“It doesn’t mean when there is gender equality the country’s GDP will grow, or even the other way around, that when GDP increases, then gender equality will become more prevalent.
“Positive correlation doesn’t mean the thing (growth) will happen,” said Yeo during the Women Only Additional Seats (WOAS) forum here today.
Yeo, who is DAP deputy national publicity secretary, cited Japan as an example of a developed country that had a low gender equality rate, but has still managed to build a rich, prosperous and sustainable country.
However, she added that Japan is currently facing issues with their labour market, as they have an aging population and have taken steps to increase women’s participation in the economy.
Yeo then questioned if that is the sort of society that we want as it is also possible to achieve these goals with more women participating in economic and political development.
“We can also be a rich country without women being part of it. But I believe you can be a richer country when you have more women participating,” said Yeo, who is Damansara Utama assemblywoman.
She was referring to the Penang Women’s Development Corporation’s (PWDC) proposal on gender and electoral reform to increase the number of women in the political field and have an electoral system quota for woman of a minimum of 30%.
However, Yeo said while agreeing with the quota, certain affirmative actions must be taken.
“It must be temporary, any affirmative action must be temporary otherwise you would have a group of people who actually fight on uneven ground in the long term,” Yeo said.
“To me it should be incremental.
“Well, if you want 30% straight away, from 10% you go straight to 30%, then how do you get the women candidates?”
Other speakers present at the WOAS forum were political scientist and Penang Institute fellow Dr Wong Chin Hua, Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching and lawyer Syahredzan Johan.
According to the 2016 World Economic Forum, Malaysia is ranked 106 out of 144 countries in terms of the gender gap.
This puts Malaysia behind not only western countries but also countries like Kazakhstan (51), Azerbajian (86), Tajikistan (93), Bangladesh (72), India (87), China (99) Indonesia (88), Vietnam (65), Thailand (71) and Brunei (103).
In Malaysia, currently only one in 10 elected representatives are women, compared with the world average of one in five.