Danger of the single story

SOMETIMES (most of the time) it’s probably wiser to resist commenting on Facebook posts.

In the last week or two there have been posts, written by two Facebook friends, about women who admit to regretting having children. You can imagine the responses, including to my comments saying that I can relate to such feelings. It’s just not the done thing to admit that parenthood may not be the smartest choice you’ve made.

We go on about how it’s OK to make mistakes, but heaven forbid that the mistakes should be baby-shaped. I may be wrong but it also feels like that it’s especially shocking if a woman says that she’s doesn’t like being or doesn’t want to be a mother.

Why, she might as well be admitting to infanticide.

Why am I bringing this up in a column about books for children and teens? It’s because I think books play a part in shaping the way society views girls and the women they grow up to be. For girls, it’s hard to avoid the traditional stereotypes of women as mothers and wives.

Look, even kick-ass Katniss in The Hunger Games Trilogy ends up with a partner and a child. And most of my favourite fictional female characters become wives, or at very least, fall in love by the final page of their stories.

Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with falling in love, marrying and having children, but I am saying that authors should portray alternative routes to a happy and fulfilled life. I’m trying hard to think of fictional heroines who skip happily into the sunset, alone and joyful, but right now I can only think of Tove Jansson’s Little My, Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, and two nannies: Mary Poppins, the titular character from P.L. Travers’ books, and Nurse Matilda from the trilogy by Christianna Brand.

All four are decidedly unconventional females, but My and Pippi are just children, while Mary and Matilda, although unmarried and childless, are still given the traditionally female role of care-giver.

Even my beloved harum scarum Jo March (from Little Women) becomes totally domesticated, marrying an older man (in Good Wives), running a school and playing mother to a whole brood of children (in Little Men and Jo’s Boys) and committing the unforgivable sin of keeping an ex-student and her niece, Bess, apart because she feels the working-class lad is not a suitable match for the prissy young lady.

There is Nan, a young girl in Little Men, who remains unmarried and goes to medical school, but characters like her are rare and don’t get much space on the page.

New fiction continues to be full of female characters who spend a great deal of time wondering when their prince will come. Codename Verity is a recent exception, but the girls in that book seemed more interested in one another than in men. It’s as if lesbians are the only women who might safely avoid being married with children.

In fact, as I’ve mentioned earlier, young women who don’t desire motherhood and marriage are often viewed as freaks. It’s unlikely the authors of young adult and children’s fiction think this way, but they are, by and large, products of a world still very much fixed in its ideas of gender and gender roles. Also, romance (and sex) sells.

The problem is, of course, what Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie calls the “danger of the single story”: if just one version of something – a people, a culture, a religion, etc – is portrayed then it soon becomes the only version that is believed and accepted and taken for granted as the truth. The “danger of the single story” is that it creates and reinforces stereotypes.

So, in terms of describing what girls want, it just supports the already firm belief that we are naturally maternal creatures who crave the love of a good man (or any man, really) and the cosy feeling of a child at our breast ... or simply being asked to the prom and being kissed by the time we’re 16.

I’ve just thought of a female character who resists the conventions of marriage and motherhood to go to university: Mattie Gorkey from Jennifer Donelly’s A Gathering Light is more interested in reading than dating. For Mattie, words are the key to a new life and to freedom. I wish there were more female characters like Mattie.

Also, more female characters who have more interesting things to think about than romance; female characters who grow up and don’t get married and are happy; female characters who choose to be childless and never regret it. These women exist, we know they do, they just need to appear more in books, that’s all.

Tots to Teens
By DAPHNE LEE
>Daphne Lee is a writer, editor, book reviewer and teacher. She runs a Facebook group, called The Places You Will Go, for lovers of all kinds of literature. Write to her at star2@thestar.com.my.

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Life like video games?

Video games may be considered adolescent, but imagine if our lives were like video games where you constantly get rewarded for small accomplishments? Great, no?

ALWAYS looking to validate my gaming addiction, I checked out TED talks – everyone’s go-to source for out-of-the-box, forward-thinking smart talk to drop at dinner parties – to see if I could find any ammunition.

As usual TED talks didn’t disappoint.

A speaker named Jane McGonigal, an American game designer (and a woman as well, meaning she gets her choice of gaming geeks), not only argues that video games are good, but goes as far as to advocate spending more hours playing video games because that will make the world a better place.

That’s definitely an argument that I can get behind.

McGonigal argues that games like World Of Warcraft encourage users to tackle seemingly insurmountable tasks, and not only do players accept these epic mission but they work hard to achieve it. She then hits us with the crazy-sounding stat that collectively we have (some of us more than others) spent 5.93 million years playing World Of Warcraft.

Did you know that homo sapiens have spent a total of 5.93 million years alone playing World of Warcraft? Makes you wonder what Darwin would have thought of this feat

McGonigal then puts that in perspective by saying 5.93 million years ago, humans stood on two legs for the first time.

Playing video games for the same amount of time that it takes a species of primate to go from dwelling in trees and dining on insects to building metal mega-cities and flirting with space travel really does put things into perspective. Yeah, suddenly that seems like a heck of a lot of wasted time on gaming.

But McGonigal is undaunted, saying the amount of time a person spends on video games by the time they are 20 years old is 10,000 hours, the same amount of time that that person will have spent in school – and also, incidentally, the same amount of time author Malcolm Gladwell cites as necessary for someone to become really good at something. To quote rapper Macklemore, who was basically quoting Gladwell, “The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint; the greats were great because they painted a lot.”

Well, McGonigal is saying we’re playing a lot of games, but what is it exactly that we’re getting good at?

She’s not quite sure but she knows gamers are Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals. Yeah, SEHI is the acronym for that. That doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

She then goes on to conclude, somewhat uninspiringly, that if we could only create educational games we could start to harness some of the millions of years we’ve wasted on games.

Yeah. Except McGonigal forgot that educational games are pretty much terrible across the board.

It may seem like I’m denigrating McGonigal’s talk but what I really found interesting was the idea that we are in a period of mass exodus into gaming. There are 500 million gamers in the world, and this number is only growing.

McGonigal talks a bit on why games are so inviting, basically saying that it’s because reality sucks. She’s right.

In games, at any moment you could gain any number of seemingly random achievements.

Your characters can gain in skills any time. Maybe you’re attacking zombies, and suddenly get a +1 strength. Jumping over barrels, +1 agility. Read a science book, +1 science. Basically video games give us a ton of positive feedback. What if life was like that, McGonigal quips. The crowd laughs.

But seriously, what if life was like that?

What if when I submitted this article, I received the 60th Article Submitted but only 4th prior to the Official Deadline Achievement? What if we could get the Constant Bus Rider achievement for taking the bus for the 100th time? What if at work we didn’t get rewarded for huge seemingly unachievable goals but for small daily completed tasks?

Wouldn’t it feel great to field a call from an irate customer, hang up, and get the 50th Complainer Customer Achievement? At least it’d put a positive spin on an experience that is otherwise fairly unpleasant.

With smartphones and their ability to track our movements and activities, it’s not very far-fetched to think that this sort of reward system could become possible sometime in the near future, while employers would probably be able to implement some sort of reward system right now. Not that I want this kind of reward system to be used by corporations to manipulate people into work, but it’s sort of inevitable, isn’t it?

It works so well in video games to hook people.

The entire idea of “gamifying” life may sound nuts but if we’ve spent 5.93 million years playing video games, games are doing something right. Maybe it’s time for life to imitate art.

And if this idea sounds like something that would come from a Super Empowered Hopeful Individual, then maybe McGonigal is on to something.

Big Smile No Teeth
By JASON GODFREY

> Jason Godfrey can be seen hosting The Link on Life Inspired (Astro B.yond Ch 728). Write to him at star2@thestar.com.my.

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GE13: DAP, a clever ruse to kill two birds with one stone? Naughty, dishonest ROS?

A decision by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) not to recognise the DAP's central executive committee due to its controversial party elections held in December last year has kicked up a storm within the party's top brass. 

Lim Kit Siang in tears

A LETTER from the Registrar of Societies (ROS) on Wednesday has become a bone of contention with DAP leaders, who now want to contest the general election using the PAS and PKR symbols.

At an EGM at the party headquarters on Thursday night, the leaders debated the letter from ROS and at a press conference afterwards they slammed the ROS and its “despicable act” to stop the DAP from contesting in the elections.

The ROS letter, DAP claimed, means that its central executive committee (CEC) is now powerless, that its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng cannot sign any letter of authorisation for election candidates and that the DAP can no longer use its cherished Rocket symbol.

The letter, however, merely states that the ROS is studying the party's registration following a dispute among DAP members over the Dec 15 elections.

The letter also says, pending the final disposal of the dispute, the CEC that came into power after the elections is not recognised.

But the DAP seized the letter as an opportunity to grandstand and turn the blade against the Barisan Nasional, claiming that they have been made powerless and unfit to contest in the elections.

Guan Eng was visibly angry and his father, party adviser Lim Kit Siang, was in tears as they announced, with great emotional effect, the alleged import of the letter a day before nominations.

They also issued an ultimatum that the ROS must withdraw its letter by 3pm yesterday or the DAP will contest under the banner of its allies.

Any verbal reassurances by the Election Commission or ROS that the DAP could continue to use its Rocket banner and issue authorisation letters were not good enough.The ROS letter must be withdrawn.

With an eye on the Chinese voters, the DAP has interpreted the ROS letter as it wants and is laying down impossible conditions that government agencies cannot adhere to.

The ROS has been probing a dispute over the Dec 15 CEC elections after several DAP members lodged complaints with the ROS and demanded action.

Their complaints centred on a rectification of the results announced by the party, nearly a month after the party elections, that an error had occurred in the counting of votes using a spreadsheet software.

In the rectification, Guan Eng's political secretary Zairil Khir Johari, who initially lost in the election of 20 CEC members, had actually won the 20th spot.

The party claimed the delay in announcing the new results was because of the holiday season and on learning the mistake, the DAP had bravely faced it and rectified it.

But members cried foul and started going to the ROS, complaining about various shortcomings in the election, including alleging that there was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the results.

They alleged that no Malay candidates had won and that the party leaders saw fit to “elect” one after the elections were long over.

They also alleged that over 700 party members were not notified of the AGM and had not participated and had they voted, the results would have been different.

The DAP members from Sepang, Seremban and Johor have been persistent in their complaints, even bringing their own counsels to the ROS.

Zairil, after his election as a CEC member, was named as candidate for the Bukit Bendera parliamentary seat, vacated by Liew Chin Tong who has moved to contest the Kluang parliamentary seat.

Whether intentionally or not, the ill-timed letter from the ROS has been seized by the DAP for its own grand theatre ahead of nominations today.

Inevitably, the Barisan is on the receiving end of a drama that is played before the Malaysian public, as a case of outright repression of the DAP.

This despite a statement by ROS director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman, issued late yesterday, that the DAP is not de-registered and that the party can use the Rocket symbol.

Deregistration is not a new thing in our politics and has happened many times before, including to Umno in 1988, and if any such calamities were to fall on the DAP, it is not an exception but the rule. It is how the ROS keeps political parties in check.

But for now, the fact remains that the ROS letter does not even mention deregistration but the DAP leaders are stretching it, for their own political purposes, to read what they want into it an act of repression against the DAP.

As such, they say they have no choice but to use the PAS and PKR symbols.

DAP has been grandstanding on using the PAS symbol since last month and PAS has been reciprocating that the DAP is free to use the party's moon symbol.

The political implications of this are obvious the DAP using the PAS symbol will force Chinese voters to view PAS favourably while at the same time dispelling the notion, held among many Malays, that the DAP is Chinese-centric, anti-Islam and anti-Malay.

It's a clever ruse by the DAP, helped along by PAS, to kill two birds with one stone.

COMMENT
By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naughty, dishonest ROS

QUESTION TIME  It looks like other Malaysian bodies besides those responsible for curbing corruption are being “naughty and dishonest”, the latest being the Registrar of Societies (ROS) which has draconian powers to oversee societies, including political parties.

Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud famously (notoriously?) labelled the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) investigation of himself for graft as “victimisation”, and reserved his cooperation because he believed that they have been “naughty and dishonest”.

"They (MACC) don't deserve my cooperation because they have been naughty... and they have not been honest," he said recently.

Change some names, and the DAP is now a victim of “naughty and dishonest” investigation by the ROS. This is likely closer to the truth than the MACC allegations by Taib who continues unscathed despite everything. What’s more, delve deeper into the latest issue and you will wade deep into a conspiracy theory to rival any book by Jeffrey Archer.

The DAP - yes, to its discredit then - had a “technical glitch” during its December elections for the central executive committee (CEC) which resulted in a minor revision to its election results. The studious ROS began investigations, but only decided not to recognise DAP’s CEC several months later, yesterday - just two days before nomination day. How convenient.

According to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, the letter was faxed to the DAP headquarters at 5.45pm yesterday in very questionable circumstances.

In a report by Malaysiakini, Lim (above) told reporters that ROS director-general Abdul Rahman Othman had personally met him in his office in Penang on April 5, where the latter agreed to postpone the ‘routine’ investigations in view of the looming elections to May 9, four days after the elections.

“Abdul Rahman personally guaranteed to me that he would not make any decision until investigations are complete, and until he obtains a full report from his investigator.”

But then the letter not to recognise the DAP’s CEC still came.

Lim has cried foul, and indeed that is what it is, coming so late in the day when the ROS has had many months to investigate the “technical glitch”.

Meantime, the Election Commission said that the DAP will be able to field candidates as usual on nomination day, regardless of the Registrar of Societies' decision to suspend the party's central committee.

'No comfort at all for DAP'

Should that not give some comfort to DAP that it can contest under its own banner and put up its own slate? Apparently not, and here is where the conspiracy and plot thickens and links up with the other ingredients for a good, juicy stew.

What gives? If the ROS does not recognise the DAP’s CEC and has given notice to the DAP that it does not recognise the CEC before nomination day, how can the CEC make any legally binding decision on its slate of candidates? There is the possibility that its entire slate of candidates can be disqualified on nomination day itself.

Even if they are not on nomination day tomorrow, post-elections, it is possible to challenge the legality of DAP’s candidates. A compliant judiciary could negate the results of elections where DAP candidates stood. And if DAP MPs and state assemblypersons are suspended on Monday May 6 - the day after the elections - via court injunction, power can’t be handed over.

Thus far, three agencies are implicated in this conspiracy: The ROS with its draconian powers granted during ex-PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s (right) dictatorial grip on the country when he tightened laws for societies to bring them under control; the supposedly independent, but not so independent Election Commission and its assurance which may lull DAP into complacency; and a compliant judiciary, courtesy again of Mahathir, which may be willing to play ball.

The bigger question is, who is the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the curtains? And are they actually so desperate and so fearful of losing as to resort to such measures to deny free and fair elections to remain in power? Indeed, is there such a plot in the first place?

Obviously, the DAP cannot and will not take chances, and unless it has iron-clad assurances that it can use its own logo and put up its own candidates, it will go ahead with its plans of standing under the PAS banner in the peninsular, and PKR for Sabah and Sarawak.

If they have to, it will be a major challenge, but the plot will backfire for those who may have engineered this whole thing. It will only help to push the somewhat disparate partners in Pakatan Rakyat even closer together and hasten the day when they will all stand under one banner.

And it is going to sicken further all right-thinking, reasonable and responsible Malaysians who badly - very badly - want to see elections fought on even terrain with everyone given equal opportunity to express their views and get their message across. So no one has an unfair advantage or obstacle.

Any measure which further enhances Pakatan Rakyat’s image as the underdog will help the coalition more than it harms.

BY P Gunasegaram
P GUNASEGARAM is founding editor of KiniBiz. He enjoyed reading Jeffrey Archer’s “First Among Equals”, especially the final twist about who would become prime minister.

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Love triangle led to murder of teenage girl !

PETALING JAYA: A love triangle is believed to be the reason for the brutal murder of Parhwine Lucia Mejia Kaur (pic), whose body was found in a drain near a football field in Bandar Puchong Jaya on Tuesday.

Serdang OCPD Asst Comm Abdul Razak Elias said investigations revealed that the 18-year-old might have been the victim of a love triangle that went awry.

He added that Parhwine's boyfriend, who is in his 20s, was detained a few hours after her body was found at 6.50pm. Her motorcycle was found some 50m away.

“He is the prime suspect. However, there is a possibility that there were others involved as well,” he said yesterday.

It is learnt that Parhwine was murdered after a quarrel with her boyfriend over his “indiscretions” with another woman.

The boyfriend was said to have cheated on her with another girl and sources revealed that the boyfriend was the last person seen with the victim before she died.

ACP Abdul Razak said police were also investigating several blogs which picked up the story on the murder.

“Some blogs had highlighted a comment on the victim's Facebook page, taunting the police saying Parhwine's murderer will never be caught.

“We are working together with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to find out who had posted the comment. It may also have been a sick joke posted by a hacker,” he said.

ACP Abdul Razak said a post-mortem revealed that Parhwine died due to loss of blood from severe neck injuries. Parhwhine was reported missing on Monday, a day before her body was found.

Friends and family members told the police that the victim knew the suspect for only four months and that they were always arguing.

ACP Abdul Razak urged anyone with information to call the police hotline at 03-2052 9999 or visit the nearest police station.

By FARIK ZOLKEPLI and AUSTIN CAMOENS The Star

12-year-old Ye Wocheng set to smash age record in golf

Twelve-year-old Ye Wocheng is set to rip Guan Tianlang’s record when he tees off at the Volvo China Open in two weeks’ time.

 

BEIJING: China’s Guan Tianlang astonished the world when he made the Masters cut at the age of 14, but his record as the European Tour’s youngest ever player is set to be ripped up by a boy aged only 12.

In two weeks’ time, Ye Wocheng, a precocious pre-teen from the country’s southern region, will lower Tianlang’s record to scarcely believable territory when he tees off at the Volvo China Open, organisers confirmed yesterday.

It comes just a year after Tianlang played the same event in Tianjin aged 13 and 177 days. He followed that with a bravura performance last week at Augusta National, finishing with the Silver Cup as the Masters’ top-placed amateur.

Should Wocheng make the cut, he will easily outdo Hong Kong’s Jason Hak, who became the youngest player to reach the weekend rounds of a European Tour event, aged 14 and 304 days, at the 2008 Hong Kong Open.

In Tianjin, Wocheng will compete for the spotlight with a group of ultra-young Chinese players, including Tianlang and Andy Zhang, who became the youngest US Open competitor last year at the age of 14.

Bai Zhengkai, 15, is also in the field, thanks to his victory in last year’s Volvo China Junior Match Play Championship, as is America’s Jim Liu, who in 2010 became the youngest US Junior Amateur champion at the age of 14.

They will come up against a strong contingent of seasoned pros at the joint European Tour and OneAsia event, headed by former winner Paul Casey, India’s Jeev Milkha Singh and 2014 Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley.

“I’m especially looking forward to seeing how young Ye Wocheng gets on, and I know that there are plenty of other youngsters who are soon going to be household names,” McGinley said in a press release from organisers.

Liang Wenchong, 34, one of only two Chinese men to win on the European Tour and his country’s top-ranked player at 170, said the new talent would pose a genuine threat in the May 2-5 tournament at Tianjin Binhai Lake Golf Club.

“Obviously I would love to win my own national Open, but I know the challenge is getting ever greater as our home-grown talent is improving all the time,” said Liang.

Wocheng, from Dongguan near Hong Kong, earned his spot by winning a qualifying tournament in March, while Tianlang and Zhang are both playing on sponsor’s invites. — AFP

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