By Haidah Halid
As a woman, there are times where I have felt like the only thing I am good for is my looks, ability to reproduce and care for my future family. A mindset that has been passed down for many years.
In the Asian society, it is patriarchal in nature that gives the superior position to men rather than women. Traditionally, we’ve been told time and time again, women stay at home and take care of the family while the men work.
Across human history, the success and rise of women has been vehemently overshadowed by men. Admittedly, women all around the globe have been struggling to break through the glass ceiling as career driven women as this concept is foreign. Long ago, it was almost impossible for women to be able to do what men can.
In 21st century Malaysia alone, we’ve only just seen the accomplishment of our own local women.
Take this for example, just last year we had our first Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia sworn in, Dato’ Seri Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail. We’ve also seen newly appointed female Ministers such as Housing and Local Government Minister, Zuraida Kamaruddin, Rural Development Minister, Datuk Seri Rina Mohd Harun, Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister, Yeo Bee Yin and Primary Industries Minister, Teresa Kok Suh Sim.
Furthermore, this year in May, our country saw the appointment of the first female Chief Justice in the history of Malaysia’s judiciary, Tan Sri Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat.
Bottom (from left to right); Yeo Bee Yin, Teresa Kok & Tan Sri Tengku Maimun.
Historically in Malaysia, almost every sector from political, judicial or finance is deeply rooted in male domination. This is solely due to the socialised ideas of “that’s a man’s work, women shouldn’t do that” or “that’s a woman’s work, men shouldn’t do that” that have been adopted by society.
However, changes in Malaysia’s government-linked or owned agencies have been revolutionary and influential. Similar like a domino, this type of revolutionary change will customarily set off a chain of similar events.
The first groundbreaking domino to fall and start the chain reaction of gender recognition in the country was the appointment of the 7th Governor of Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), which happened almost two decades ago.
The position of Governor Bank Negara Malaysia or more commonly known as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in other companies, was held by Tan Sri Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz from 2000 to 2016, making her the first woman to hold the position in Malaysian history.
(Photograph by Aizuddin Saad)
Not only was she the first woman to ever hold the position but she also managed the position for 16 years, making her the second longest individual to hold the position in Bank Negara.
Back in 2000, the year of her appointment, our then fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad appointed Tan Sri Dr. Zeti as the Governor of Bank Negara to help get Malaysia’s economy out of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis in which Ringgit Malaysia (RM) lost 50 percent of its value by late January 1998.
Ever since then, Tan Sri Dr. Zeti and her team in BNM had formulated and strengthened new economic policies to ensure the country would not go through similar situations like the crisis again. Sure enough to say, Malaysia’s economy has been threading on good waters since then, except for the slight dip in 2016, which coincidentally, is the year when Tan Sri Dr. Zeti retired from her position as BNM’s Governor.
Throughout the 16 years, her service was accorded “Grade A” 10 times by the Global Finance magazine. Making her one out of two women on a predominantly male list in 2015, her last full year in service.
After retiring in 2016, Tan Sri Dr. Zeti made a comeback in 2018 when the current Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad appointed her as a member of the Council of Elders, which serves as advisors pertaining to economic and financial matters of the new government after the 2018 general election. She was also appointed the group chairman of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and Chairman of Sime Darby Property, making her the first woman to hold the latter post.
It may seem like all that I’ve done is just gone on and on about the achievements of Tan Sri Dr. Zeti. However, whatever that has been mentioned here is only a fraction of what she has been able to achieve in her lifetime.
Almost all her roles that she has taken have been accompanied with the title of ‘first woman’ which shows that her biggest achievement was defying the odds no matter how impossible it may seem. Particularly with being in one of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) industries that is traditionally conquered by men, with only 15 percent of women at the executive level. Tan Sri Dr. Zeti has shown that your gender does not determine your abilities or success.
As we can see, the appointment of Tan Sri Dr. Zeti may seem small but it did spark a chain of events in which more women were entering STEM industries and pushing themselves to positions that used to be a “man’s only” territory. Almost all her roles that she has taken have been accompanied with ‘first woman’ which shows her prominence.
Malaysia is incredibly lucky to be in a position where women who rise to prominence in any industry is welcomed and celebrated instead of opposed. In essence, our country is showing excellent progress by moving forward and leaving the traditional patriarchal system in the workforce behind.***