Opinion | Coronavirus quarantine murders and domestic violence mean Malaysian ministry’s sexist advice is no laughing matter

The Malaysian women’s affairs ministry putting the onus on wives to maintain harmony in the family during the coronavirus lockdown is particularly insidious given the rise in cases of violence against women worldwide

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A woman watches a drone, used by the Malaysian police to remind people to stay at home during a lockdown imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19, in Kuala Lumpur on March 24. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:30am, 6 Apr 2020Updated: 2:01pm, 24 Apr 2020

Confirmed coronavirus cases crossed 1 million last week and most of the world remains under lockdown or practising social distancing. One of the best pieces of advice on how to cope is to keep getting “ready in the morning” – get out of bed, change out of our pyjamas and try to maintain a semblance of normality as much as possible.

When our days morph into night and night into day, and we lose count of how many days we’ve been living in our PJs, we are at risk of getting depressed. That’s no way to fight the plague.

However, it takes very little effort to turn well-intentioned advice into a political disaster – and that’s what happened with a series of public service announcements put out by the Malaysia’s Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development last week.

In the global fight against Covid-19, the ministry suggested women should dress up and wear make-up when working from home, refrain from sarcasm if they need help with household chores, avoid nagging their husbands and, instead, talk like the blue robot cat Doraemon, a popular Japanese anime character, to keep the peace at home.

One of the coronavirus campaign posters shared by Malaysia’s women’s affairs ministry. Photo: Twitter

Leaving aside why anyone would want their wife to sound like a robot cat, let’s try to get past the absurdity of these tips and the ensuing hilarity, and recognise the sinister thinking behind them. The most obvious is that the onus of “maintain[ing] a positive family relationship while working from home” – as the ministry claims to be its intention – lies with the wives. And nothing objectifies women like telling them to imitate a robot cat.

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