Malaysia Health Ministry Blamed Women’s Personalities for Sexual Harassment

Malaysia’s health ministry ignited a firestorm on social media over an article published on its official website that perpetuated victim blaming and sexual harassment. 

The now-deleted article, previously titled “Emotional Impact on Sexual Harassment”, cited women’s “physical attractiveness”, “sexy body shapes” and “charming personalities” as factors that “lead to sexual harassment” from men. 

The article was published on the official online platform of Malaysia’s health ministry, providing daily updates on COVID-19 cases and vaccination. Accessed on Thursday afternoon, the website said it was undergoing “some work” and was temporarily unavailable.

The article was first published in 2016 but came to public attention on Wednesday after outraged Twitter users flagged it up to opposition politician Hannah Yeoh, a former deputy minister of women, family and community development affairs. 

“This is absolutely wrong,” Yeoh said in a post that has been retweeted about 1,000 times, calling for the article to be removed from the health ministry’s website.

Female activists and journalists also criticized the article. Writer Boo Su-Lyn called it a “WTF piece” that had no place on a health website.

“Men engage in sexual harassment by abusing their power over women in the workplace. It has nothing to do with the way women dress,” she tweeted.

Politicians from Malaysia’s ruling government have a notorious record of making sexist remarks.

During the country’s first national lockdown in 2020 to contain COVID-19, some politicians called on women at home to be docile towards their husbands and partners, in response to concerns of rising domestic violence.

The women and family ministry stressed the importance of maintaining “personal grooming” while working from home. Its chief minister, Rina Harun advised housewives to talk to their husbands in “sweet tones” like the popular Japanese robotic cat Doraemon to avoid angering them.

Responding to the public backlash against the article on sexual harassment, the Malaysian health ministry’s director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah told the Malay Mail newspaper on Wednesday that the piece had created “a negative perception” and that it was purely based on the author’s personal opinions. 

He added that it has since been deleted and the ministry had taken steps to review previous articles published on its portal.

Following the outrage, social media users found other articles on health ministry’s website that demeaned working women as well as queer Malaysians.

“Ambitious and career-minded Malaysian women” were “in danger of becoming lesbians” if they worked in female-centric environments, one article read.

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