I Dislike Wonky Uncles.

Every morning I read the newspapers. Because I am an idiot.

Sometimes I read stuff that makes me really pissed off. Take for example today's Straits Times Forum, where an uncle wrote a rant against AWARE, a local advocacy for women's rights. Recently AWARE has been working to address the issue of women dismissed from their jobs due to their pregnancy. The reason? Lost work hours due to maternity leave.

This is a genuine concern. A reasonable concern. Unfortunately, that uncle wrote in to complain about how men are also unfairly treated because of lost wages due to military service and time wasted during in-camp trainings. I doubt that this uncle has actually been through the service himself. Hah. Anyway, he often posts to the Forum ranting about the corrosion of values due to the popularity of Western culture and rise of women in society. I've read it all before.

This time though, he goes on to suggest that AWARE should stop being gender-focused! I can't believe what I was reading. Which part of the word "women" does he not understand? Would he go to a blood bank and demand that they should stop being blood-focused? Utterly ridiculous.

I think he was just venting his personal anger on the Forum, instead of highlighting a genuine social concern. To support his point, he ought to show us how many men have been laid off because of in-camp trainings. If he believes that us guys have such deficient rights (which we clearly don't) why not set up an AMARE or something? I'll bet that men are lining up in droves to join that association.

Such uncles are conservative traditionalists. They lament the passing of their "golden era" when children were beaten into obedience and the place for women was in the kitchen. To them the rise of successful career women, rise in divorce rates and fall in birth rates are regarded as indicative of a morally bankrupt society. Although this uncle writes with sophisticated sounding prose, this is merely a disguise to let him to attack our modern society while appearing civilized. The outside may be sugar-coated but the inside is rotten all the same. I call these uncles "Wonkies" for their backward, dilapidated views.

Well, welcome to the 21st century, wonky uncles.