04.11.2025

A troubling social divide between modern Malay women on Malay men

A Malaysian man writes to GC expressing concern over the growing tension between modern Malay women and men, particularly among the educated urban class. He questions whether Western influence and social media are deepening gender polarization, and asks how society can restore respect and understanding between the sexes.

GC illustration.
 

Dear GC,

Zuhairie here from Petaling Jaya. I write this letter as an ordinary Malaysian citizen who has observed a deeply troubling phenomenon emerging in our society, one that I believe deserves serious public discourse.

Over the past two years, I have noticed an increasing pattern both in my workplace and among my circle of friends: a growing antagonism between modern Malay women on Malay men that seems to transcend the usual disagreements or misunderstandings between genders. What concerns me most is how this divide appears to be intensifying, particularly among educated, urban Malays.

At my office, I've witnessed how casual conversations about relationships have transformed into what can only be described as ideological battlegrounds. Female colleagues who have studied or worked abroad often express blanket dismissal of local men, citing everything from "outdated mindsets" to "lack of ambition." Meanwhile, male colleagues respond with their own generalizations about women having "unrealistic expectations" or being "overly influenced by Western feminism."

During a recent gathering with friends, I observed something that left me particularly unsettled. A group of women, all well-educated and articulate in English, spent a considerable portion of the evening disparaging Malaysian men as a collective. The criticisms ranged from alleged emotional immaturity to supposed financial irresponsibility. When one of my male friends attempted to engage in genuine dialogue about these concerns, he was promptly shut down and accused of "mansplaining."

What strikes me most is not the existence of grievances, but rather the wholesale rejection of an entire gender based on stereotypes. The sentiment captured in that viral social media post suggesting that "modern Malay women" have "many problems with their partners" due to Western influence or education seems to be reciprocated with equal prejudice from the other side.

I find myself asking: When did we become so polarized? When did our differences become dividing lines rather than opportunities for understanding?

I have witnessed good men being casually dismissed as representatives of a "toxic" gender. Similarly, I have heard men reduce accomplished women to caricatures of "Western-influenced feminists" who have lost touch with "Malaysian values." Both narratives are reductive, harmful, and ultimately destructive to our social fabric.

Social media appears to have amplified this divide exponentially. Algorithms feed us content that confirms our biases, and the anonymity of online spaces emboldens people to express views they might temper in face-to-face interactions. Echo chambers form, and suddenly, nuanced conversations about legitimate issues - workplace equality, domestic responsibilities, relationship expectations - devolve into gender wars where empathy is seen as weakness.

As someone who was raised to respect both men and women as individuals, I find this trend profoundly troubling. My mother, a working professional, and my father, who shared household responsibilities, modeled a partnership built on mutual respect rather than ideological warfare. They disagreed, certainly, but never with the contempt I now witness between genders in public discourse.

I would like to ask GC, as a publication that has long chronicled Malaysian society: What is your perspective on this phenomenon? Do you see this as a temporary social friction point that will resolve itself, or as a more fundamental shift in how Malaysian men and women relate to one another?

More importantly, what role can media and public intellectuals play in bridging this divide rather than exploiting it for engagement? Is there space for constructive dialogue that acknowledges legitimate grievances on both sides without descending into tribal antagonism?

I believe most Malaysians - both Malay women and Malay men - desire mutual respect. But the loudest voices on both sides seem intent on division.

I hope this letter sparks reflection and, perhaps, a broader conversation about how we can move forward together rather than tearing ourselves apart.

 

Sincerely,
Zuhairie

Answer by The Gent:

Your letter arrived like a stone dropped into still water - the ripples are still spreading as we write this response.

You ask us to observe what you have observed, and we confess: we have seen it too. In the quiet corners of coffee shops, in the comment sections of our articles, in the unguarded moments when people forget we are listening. This divide you describe is not imaginary. It is real, and it is growing.

But let us share with you a thought that has stayed with us through years of writing about the lives of men:

"We were born as a man, and so we played our part. A puppet, ever dancing for the amusement of the opposite gender unseen. Most men but play the part they're given. Most live and die not knowing they play a part at all."

We say this not to escape responsibility, nor to claim we are victims in a world where real suffering demands our attention. We say this because we believe the truth sits somewhere in the uncomfortable middle; between the blame thrown from both sides of this gender war you describe.

Think about it: How many men have grown up learning to perform rather than to be? To provide rather than to share? To protect rather than to partner? We learned our lines well, the strong, silent type; the breadwinner; the protector; the logical one who must never show emotion. And when the script changed, when new expectations came from a changing world, we found ourselves still saying old lines to an audience that had already left the theater.

The modern Malay woman - educated, well-spoken, financially independent - no longer needs a performer. She needs a partner. But partnership requires both people to stop dancing their old roles and start writing new ones together. This, we suspect, is where the tension begins.

Your first question: Is this a temporary problem or a permanent change?

We believe we are seeing both a crisis and a chance. The old agreement between men and women - built in times of different money matters and social structures - has been torn up. What replaces it has not yet been written. In this in-between space, worry shows up as anger. The modern Malay woman who criticizes "all Malay men" is perhaps sad about the partner she hoped to find but hasn't. The man who rejects "Western-influenced feminists" is perhaps mourning a world where his value felt certain, his role clear.

This is temporary in the sense that all transition periods eventually end. But how it ends depends on choices we make now. The change in how modern men and women relate is basic and cannot be reversed. The script has changed. The question is whether we'll spend our energy fighting the new play or learning our new parts.

Your second question: What role can media play?

Here, we must speak with uncomfortable honesty. Media has often made money from going viral and creating division. Outrage gets clicks. Division breeds attention. The algorithm rewards the extreme, not the balanced. Every headline saying "Why Modern Women Don't Need Men" or "Chivalry is Dead" drives traffic while pushing men and women further apart.

But we believe we can choose differently.

At GC, we reject the puppet show. We refuse to dance for clicks at the cost of truth. Our role, as we see it, has three parts:

First, to hold up a mirror that shows men not as cartoons, but as complex people dealing with real change. To help men recognize which parts of their inherited script serve them and which keep them trapped in performances that drain them.

Second, to create space for honest talk that accepts real complaints without demanding you pick a side. Yes, women face system-wide disadvantages that need fixing. And yes, men also struggle under expectations that crush them. These truths are not opposites. They are overlapping realities of an imperfect social order.

Third, to show the partnership we wish to see. This means lifting up voices - both women and men - that seek understanding over winning, growth over complaint, working together over fighting.

You mention your parents' partnership built on mutual respect. This, Zuhairie, is not old-fashioned thinking. It is wisdom. The path forward is not to return to old systems where men ruled, nor to flip them so women rule. The path forward is to drop the ruling mindset altogether.

As we said earlier, most men play the part they're given and die not knowing they played a part at all. But you, Zuhairie, in writing this letter, have stepped off the stage. You've questioned the script. You've asked whether there might be a better way.

This is how change begins - not with big announcements from experts, but with ordinary men and women refusing to take part in performances that no longer help anyone. When enough people stop dancing the old dances, new patterns emerge.

So what is our stand?

We stand for the difficult middle ground. We stand for men's growth without women's loss. We stand for the belief that most Malaysian men and most Malaysian women are not enemies but possible partners, if we can find the courage to stop performing and start relating.

The anger you observe is real, but it is not fate. It is a crossroads. One path leads to deeper digging in, where gender becomes tribe and every interaction a fight. The other leads to a harder but better destination: a society where men and women meet each other as full human beings, flawed and complex, rather than as representatives of opposing camps.

Which path we take depends on choices made in offices like yours, gatherings like the one you described, and publications like ours. It depends on whether we have the courage to drop our scripts and speak to each other with uncomfortable honesty. It depends on whether we can make empathy stronger than algorithm-driven outrage.

To every reader who connects with Zuhairie's observation, we ask: What role will you play? Will you continue dancing the old dances, or will you step off the stage and help write something new?

The puppet who becomes aware of his strings holds the key to cutting them. But freedom means nothing if we use it only to build new theaters where others must dance for us.

Let us build something else instead.

 

In solidarity and hope,

The Gent

 

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