Like all functional pre-menopausal women, I leak every month or whenever I’m stressed out, every few months. However, I didn’t expect grown men to make a joke out of it. That is the kind of thing that some children (age 12 and below) would do because they do not know any better.

The last time I got teased about having breasts was when I was ten. No guesses there as to what happened to the idiot who sang songs about “jugs” and “milk”. He left me alone for the entire year.

So imagine my shock and disgust when I read how an MP (Member of Parliament), someone old enough to be my father, attempted to crack a joke about how another MP leaks every month in public during a serious discussion about the shoddy renovation work done on the Parliament building.

“Mana ada bocor? Batu Gajah pun bocor tiap-tiap bulan juga. (Where is the leak? The Batu Gajah MP also leaks every month.)”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, they proceeded to make a half-hearted apology nearly ONE week after cracking that remark and in the same line, accused people of overreacting.

Excuse me, but why shouldn’t I, as a woman, overreact?

Members of the Parliament are supposed to be representatives of the public and thus, expected to be educated, civil and polite. They are to adhere to a code of conduct and decorum befitting an officer of the Government. Only then, can they and their peers be respected by the very people they represent and serve. Instead they behave like ignorant, crude, whiny children. When mistakes are pointed out, they reach for the nearest bucket and proceed to pass it around - true to form, really.

But that isn’t really why women are disgusted at this “show”.

You see, we have always, time and time again, told our young girls that they have an important part to play in society; that they are not just mothers and wives but leaders and protectors. We tell them that despite their biological differences with men, they have a positive contribution - politically and economically - to make to society. We tell them that PMS should not be used as an excuse. We tell them that just because you bleed every month, it doesn’t make you less of a functional human being. We tell them to not use their female negatives (”emotional”, “sexy”, “pretty”, etc) as tools to get ahead because it makes us all look bad. We say that their body, however it may be like, is natural and nothing to be ashamed of. We encourage education because we want them to know and believe that looks will not get them far but their brains will.

Yet here we have a FEMALE minister pandering to these men who make fun and put women down in all sorts of ways. This is not the first time. In the past, we have had men telling women that aging is like a building that is in dire need of repairs; that brides are like new toilets; that if a woman is going to be rape, she might as well lie back and enjoy it; that women must be decent because men cannot control themselves; that being a woman means lying on your back or slaving in the kitchen…

For all the bullshit that we feed our young people, at the end of the day, we have been told that a man is more superior than a woman, and in order to play the game with the boys, you have to be LIKE ONE OF THEM. Never mind if half of them are cheating on their partners; never mind if half of them are corrupt; never mind if half of them have no sense of chivelry or decorum.

Throughout history, women have had it tough trying to fight their way into a man’s world. No, this has nothing to do with feminism. I am no advocate for feministic rights. I am an advocate for respect and decorum for all - young, old, rich, poor, woman, man. We try to tell our future generation that the two sexes exist and co-exist for a reason and that the partnership they have is one based on equal function and not just blind equality. We try to teach our boys to respect young girls who ultimately will become their wives and go on to have their daughters. We try to spread the message that the strong should respect and protect the weak.

But in Malaysia today, what are we teaching our young women and more importantly, our young men? Have these MPs forgotten that they have wives, daughters, and mothers? Have they forgotten that they came out of the womb? Do they realise that people don’t joke about anything and everything under the sun? Someone once said that when you start cracking jokes about a person or a subject, it doesn’t mean anything else but this: you lack respect for him/her/it.

Tell me one thing: if a female MP or Minister had gone out cracking a so-called joke about some other male MP’s inability to perform (and I don’t mean in a non-phallic way), would the outrage resulting from it be considered an “overreaction”?

I wonder.