And those who, in their way, big and small, individually and collectively, choose to do something about this and bring about change, either for themselves or for other girls and women around them.

The first experience of anger that I remember was when I was eight years old. It was a personal one, a huge fight that I witnessed between my parents and when I felt - what I didn’t have the words for then - the overwhelming power of patriarchy. I remember the devastation because I love my father very much and was the closest to him amongst my siblings.

The disappointment was too huge to contain because I felt the injustice towards my mother, and so, I penned a letter to my father telling him how I felt and what I thought of the situation and about him. It was only many decades later that I realised that this was my first experience of speaking up against the most significant authority in my life back then.

Because of the love I felt for both my parents and the injustice I felt against my mother was so strong, I was fearless. The only other thing that I remember is my mother had read the letter too. She didn’t say much, but the look on her face said it all.

That she felt she was heard.

Women must be part of decision-making

The struggle against inequality and injustice begins with the experiences that we encounter in our daily lives. The rise towards marking International Women’s Day started in the early 1900s because of what women were going through in their lives during the industrialisation era.

Women were campaigning to push for change, demanding shorter working hours, better pay, and, critically, the right to vote.

Women’s voices were not accounted for at all in the spaces where changes to their lives could be most significant, i.e. women’s power to decide on laws and rules that impacted them on a daily basis. Even laws on how much women earn and how much time they spend at work would immediately affect them and their family’s well-being.

Since then, the struggle to narrow the inequality gap between men and women in laws, policies, and practices is continuous in all aspects of economics, society, culture, and politics. Decisions to make lives better all around for women are not possible without women being at the table of decision-making and being heard.

The United Nations’ theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world”. Given the specific burdens and challenges women face during the pandemic, this is most apt.

In July 2020, four months following the first movement control order announcement, Suhakam issued a policy brief titled “Covid-19 and Women’s Human Rights in Malaysia” and raised concerns about the pandemic’s impact on women.

This included gender-insensitive and short-term policies, gender-based violence, forced separation of families, unpaid care work, gender digital divide, gender data gap, and impeded access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services.

Just a few short phrases, but each one deadly and damaging if not addressed and resolved.

What women here were experiencing is actually a global phenomenon, with the UN secretary-general declaring that the pandemic is deepening pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political, and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic.

The need for female leadership, voices, and participation in decision-making has become even more urgent, and their ideas and contributions must be taken seriously or these inequalities will not only remain but also deepen.

Even in the best of times, addressing the gaps that women experience in their daily lives is not without resistance.

We live in the 21^st century and yet we still have leaders who haven’t wrapped their heads around the idea that women are human beings of equal worth and dignity, deserving their full humanity and rights.

Does Malaysia make the grade?

As a United Nations member, Malaysia is committed to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030. Amongst the 17 goals that aim to ensure no one is left behind is Goal 5 on gender equality, i.e. to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. There are 12 specific indicators for Goal 5 altogether.

Amongst them are whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce, and monitor equality and non-discrimination based on sex and the proportion of seats held by women in national Parliaments and local governments.

Each of these indicators is given a definition and rationale plus the method of computation and other methodological considerations. All of these can be found in the UN Statistics Wiki SDG eHandbook.

In examining Goal Indicator 5.1.1 on whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce, and monitor equality and non-discrimination based on sex, governments are assessed using a questionnaire comprising 44 binary questions under the following areas:

• Overarching legal frameworks and public life
• Violence against women
• Employment and economic benefits
• Marriage and family

Among the 44 binary questions that the Malaysian government would have to respond to are:

• If personal law is a valid source of law under the Constitution, is it invalid if it violates constitutional provisions on equality or non-discrimination?
• Does legislation explicitly criminalise marital rape?
• Is there legislation that specifically addresses sexual harassment?
• Does the law mandate non-discrimination on the basis of gender in employment?
• Is the minimum age of marriage at least 18, with no legal exceptions, for both women and men?
• Do women and men have equal rights to be the legal guardian of their children during and after marriage?

I am curious about whether the Malaysian government has responded to these questions and whether they know that it doesn’t end there.

Sure, there are some to which they can proudly answer yes, but for as long as the answer is no to some of them, then there will be grave consequences on women’s daily lives.

If there is no law and enforcement against marital rape, then many wives and partners will continue to be vulnerable to sexual violence.

If we don’t effectively address child marriage and comprehensive sexuality education, many girls and young women would have fewer opportunities to further education and employment.

This would increase their susceptibility to remaining in marriages that are abusive, detrimental to their sexual and reproductive health, and make them feel financially insecure.

Angry that so little has been done

This may seem self-evident but I find myself seething with rage that the Malaysian government wouldn’t go above and beyond in changing these situations to ensure that girls and women in Malaysia stand a better chance of living lives of dignity.

It is worthwhile to note that in the 2017 Malaysian government’s submission of the SDG Voluntary National Review 1 for Goal 5, only the following was reported as the current status:

• Economic participation of women has improved (54.1 percent female labour force participation rate in 2015 compared to 46.4 percent in 2009)
• Proportion of women in leadership roles can be further improved (women hold 37.1 percent of top management positions in public service)
• Protection of women and children is a key concern for Malaysia

In November 2020, at the 11^th meeting of the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), the Department of Statistics Malaysia reported for Goal 5 that women in managerial positions increased from 20.4 percent (2016) to 23.3 percent (2019).

What is evident from these reports is that so far, Malaysia is not responding with data to the critical questions for Goal 5 that relate to legal frameworks, violence against women, and marriage and family life.

Even on employment and economic benefits, it is not extensive enough. This is a serious concern.

Family law is the single most significant predictor of women’s economic empowerment. Discrimination in family law is significantly associated with women’s labour force participation, ownership of assets, and bank account ownership.

There can be no equality for women in the public sphere, without equality in the private sphere of the family.

Our legal frameworks must address urgent and critical issues that directly influence how Malaysian women will fare in the future. For example, raising the minimum age of marriage to 18 for women.

No one left behind?

Otherwise, we are not ensuring that we leave no one behind, which is the central, transformative promise of the Agenda 2030 of the SDGs.

Looking at the political parties that make up the government of the day, it is a wonder what is their vision for Malaysian women, who make up 49 percent of the population and to what extent they still want us to be left behind.

The changes we want for Malaysian women will not be handed over to us on a silver platter. As with the women in the early 1900s, we will have to demand the change we want and hold the Malaysian government accountable.

We can start by recognising the power that we have as an individual and as a collective. To use our anger at injustice in a positive way.

The time to stand up for ourselves is now. Happy International Women’s Day.

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Rozana Isa is the executive director of Sisters in Islam.

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