Against the Objectification of Women

To mark International Women’s Day on Sunday, 8 March 2009, the Sunday Times ran several articles honouring women in Singapore.

So it was somewhat ironic that an unrelated article carried the headline, Imported wives suffer the crisis. The word imported can only suggest that the wives in question are material goods to be traded, owned and even discarded.

The headline could have read: Foreign wives suffer the crisis. It would have been a little less precise, but a whole lot less offensive and dehumanizing.