A Woman's Voice

This essay has reached the finals of Growlife Medical's 2023 Annual Essay Competition, with this year's theme being "Strong Family Bonds.

‘Hear me as a woman/Have me as your sister/On purpled battlefield breaking day/So I might say our victory is just beginning/See me as change/Say I am movement/That I am the year/and I am the era/of the women.’ 

- Amanda Gorman 

It was December 2018 in Malaysia. The scintillating sun was an orb of blinding light high up in the cerulean sky. The air sizzled in waves of calefaction – clouding the afternoon. Heat pounded down on everyone like a pestle and mortar, wearing us down to lay like melted puddles on our chairs. The cracked concrete of my grandmother’s courtyard groaned in agony under the searing sun. I was seated on a saggy armchair in the living room, my feet dangling – not yet long enough to feel the cool tang of the marble floor. Sweat trickled down my brow in a continuous stream. The pungent aroma of roti telur wafted in through the windows from the hawker stall on the street– reminding me of the warm, buttery taste of telur in my mouth. And there was the music, turned to a mezzo piano, spilling out from the rustic radio – a 1950s classic – The Moon Represents my Heart by Teresa Teng. 

Beside me, in a rattan chair, my grandmother sat down, primly, her posture up high, refusing to surrender to the sweltering heat – something she had been taught to do as a lady born in her era. I watched in fascination at how she was able to enjoy the music despite the searing summer – she seemed here, in the small living room of the rumah atap, yet far away. 

‘Listen Sun-yin,’ my grandmother’s soothing voice awoke me from the hazed reverie I had been caught up in. I smiled, ‘Yes A-ma, this song is one of your favourites, isn’t it?’ 

Slowly, she shook her head, ‘Not only to the song, but what is beyond it. You see Sun-yin, once there was a girl that loved to sing and play – she lived for music. One of her songs had been played on the radio and it became quite popular. Even the radio station wanted to credit the composer. The girl shared the news with her family who were not pleased. The girl got into a heated argument with her father. They had different thoughts as to how a woman should live her life. Women should not pursue independent careers, much less a musical one – that was what the girl’s father believed, like many others. Then, during that argument, the girl’s father suffered a heart attack. He never fully recovered from that and died a few years later. And that girl, was me,’ my grandmother’s sorrowful eyes shone with tears. 

‘My journey in fighting for my dreams, as a woman, had not been an easy one. I knew that day, my father was looking out for me – at the time, being involved in showbiz, was not seen as appropriate for a woman. In my journey, I had to give up many things – my education, my loved one and ultimately, I was not successful. But, remember this one thing Sun-yin, the world has changed, since my time to yours. You can dare to dream to become whatever you want to be. So, you must keep your own sound. Your own voice. Even if the voices around you are so great in volume that it is hard to hear your own. Hold on to it – and do not let those other voices pull you down.’ 

My grandmother, Cheung Yoke Peng was a demure woman – a character she had adopted that was seen as typical for a woman to have in her time. She was a soft-spoken lady and rarely ever talked – my grandfather was often the ‘speaker’ out of the two of them. Yet, my grandmother had a dream that hadn’t been seen as proper for a woman to have during her time. She wanted to be a musician. 

As a child, my grandmother had been taught to occupy the role expected for a woman at the time – to marry, care for her children and husband. Education, and her passion of music came much after this priority. Malaysia in the 1900s had been a turbulent nation, where the country had needed stability amidst communist insurgence and racial instability. This led to a strong emphasis on traditional female roles, where young girls such as my grandmother at the time, where taught to do household chores, rather than be told that they could embark on their own careers and fulfill their ambitions independently. I think of how young girls like my grandmother lived – taught to fulfill one purpose – to run the house and care for their families. I think of how so many of their own dreams crumbled under the weight of society and gender stereotypes. How a woman born just a few decades ago would face a reality so different to my own. 

Now, when we talk about how women in that era lived at the time – we talk about gender inequality. We talk about how women lived as second-class citizens to their male counterpart. Women at the time were not able to vote, or own property and lived with minimal rights. They were also not viewed as equals to males through the eyes of the law. Gender stereotypes and gender roles held as a central tenet for society at the time – how they shackled people down, and how women suffered as they were pushed to confine themselves as to how society dictated, they should lead their lives. We ask ‘Why? Why did women live that way?’ Yet, at the time, what is now today, depicted as a social issue concerning the philosophy of our society, was just women simply, living their lives by conventional, accepted standards of society – as someone who would marry, have children and care for their families. The sixty percent of girls who dropped out of school, like my grandmother was normalised. The seventy five percent of women who never got a job wasn’t an injustice. It was just what it was ‘meant’ to be. 

Unlike now, where almost seventy percent of women are completing a basic education, and graduating from high school, and fifty six percent are seeking higher education in university. I feel for my grandmother and all those women, who suffered relentlessly, unknowingly under society’s haze of stereotypes. I feel for my grandmother who had sacrificed so much for her dreams, to no avail. I feel for how they were restricted in their right to pursue their dreams and have their own independent voice in society. And now, I understand, the weight of her words spoken, during that fateful 2018 Malaysian summer. Through sharing her story, she wished for me to create my own definition of who I am, and not let others dictate that. She wanted me to live my own life, sing my own song and not fear.  

I live in a day and age, where more than half of all the women in Malaysia are openly pursuing their own career – the result of several feminist movements, from courageous women in the past like Shamsiah Fakeh who dared speak up for women’s rights. Voices which spurred action for the evolution of society and began to untangle many other women from society’s fixed ideologies and attitudes against females. Many like my grandmother, were faced with harsh predicaments, yet it is through their gruelling journey that has gotten to where we are today. I am awash with gratitude for the women living in the eras before me, of their bravery, to speak up. How they were the trailblazers who began to light the way for women after them to follow to fight for our rights, as people of our society, to have a voice. However, there is still much more to be done. And it is up to us, the women of the present, to continue that journey in fighting for change and women’s rights. It is up to us to make a difference. It is up to us to say that we deserve to be heard and not be silenced. 

In memory of Cheung Yoke Peng (1946 – 2022) 

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