone for that sin. So is it any wonder that the younger men today feel like they are being left behind? Throw in a compulsory 2 year service which his female peers do not have to suffer and you might begin to understand the increasing disillusionment men in Singapore feel toward further efforts for gender equality.

Already Singapore ranks 8th in the world for gender equality. Women have come a long way to get here, and the historic discrimination and systemic challenges they had to overcome was by no means trivial. Today there is no longer any institutionalised discrimination, and the opposite is true instead - many of the anti-discrimination protections are enshrined into law. This is not to say that sexism and discrimination on the individual level does not exist, we live in an imperfect world and evil is a function of that, and where we face it we must surely confront it. The feminists of the past had dragons to slay - these were monumental challenges that were overcome by the strongest wills. But when you run out of dragons to slay, one has to wonder if you're beginning to tilt at windmills.

Have we moved past the point to overcorrection? It is difficult to have a serious conversation about this because our society is so focused on the outcomes that as long as the pay is not exactly equal, or as long as female representation is not exactly 50 percent then any insinuation that there may be an overcorrection is met with accusations of sexism or misogyny. But as stated above that the outcome is not equal is not proof that the system is unequal or discriminatory, the focus should be on the equality of opportunity. Which is why when the SGX talks about increasing women's representation in board rooms to 30 percent in 2030, or when companies like Proctor & Gamble or Pfizer talk about having a gender goal it reeks awfully of a quota.

Quotas are incredibly damaging, both for the people they are trying to help and the people they discriminate against. Quotas undermine meritocracy, a key foundational principle in Singapore. They foster the impression that the people get in through a quota are not qualified for the role, because why else would you need a quota? If the SGX or any of those companies had naturally reached gender parity without having a stated goal, then nobody would question the quality of the people chosen. It alienates half the population, making them feel like there are additional obstacles to success that come from their immutable characteristics. Instead of fixing for the outcomes (looking at the absolute amount of each gender in any given field), the focus should be on the opportunities (whether both genders have equal opportunities to succeed in a given field). Where there is a disparity in outcome despite having equal opportunity to succeed, it could well be a whole host of other factors which produces this disparity, including lesser interest by one gender in that field.

Take chess as an example. Women form an overwhelming minority of titled players in chess, and an even smaller minority (less than 1 percent) of the highest title available - grandmaster. Are women just that much worse at chess? Probably not. More likely it is a question of participation rates, and men might just be more interested in chess than women. But, you might say, aren't men more interested in chess because there is a culture which discourages women to play chess, or is actively hostile to women? Yes, and the solution to that is not to set quotas on the number of women who should be inducted as grandmasters every year or a quota of women who should play in the top tournaments like the Candidates, but rather it should be changing the culture around chess to make it more welcoming for women and eliminating any systemic obstacles for women to participate. Creating a quota for women to be grandmasters is certainly easier, once the number of grandmasters reaches gender parity you could declare sexism and discrimination in chess solved. In doing so you would have destroyed any faith in the system, and you would have alienated the entire male player base.

The analogy is not a perfect one, after all, that is all it is - an analogy. But it does illustrate a problem when quotas (whether these are actually quotas or perceived to be so) are put into action. Men today have many legitimate concerns about how so much of the language and programs today are about empowering women, and yet when these concerns are raised men are often met with callous dismissals, telling them not to be so “insecure”, or worse yet, with accusations of sexism or misogyny. We need a more honest discussion about the state of gender equality in Singapore today, before our men feel that they have been left behind.

The problem with National Service

Ironically, the only remaining form of institutionalised gender discrimination today comes in the form of National Service. It is almost impossible to have a discussion about gender equality in Singapore without someone popping out of the woodwork to chime in with “but NS”. This is the Godwin's law of gender discussion in Singapore. The surest way to shut up the “but NS” crowd is to fix NS, but being politically radioactive neither the PAP nor the opposition will risk touching it.

The blatant lie told by the PAP is that National Service cannot be measured in dollars and cents, but the truth is that it can and should be measured. Why shouldn't men be fairly compensated for 2 years of their prime? To that end, this is a modest proposal to end the NS debate once and for all, so we can have an actual conversation about gender equality in Singapore:

1. Impose an additional progressive income tax of 2 to 5 percent on any citizen or permanent resident who has not served National Service;

2. This tax can be avoided by either volunteering to serve 2 years of National Service, or by giving birth to your second child. The tax will stop the following year after your second child is born. Raising the fertility rate of Singapore is a service to nation, and the 18 months of pregnancy could be seen as analogous to the 2 years of service;

3. Women who volunteer for National Service but who do not necessarily want to be in a combat role can be given the option to serve in either administrative capacities or be trained as nurses or as part of the Home Team as necessity dictates. Outside of choosing if they want to be in a combat role, they would have no choice in vocation similar to our men;

4. The money collected for this could be ring fenced and either be paid out as a dividend to those who have served National Service, or be paid out to the current batch of active full-time National Service men and women;

5. This tax will not be retroactive.

It may well be there is no political will needed to ever pass such a tax. The PAP could very well be right in their estimation that it would be political suicide to touch NS. So we may continue down the path of never having an honest conversation about NS, or never having an honest conversation about gender equality in Singapore. But that is the problem with National Service.