Are Singaporean women missing out by not serving NS?

So, one of my female readers left the following comment on a recent post and it drew some pretty angry reactions from my male readers. I don't want to 'attack' her per se, but I felt that I couldn't do her a decent reply without dedicating a whole post to it, so here it is. Let's begin with her controversial (and IMHO, downright stupid) comment: "NS do make some boys grow up. It is not entirely appropriate to view NS as simply a liability that no one gains anything from out of the 2 plus years. It holds you back from starting your career or completing tertiary education but what you get in return is character development."

Whilst I totally disagree with her comment, I recognize that it is a sentiment commonly held by many in Singapore. I have already done a piece on this issue last year, but hey, allow me to explain why I disagree with her since this is a topic I have such strong feelings about. There has been some debate in Singapore recently if women should serve NS, following news from Norway that Norway has now extended conscription to women, so let's revisit the issue.

I have read the discussion on TRS' Facebook page in reaction to that article - it seems that the majority of Singaporean men would like to see women share the burden of national service, whilst the women who have responded tended to find all kinds of excuses and reasons to argue why they shouldn't. There is clearly a divide in opinion down the gender lines on the issue. But let's focus on the comment above highlighted in red.

If NS really is such a fantastic way to make men grow up and develop their characters, doesn't that make Singaporean women extremely immature with serious character deficiencies by that token since they are missing out on NS? Where are they going to get their 'growing up' and character development from then? Is it something you get with your periods? Do your ovaries stimulate your brain and help you think like an adult? Why do Singaporean women assume that they don't need some kind of intense experience like NS to help them grow up whilst the men do?

Would Singaporean women benefit from doing this as well? 

The fact is NS actually guarantee any kind of 'character development' nor does it help you 'grow up' - so it makes little or no difference really at the end of the day to the men who have been through NS. Whether you have a nurturing experience in NS depends so much on you being assigned to a unit where you will meet good people - in my time in NS, I have met both good and bad people. Sometimes the people in charge of you will actually show kindness and take an interest in your well being, sometimes you will get mean people who will go out of their way to bully you and then you have those who are completely disinterested in you. Guess what? This is really no different from society in real life, so why would you assume that somehow in NS, those you work with are going to be super nice and take an interest in nurturing you? It is fairly random, just like civilian life out there in the big bad world. Why would NS be any different?

You see, in Singapore, boys go directly from school to NS and there is this expectation as students that the teachers are going to be nice, responsible and decent people who will take care of their students. They have to perform a job to standards set by the ministry of education and those who fail will be held to account. Teachers have to perform a role known legally as in loco parentis, as the students are still children (and not adults, apart from some poly students over the age of 18). The term in loco parentis, is Latin for "in the place of a parent". It refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. However, once you enlist in the army, you're an adult at the age of 18 and the SAF doesn't play this in loco parentis role - instead, it functions more as a professional organization dealing with an adult employee and you're there as a soldier to serve your country professionally as an adult, you're not some kid at a school camp.

Soldiers have a job to do, they're not kids at school.

This transition can prove to be a major culture shock to some young men as they enlist for national service - those who are already sensible, streetwise and have the right social skills do cope a lot better with this transition. Those who are still immature and childish will find this transition difficult, even traumatic. However, there is this misconception that I wish to address: many people assume that subjecting immature young men to a traumatic experience will make them grow up, I disagree. Trying to instill maturity in a young mind is far more complex than that and unfortunately, too many people just assume that they will simply 'grow up' when placed in a challenging environment. The art of nurturing doesn't work like that - it takes a lot more time, effort and energy to nurture a young mind. 

Time for an analogy. Take a random group of young Singaporean men at the age of 18 - some of them will be good swimmers and some won't be able to swim at all. If you were to throw them all into the sea (say if the ferry from Changi to Pulau Tekong suddenly sunk), would those who are not able to swim suddenly learn how to swim on the spot, just because the situation required them to urgently acquire those skills? No. They would simply drown. Can you figure out what the missing piece in the puzzle is here?  What needs to be done? 

To impart swimming skills to a non-swimmer, you need to take them into a pool where they are given lessons by a qualified instructor. That is how you learn how to swim - not by simply throwing them into the deep end or the sea and assuming that they will figure it out on the spot just to avoid drowning. Now when it comes to NS, some young men cope better than others because they already have the right social skills to fit into the challenging environment of the army. Those who don't have the right social skills will effectively 'drown' - this means they will make very few friends, they will become very withdrawn and miserable. In some extreme cases, they will become emotionally traumatized and even attempt suicide (and yes, when that happens, I blame the parents really.) 

Once in a while, you will get a kind person who will be nice and take this immature young man aside and help impart some of the necessary skills to help him cope - that's the equivalent of giving him a 'swimming lesson' in the analogy above. Often this kind of intervention comes from one's peers rather than from an older person in a position of authority and I have always believed in the value of this kind of peer support. I have witnessed a lot of peer support and have benefited from it as well whilst in the army - but note that this came out of the sheer kindness of the nice people, rather than it being a part of the system designed to help nurture immature young men and believe me, not everyone is nice in real life. The SAF requires you to do your job professionally, it doesn't ask you to go out of your way to be nice to others - the two are quite different things.

Think about what happens in school: if a child is rather odd, unsociable, has no friends but basically doesn't cause the teacher any trouble in class, would the teacher try to intervene and help develop the child's social skills? Probably not, as the child's condition is not causing the teacher any trouble. The teacher is far more likely to intervene if the child is failing maths or science, then that reflects badly on the teacher. But if a child is immature or has behavioural issues, then the teacher can quite easily say, "that's not my responsibility, that's a problem for the child's parents to solve." By that token, the SAF is not there to deal with immature young men with behavioural issues or have flaws in their characters. There are no kind uncles in the army deal with such cases, you're left in the hands of people barely older than yourself who probably wouldn't even know how to start helping people like that. As long as they don't cause any trouble, these young men will complete their national service with the same flaws in their characters and the buck is often then passed back to the parents who are left to pick up the pieces. In short, don't expect the SAF to perform miracles on flawed young men, that simply doesn't happen in reality. 

In my time in the army, I have seen plenty of very flawed young men and there's that saying: you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Sure there are opportunities to help these people, but most of the time, one simply chooses to mind one's own business and not be a kaypoh. Let me give you one such examples: firstly, meet 'Tan' (not his real name). Tan was a smart kid from a good JC who had problems coping with NS. He clearly lacked the social skills to adapt to NS and had already been involved in an 'incident' during his BMT when he told his parents that he was being bullied by his platoon mates and his father (who knew some big shots in the SAF) raised hell at MINDEF. Tan had accused his platoon mates of bullying him and his platoon mates were subjected to extended interrogation to try to ascertain if there was anyone who could be held responsible the alleged teasing he was subjected to. Word gets round in the army and Tan's reputation followed him to our unit. We all kept our distance and only spoke to him in a very polite, formal manner when required to - nobody was friendly with him as we didn't want to be accused of any kind of misunderstanding that may lead to another 'incident'.

Tan spent most of his time in the army without any friends as none of us in the unit felt prepared or equipped to deal with a character like that, we certainly didn't want to get into any trouble. If Tan wanted to improve his situation, make some friends, develop his social skills and learn how to get along with colleagues, he could have made more of an effort to reach out to the rest of us - but the onus lay with him to take the initiative, none of us were going to force our 'help' on him. Like I said, you could bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Was Tan miserable in NS? Oh yes, totally. Did Tan 'grow up' or experience any 'character development' in NS? No - and there are plenty of young men who go through NS just like Tan and learn nothing.

This really begs the question: whose job is it to nurture these immature young men like Tan? I say it begins with good parenting, the buck should stop with the parent: no loving parent should ever raise a son without giving him the emotional tools he needs to survive in the adult world, but as you and I both know, there are plenty of bad parents out there who do fail their children. In Singapore, because of our Asian heritage, we tend to shy away from criticizing the parenting skills of others as it is seen as being disrespectful, but believe you me, behind every ill-adjusted individual like Tan lies two parents who have totally failed in their duty as parents. 

If the parents have not done their job, don't expect the SAF to perform miracles.

If the parents fail, then sometimes you can get good teachers in the schools who step in and play a great role in nurturing these lost kids - but then again, you're depending on teachers going out of their way to do so much more than what is expected of them. If the teachers do not intervene, then expecting NS to nurture these kids is just plain... crazy stupid. Only a Singaporean woman who knows nothing about the NS experience can come up with such a downright stupid statement. Get real - if a young man is immature and lacks basic social skills by the age of 18, it's probably too late (and unrealistic) to expect the SAF to deliver a miracle in that department. The poor kid has been let down by his parents and you expect the SAF to somehow resolve that mess? Get real people.  Let's not forget one basic point: when you're serving national service, you are there to do a job - you are assigned a vocation which you are expected to perform to the SAF's standards. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT the SAF's responsibility to try to develop your character or iron out any flaws in your character! 

Another reason why NS doesn't nurture immature young men is that it removes any notion of responsibility. A major part about being an adult is being responsible for yourself: managing your financial situation, paying your bills, paying your rent/mortgage, taking important decisions about your job, your relationships etc. Children don't have any such responsibility - their parents make all the decisions for them from what shoes they wear to how much pocket money they receive to what TV programmes they get to watch. Guess what? It's pretty much the same thing in NS - there are uniforms so you don't get to decide what to wear, they decide what you do, how you work, what time you start and finish work - in fact, pretty much every single detail of your life is planned for you in the army, just like when you were a 5 year old kid. Rather than being allowed to grow up, quite the opposite - one is infantilized in the army. 

The army can treat grown men like 5 year olds. 

Furthermore, another major part of growing up is challenging yourself, pushing yourself further and fulfilling your full potential - that is something that simply does not happen in NS. Instead, the modus operandi is to simply keep a low profile, not speak up and just be meek. One would go as far as to 'act blur' (pretend to be stupid) so as to avoid drawing any attention to oneself as those who are too loud, too talkative are deemed to be troublemakers who will suffer the consequences of daring to speak up. Remember, the army has to create soldiers who will follow orders, orders that may be "you will go to the front line and you will probably be blown up into such little pieces that there won't even be a body to bury". Meek soldiers follow orders without questioning or thinking, so it is not in their interest really to teach soldiers how to think for themselves and question authority. 

A big part about growing up means learning to think for yourself as an adult rather than being a kid who is told what to think and what to believe in. By that token, there are some adults who have never actually 'grown up' because they have never ever acquired that skill of thinking for themselves and are still allowing themselves to be told what to think, what to believe by their religion, their families, their bosses and their governments. I'm talking about emotional and mental maturity here - which means learning to trust your own judgement and make your mind up on important issues in life independently. Many adults just don't believe that they are smart enough to trust their own judgement, so they blindly default to the opinions of others without actually bothering to think for themselves.

Do you trust your own judgement as an adult?

Think about it: a child has to default to the opinion of adults because they don't understand the world around them. Think of a 5 year old boy asking, "Mummy, why do I have to go to bed now? Why can't I stay up to watch TV?" Contrast that to a 25 year old man - he wouldn't need his parents' permission to do anything at that age, but is he mature and sensible enough to trust his own judgement? Such is the acid test of character development and being grown up.

Most of my growing up was done at university in fact when I was halfway around the world in France and England, doing independent research and getting this academic framework to try to make sense of the world around me. I got the mental stimulation I craved at my university: I remember a professor throwing an essay back at me in my first year and she said, "you're just copying chunks from the books in the library, I want you to put some original thought into that essay to show me your understanding of these theories. You're at university to think independently, not to copy words off a page." I was intellectually challenged and pushed so hard by my professors throughout at university - I had none of that in the army.  Sure I had been physically challenged in the army, but not my brain. Heck, I was so frustrated by the lack of mental stimulation in the army that I started teaching myself foreign languages - I started with French and now I speak over ten languages. I had to find intellectual stimulation when there was none to be had. 

One needs mental stimulation to grow up - you're not going to get that in NS.

Ultimately, guys should never expect NS to help them grow up or develop their characters - growing up is a process that should begin early in childhood and continue throughout one's adult life. Those children who have good parents often get a head start in this process, whilst others who have the misfortune of having bad or clueless parents have to do so without the help of their parents. 

Now, I want to talk about Singaporean women and this ridiculous misconception they have that men are somehow more immature and that women don't need this 2 year process of NS to grow up. Whilst some females do experience puberty earlier than males, emotional maturity - otherwise known as 'growing up' is not synonymous with physical maturity. There isn't anything biologically that makes a female more emotionally mature than a male at any stage of their lives - rather, it is more important to look at each person individually and judge them by their track record, rather than make any assumptions on the basis of their genders. So much of emotional maturity at that stage depends on nurturing - and this boils down to the quality of the parenting the child has, rather than the child's gender per se. 

The quality of parenting plays a far more vital role than the child's gender.

Singaporean women are oppressed in a patriarchal, sexist Asian culture which means that boys are often allowed to hang out and play basketball with their mates whilst girls are expected to come home for dinner with their parents lest they be accused of being sluts. But many Singaporean younger women are too meek to challenge this sexist Asian culture, so their only reaction to it is to turn around and accuse the boys as being 'immature' for if they were more 'mature' and 'grown up'. It is a rather ridiculous reaction on the part of Singaporean young women, but it is an urban myth that has gone unchallenged for way too long. This whole 'boys are more immature' bullshit is a complete red herring that distracts women from the sexism in Asian culture. 

It's too easy for women to say, yeah if I had to do it I will when it is a hypothetical question, but would Singaporean women actually cope with NS if Singapore went the way of Norway by conscripting women?  Look, I am all for feminism and gender equality - but if women are going to put themselves on a pedestal and make ludicrous assumptions about how they don't need to grow up but men do, that women don't need character development but men do - then I'd love to see them do NS too and see them suffer. 

Let me know what you think, please leave a comment below. And if you think I have been harsh with Singaporean women, then let me refer you to some of the posts I did last year on Singaporean men when I have been equally harsh. Kum siah! Thank you so much for reading.