The moment many of us have been waiting for – AWARE’s popular Alamak! Awards are back!

While our annual AWARE Awards celebrate individuals and organisations that have done a fantastic job pushing for gender equality in Singapore, our Alamak!  Award is given out to the most jaw-dropping instance of sexism and misogyny seen in the last year. Who will be the biggest sexist? You decide!

The recipients of both Awards will be revealed at our Love Ball on 8 September.

This year, we spoil you – you have a choice between five terrible candidates. Take a look at their work and cast your votes below. You can cast two votes. Read more about the Alamak! Awards here.

Court judgement perpetuates victim-blaming in a sexual assault case

In April, a man was acquitted of sexually assaulting a 15 year old girl. The girl first told her boyfriend that she had been raped three months after the incident. Despite the victim’s young age and the fact that the accused was the live-in boyfriend of her mother, the court, in acquitting the accused, found that the victim was not  “prompt in her complaints” and that “there were no reasons for her not to confide in members of her family or her boyfriend. …Someone so abused and humiliated would be expected to seek help and redress when she breaks her silence.” Survivors are commonly reluctant to come forward for what is a vastly under-reported, stigmatised crime. We look to authorities to bust these myths about sexual assault – not reinforce them!

Absolute Comics and staff comments in a movie review

Local comic book store, Absolute Comics, published a sexist movie review of Logan on Facebook – applauding Hugh Jackman while lamenting that character X-23, played by a 12 year old girl, was not “older, fuller and sexier” like they had hoped. When online commenters criticised this sexual objectification of a child, staff member James Chan replied with a condescending,  unapologetic rant: sexual objectification is a part of society – so just get over it, and don’t “throw your ideas of morality and pro-feminism crap” at them. Fans already have to fight pretty hard against misogyny in the comic books scene, and this guy is just taking things backwards.

MORE victim-blaming: Dear Kelly’s catastrophic advice in Teenage magazine

A young survivor of rape does what society always recommends: talk to an adult. When she wrote in to Teenage magazine’s advice column, Dear Kelly, about her experience of sexual assault, “Kelly”’s first instinct was to respond with three pages of victim blaming, calling the girl ‘naïve’, judging her for acting “like a girl who has been around”, and framing rape as a rightful “punishment” for lying to her parents about where she was when the assault happened. Naturally, Teenage provoked an uproar on social media – prompting “Kelly” to release a “Sorry not sorry” apology where she once again instructed young girls how not to get raped, rather than criticising and denouncing the rapist. Still no empathetic, useful response.

Public breastfeeding “shamers”

A photo of a mother breastfeeding on the MRT was taken without her consent and circulated on social media. While the mother gave a confident response about breastfeeding and supporting women’s choices, commenters galloped in with public shaming and sexual objectification, including in a press letter. The gall of a mother to feed her baby in public! How dare a woman do something with her body other than entice men! Here’s a big ALAMAK to the people who got worked up over a bare breast. Sounds way more tiring than just minding their own business.

ROM & HDB work together to ensure two citizens’ basic needs are NOT met

Heard the story of how a couple who got married in Singapore lost both their HDB flat and marital status? All this happened when the transgender partner underwent gender-affirming surgery after their marriage. FK is a transgender woman, whose IC still listed her sex as “Male” at the time of their marriage. She was required by the Registry of Marriages to sign a declaration that she wouldn’t undergo gender-affirming surgery until after their marriage (and told to “dress more masculine” at their wedding). The painful twist comes when HDB refused to give them the keys to their flat for which they had queued four years to get. Then, ROM unilaterally annulled their marriage, and “unmarried” them. Even when it works out on paper, our state puts in extra effort to ensure that those who don’t fit into their narrow “family portrait” are penalised. 

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Voting closes on 10 August 2017.

Don’t forget to watch this space, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out who won!

If you’d like to support us as we strive for gender equality, do consider attending our gala event.  Want to find out who won last year’s Alamak! and AWARE Awards? Click here.