SINGAPORE: A recent video from a former banker turned mom-blogger has stirred up quite the controversy. Earlier this month, Dianna Lee, whose social media bio describes her as “teaching you everything our mums should’ve taught us,” spoke up concerning her experiences as a woman educated at Raffles Girls’ School, one of Singapore’s most respected secondary schools.
Ms Lee says at the outset that the school is the “best thing that happened” to her and that she could not be prouder to be a Rafflesian, clarifying that what she was about to say was not meant to bash RGS.
However, she added that she did not realise the psychological damage she received due to having studied at RGS until later.
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The heart of the matter appears to be how feminism was taught and exemplified at the school, where Ms Lee said students were told they were not just as good as but actually better than boys. She added that RGS girls were taught “to be men” and as a result, many alumni have risen to the top in various fields such as law, banking, and business.
While this has served them well in their careers, when it comes to marriage and motherhood, “we’re completely destroyed,” she said.
“In our eagerness to become men, we reject everything that is feminine,” Ms Lee said, resulting in the students “fundamentally” looking down on women and more traditional forms of femininity, such as staying home and raising one’s children.
“Our definition of femininity is incomplete. Femininity should be about freeing women to choose whatever they want to do in life, including staying womanly. We should have the freedom to tap into both our feminine and masculine energies. Being feminine itself is not something shameful.”
In the caption to her post, she said she wanted to hear from fellow RGS alumni or other former girls’ school students about how the experience affected them.
Her video, which has been posted on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, has gotten a lot of views and some very strong reactions, both for and against Ms Lee’s points.
One male commenter wrote, “I married an RGS girl and have an RGS sister, our friends have debated this for years, but I will say the views in this video are by far the most rounded, genuine, and hard-hitting truths.”
A woman wrote that she was happy Ms Lee shared her views “because the thing is, there is inherent strength in the way a woman is in her ability to be soft and strong, which is something most Singaporean women, I would wager, struggle with.”
Others were less than thrilled, feeling that Ms Lee had overgeneralized the experience of RGS girls.
Some wrote that they had a completely different experience at the school, suggesting that things have changed since Ms Lee was a student.
“Fellow RGS alumni here, and I respectfully disagree. The teachers I had were quite clear that gender equality is about being empowered to make the choice, and also emphasised the need for empathy. One path is not ‘better’ than another.
I have classmates who are now amazing career women, and classmates who chose to be SAHM. We each recognise the difficulties of the other’s paths, and the joys that they bring.”
Another chimed in with, “As an RGS alumna, I was really shocked watching this and am sorry that you went through what you did. I can’t recall a single instance of the school culture suggesting that male traits are superior, or that being feminine was inferior, or that we should be ‘better than men’…
Of course, we were taught to strive for excellence (which leads to other issues like perfectionism, etc), but I think it was more of being ambitious rather than putting anyone else down or being less feminine. I hope it means the school culture has been improving since you experienced it!” /TISG