In reference to U Nurul R Abu Harith's letter ('A product called laziness' of Aug 28), women need not try to search for, nominate or elect as leaders honest, hard-working, caring and simple men.

Now that women are increasingly more qualified than men, they should directly take over, and be encouraged to take over leadership positions in political and corporate hierarchies of this country.

This is because nothing is going well at all, at present, in the political and corporate affairs of this country of which men in leadership have so far made a complete mess of, and we should give women a chance to see if they can make a difference.

We should close the gender-based 'leadership gap' which distributes women thinly and largely unrepresented at the helm of political parties, government, business and corporate positions.

But alas this is easier said than done! Eliminating gender-based discrimination in our constitution alone (though laying down the legal foundation for creation of equal power structures) will not help if deeply ingrained cultural and social attitudes do not change by education.

In my humble opinion, the biggest impediment to women's closing the 'gender leadership gap' is the following social cultural attitudes:

1) Women's ultimate fulfillment is being happily married and discharging the nesting function of building a family and nurturing offspring.

2) In the premises, a woman's ambitions and desires for the things that men have all along desired are only properly realised, most appropriately, through her husband on whom she must depend to rise and fall through him, but not on her own.

3) Sure, she is entitled all opportunities of education, can work outside the home, expand her horizons, share her gifts and talent, but bottom line, don't overreach. As long as her job and position are within traditional gender norms and expectations to nurture, assist, host, even manage (or manipulate?) the ultimate male boss - that's OK! Just don't try to lead the way.

These unspoken but deeply ingrained cultural and social attitudes arising not from men's oppression of women but simply traditional gender-based division of labour and demarcation of functions lead, in my humble opinion again, to basically two undesirable consequences.

Firstly, the talents of women are not given opportunity of flowering fully for their personal fulfillment, and in larger context, cannot be harnessed to society's and national benefit.

Secondly, the overemphasis on marriage being the ultimate goal for a woman aggravates insecurities on the part of women to the detriment of both sexes. It may be asked: how does this 'overemphasis' aggravate insecurities and anxieties and how are these insecurities and anxieties manifested? Let me explain.

Because marriage is the principal goal (and if a woman were married, preserving this goal, sanctuary and status from being fractured by other women becomes imperative), women become suspicious and threatened by other women viewed as competitors. True, women have their own personal network of female friends but outside the immediate and very close network, many women cannot otherwise relate in an impersonal unhostile and unsuspicious way to other females outside that network as the latter are viewed potentially as competitor for whatever resources men could provide (quite unlike men's situation where men outside immediate networks are potentially complementary in terms of co-operation in making money).

It follows then that if it were socially unacceptable and unladylike to display brazen hostility to potential female competitors, the next best thing will be resort to backbiting (what in common parlance is described as 'bitching').

If a woman is often described as being prone to jealousy, quickness to be slighted and defensiveness, it must be recollected in her defence that she operates within a cultural and social milieu in which she often is subtly nudged to depend on her man as validation of status, standard of living and happiness through marriage and if need be, she has to be manipulative and distance him from other women seeking the same things.

The fact that one of the important attributes looked for by men in women (whether in terms of association or marriage) is relative physical attractiveness and youth does not help to ameliorate these anxieties and insecurities as the natural progression of ageing debilitates these attributes.

Media, advertising and billboards reinforce idealisation and stereotyping of physical feminine beauty and benchmark standards that majority of women cannot meet and this deepens the insecurities of the female psyche. The cosmetic, garment and fashion industries, the plastic surgeons and dieticians in medical and health care professions all take advantage to commercially exploit for profit and feed on collective women insecurities of their beauty, youth and physical desirability against the inexorable debilitation of age.

It is these same social and cultural attitudes that encourage in men the tendency to marry downwards, and in choice of marital partners, discriminate against women of more superior academic and career positions - as women in the converse manner prefer to marry upwards and discriminate against men of lower academic and economic attainments.

Now that women are becoming more qualified, as the prime minister said, their anxieties and insecurities will intensify if they still hold on to the value that marriage is fulfillment against the backdrop of decreasing pool of eligible men due to this 'qualification gap' as the Singapore experiment testifies.

In summary, in this new millennium, and with the onward march of civilisation, not only gender bias aspects of law have to be changed but more importantly all the social and cultural attitudes should by education be re-moulded, women should pursue in full force their educational qualifications and fill the positions of political and corporate leadership, the responsibilities of which the men have so far dismally discharged, and pay lesser attention and emphasis on the marriage institution as a goal in life in mitigation of the negative effects of holding on to such a value as aforediscussed.

For the married women, since balancing career responsibilities and parental responsibilities present a constant challenge, the government should forthwith as its primary agenda open up (by public funds and via privatisation) and encourage nationwide establishment of professional daycare services for children up to at least seven years old.

To the men in whose group I belong, I believe that the debunking of traditional women's role and the concomitant demystification of this feminine personae (that her premium is youth and relative physical attractiveness, her proper station in life is marriage, and her role, supporting to leadership rather than leadership itself) are absolutely necessary to eliminate the root causes of their insecurities and anxieties which could make them sometimes such a bane to our men's existence, whether as wife, mate, or girlfriend.

Women should be encouraged to lead and show the way.