When immigrants complain about problems in the country they have immigrated to, it is with a sense of betrayal and not ungratefulness. I came to Singapore from India with a lot of hopes – not just about my economic well being but also to become one with what seemed at that time a progressive, open, welcoming society.

After six years of living here, I made some money but no friends. And believe me, I tried. I am an atheist and have never very closely associated myself with the Indian culture or its monickers. So when I came here, I wasn’t looking for creating a small India for myself in an alien land. Isntead, I was willing to soak in and absorb every bit of what Singapore had to offer in terms of a new cultural experience. I wanted to try the food (whatever little I could being a vegetarian), I wanted to know about the local festivals, religions, languages, sights and smells. I wanted to make new friends and learn about their backgrounds, their culture, their values. Every Chinese New Year, my partner and I bought lanterns and wall hanging to put in our HDB home and felt mesmerised by the lion dance. We learned about the Malays and the Nonyas and the Pernakans. We watched Taiwanese soaps on Channel 8 every sunday. We even went to a Chinese neighbor’s home to participate in some religious ritual they were conducting in their house. We wholeheartedly subscribed to the rules and regulations and would never cross the road till the signal was green weven when everyone else would. We would always carry plastic bags everywhere to stash our garbage. We poured over wikipedia entries on the history of Singapore and its neighbours and even made an attempt to learn the Singaporean national anthem. We would take the MRT and get down at the most obscure stations and explore the area on foot. We wanted to cover every inch of Singapore, stand at every corner and hug every tree. Above all I became an ambassador for Singapore to my friends and acquaintances back home.

But in the last six years that we spent in this country, we did not make even a single local friend. Not even one. At work place, Singaporeans did not want our friendship. We were both IT workers whose life they weren’t really interested in. For the local Singaporean, we were a liability – immigrants who had come to take away their job. To the local Indian, we were an India they did not want to identify with (I still remember once when a local Tamil woman laughingly introduced Little India to her white friend as ‘an India without the beggars’). My partner and I joined various meetups, courses, social events in the hope of meeting new people or making connections with this place. But nobody wanted to make friends with us. Or to know more about us. About our life. Our problems. Unlike us, nobody really was interested in accepting us into their home. The white expats of course were busy sending their kids to expat schools and pouring over “expat living” in the American or British clubs. They didn’t want a piece of us either.

Instead, what we mostly got from Singapore was bitter racism and stereotyping. From the grocery clerk to a steward in a fine dining restaurant – they all looked at us strangely. Like the lady at “market place” who asked me if I had paid for the water bottle which I was carrying before I entered the store or the cabby who would tell me that the person who just met with an accident was an Indian because his arm was black. Or the lady in Raffles hospital who would smile at the whites, be congenial with the locals but cold with us. Or the thousands of forms that I filled which asked for my race and nationality. At work place, the whites and Singaporeans always lunched together. But none cared to invite us. I could go on and on. But everytime an incident like this happened, I questioned, “whould they do this to a white person” ? “Why did they give me a work visa if they didn’t want me”? And everytime I dared to complain about it to anyone, I got the same answer back – “Why come here, Why stay? Why not go back?”

And that’s what we finally decided to do. Of all the things I have regretted in the past, this would be somwhere on the very top of the list. That a country I was willing to call home never wanted to embrace me. The Singapore we saw always seemed to put the onus on immigrants for accepting Singaporean culture but never really welcomed those who wanted to make it their new home.

As you’ve mentioned, sex differentiates biologically while gender is what the society delineates as masculine or feminine. What about the basic psychological differences between males and females?

I attended a class named “Understanding Relationships – Love & Sex” and it revolved around teaching us the basic differences in nature/thinking of females and males. Quick examples would be how females are naturally more emotive and have less spatial depth than males. We saw a study/documentary done by BBC investigating how men’s and women’s brains are wired differently, evoking different reactions in similar situations. (Search “Secret of The Sexes” if you’re interested!) So, on the basis of this difference, I wouldn’t say that it’s wrong gender prejudices exist nor feel the need to argue down the gender disparity.

However, I do also agree that it is possible to transcend these psychological ‘wiring’, albeit with the ‘mental block’ as mentioned by Ms Anna, plus the fact that some of us are just wired differently from others.

Hence, instead of constantly trying to promote gender equality by just proving that females are just as capable, why not try another approach? Perhaps we could shift the focus to allowing people to understand and acknowledge that despite the difference in male/female nature, it does not represent/dictate that either one cannot embrace the other’s characteristics.

Most of the time I exist in an online world of intense geekery, and unspoken assumed masculinity. There is some discussion of “where are the women geeks”, but that always feels very politically motivated and on the nose to make any real impact. When attending face to face meetups for the first time, I find myself the object of curious scrutiny, a little like in a zoo. Geek girl understands code and can do tricks! *applause* So much for gender liberation. In this instance wider social structures determine who has access to the kind of knowledge necessary in order to become a “geek”, and those structures have always been female-unfriendly. They go so far as to create a mental block – I’m a girl, therefore this must be more difficult for me.

I admit I used to face the same mental block. Thankfully someone convinced me otherwise by teaching me about where to get information, and letting me experiment with technology.

If I had the power, I think that’s where I’d start. I saw a presentation the other day on an after school care center that teaches kids to make their own toys with basic engineering, electronics and programming. I was really glad to see lots of girls in the photos. Knowing full well that photos are not always representative of reality, I’m still hopeful that maybe things are slowly evolving.