Elementos constitutivos de una política pública

The non-Malay women in this study come from professional families who are predominantly urban dwellers involved in industry and trade. All of the five non-Malay families lived in urban areas and their fathers worked in professional jobs either as businessmen, estate managers, or government surveyors. Although it is not possible to generalise, in the urban environment, being literate and having an education may have led the non-Malay family to higher paying

and more prestigious jobs within occupational groups. Meanwhile, in Malaysia, the Malay women generally come from poorer backgrounds and have achieved social mobility thanks to Malay privilege policies. As discussed in Chapter Two, the structure of family, society or state in traditional settings that embeds gendered institutional privilege, retains its core in male domination, particularly in Malay males.

In terms of mothers’ occupations, like their Malay counterparts, of the five non-Malay participants, four of them had non-working mothers. This is indicative that regardless of ethnicity and socio-economic background, patriarchy in the form of a male breadwinner model is strongly present in the older generations. Women are rarely seen working and being the main rice winner in Malaysia. Similar to the Malays, the analysis also shows that having either a working or non-working mother was inspiring for the non-Malay senior women, but for different reasons. Whether a mother was home orientated or career orientated, it had a similar impact upon the interviewees’ motivation to work themselves. Most mothers wanted their daughters to be independent earners after getting married.

Walby (1991) argues that older women, who are the product of private patriarchy, are at a distinct disadvantage, because many will have built their lives around a domestic gender regime, which assumed that a husband would be the main provider. They may not have gained educational qualifications or labour market experience and therefore would find it extremely difficult to become the main provider if their husbands should become redundant or their marriages break down. That could also be the reason why Shanti’s mother kept telling her to depend on herself and ensure she had her own career even after she got married. Her mother was the one ‘push factor’ that ensured Shanti excelled in her career as she spent most of the time with her mother from a very young age, rather than with her father.

“My mom was very supportive in every aspect. She was the main pillar for us daughters to actually excel. She always told us do not depend on anyone. Even when you are married, make sure you have your own career. I would say she was the pillar behind our success” (Shanti, Senior Assistant Director, Public Sector)

Out of five non-Malay women senior managers, only one Chinese senior woman had a working mother with a job as a businesswoman. Previous research on working women reveals that daughters of employed women are more likely to develop less stereotypical views of female and male roles, and have career orientations and aspirations for non-traditional occupations (Powell and Graves, 2003; White, 1992). Although not expressed explicitly, similar to the Malay participants, having a mother who participates in the workforce might be an aspiration for non- Malay women to succeed in their careers and regard work as central to their lives. For instance, Xiu Ying asserted that her mother, who was a successful businesswoman, played a key role

and inspired her career development. Being a full time housewife was not even a consideration and this reflected that she had developed career-orientations rather than home-orientations as she had one model to follow, that of her mother. Xiu Ying was a Chinese senior woman who worked as an Assurance Leader in one of the second largest professional services firm in the world, also known as one of the Big Four based in Kuala Lumpur.

“In terms of my career, my mom is a businessperson. So I have seen how she achieved her career because she was very successful. I can see if you want to achieve something in your career, it takes this and all that. So I have seen those” (Xiu Ying, Assurance Leader and Partner, Private Sector)

Smith (2012) states financial dependency among women may create a number of psychological issues such as low self-confidence to live independently and this often leads to isolation. Thus, having mothers as role models may help women to appreciate as well as value their strengths and abilities as someone who holds feminine characteristics (Marshall, 1995). This motivates women to excel in their careers as they would assume that other members of the family might follow in their footsteps, so they had to show their maximum ability academically and be successful. From an intersectionality perspective, it should be highlighted that there are several differences in the forms of encouragements to work given by the different parent from different ethnic backgrounds. For instance, Madhuri, an Indian senior woman, who is now running her own Ayur Veda business, felt that growing up in an Indian culture, meant the family always aspires for their children to be professional, either doctors, lawyers or engineers. Madhuri considered that Indian parents’ expectations are generally very status oriented. This could be due to the influence of the patriarchal ideology submerged in Indian families which requires them to be more closely tied to the traditional Indian caste. They believe that these three professions are the future for their children and this mindset has made determined their direction..

“I always wanted to be a lawyer to be honest because I love court- cases… But somehow my hair problem makes me landed to a hair business. My father was against it. He said look you are going to study about hair loss, skin problems. What do you do? I said I can offer this service in Malaysia … He said NO NO NO ... It was not popular in those days. He reluctantly said yes but finally of course he supported my ambition” (Madhuri, Director, Private Sector)

There were two non-Malay senior women managers interviewed in the study who claimed they were neither encouraged nor discouraged by their parents to pursue careers (both were

Chinese), but one was influenced by a sister. These senior women had the freedom to choose their careers without being influenced by the parents’ opinions. As pointed out by Mei Feng,

“I came from a very simple family. My parents are old already. They are not that educated in a way. I don’t really think that they have any influence on my career. To them, it was actually I do whatever that is of interest to me, provided that I am happy, that was it. You just go for it. What they do is, they give me the education” (Mei Feng, Group Finance Controller, Private Sector)

Taking ethnicity into account, the analysis shows that Malay, Chinese and Indian senior women differed in the household duties they performed. While the Malay women cleaned and washed, Chinese women looked after their younger siblings and Indian women helped their parents with the family business. Although difficult, these childhood responsibilities may have helped senior female managers to gain character building experiences that should enhance their feelings of competence and self-confidence (White, 1992). The salience of ethnicity may also be higher because different ethnicities come with different values. Given the privileged institutionalisation towards the Malays, non-Malay women claimed that the hard work and perseverance they had learned as children, was instrumental in the shaping of their future careers.

The non-Malay senior women reported that their parents had been strict in their child-rearing practices, maintaining discipline in terms of how they spent their time, their academic performance as well as their general behaviour and disposition. They felt they were likely to have received greater role training from their family circumstances rather than institutional support due to the privilege that had been endowed to the Malay senior women. According to McIntosh (1995), white people are likely to receive economic, political and social advantages as compared to minority ethnic people in the West. Linking this to the non-Malay women, these individuals brought up in less privileged or more challenging environments benefited from a stronger desire to succeed. This may then reflect why the non-Malay women appear to be much more competitive in order to succeed in the senior managerial positions. The unequal access to social structural systems with the intersection of multiple inequalities (Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) led the non-Malay senior women to feel less advantaged in getting better education in their lives, which will be elucidated more in the section below.