Dealing With Sexist Comments
This is Kelly Lim.
If you don’t know her, she’s a 26-year-old female undertaker who went viral after a ZULA interview.
Earlier this week, she created a deck of slides to seek a potential partner on dating apps after some men were “intimidated” by her opinionated character and unconventional career in the funeral business.
After first sharing the story of her online experiment with ZULA, her modest 6-slide Powerpoint presentation attracted the attention of local media outlets such as Mothership, AsiaOne, SGAG, Coconuts, Zaobao, Wanbao, Reddit, Stomp, and One FM 91.3.
However, what was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek experiment, turned sour when several netizens slut-shamed Kelly and left sexist remarks.
“While the majority of the population still have some sense of humour, the hate comments got a bit too much on the Mothership article,” Kelly shares. “People got too butt-hurt over something that does not affect them whatsoever, especially bitter women who objectify me.”
What News Sites Highlight Affect Comments
In response to Kelly, a man named Yong Wei even created his own deck of slides on Facebook with a matching hashtag #FindYourWei, to which was covered by Mothership.
In Mothership’s Facebook captions, one sentence was highlighted from each of the two decks.
Kelly’s read: “Many positions you see in jiu-jitsu are similar to what you see in the bedroom so I can definitely keep up.“
While Yongwei’s read: “I’m not that good-looking so you no need worry I will cheat on you, even if I wanna cheat, also nobody to cheat with.“
Both articles were written in the same format by the same writer, who would give a short commentary after each of their slides.
But in Kelly’s article, the writer noticeably focused more on her looks and sexual innuendos (Kelly 3 – Yong Wei 1), while Yong Wei’s focused more on his self-depreciating humour.
At the end of the articles, Kelly’s ended in a condescending “well done, we suppose?” while Yong Wei’s ended with a more encouraging “we’re sure (Kelly) Lim will catch wind of it soon enough”.
Online comments
While mostly positive, some comments said Kelly was “lame” and that she had “an insecurity complex”.
Interestingly, as one commenter pointed out, there were no negative comments found on Yong Wei’s article.
Yong Wei’s article received comments that were generally like this:
The comments resulted in some concerned relatives calling her and advising her not to wear bikinis, with one aunt even calling her a “prostitute”.
Double-Standards In Singapore
The response to Kelly’s powerpoint slides reveals a sexist double-standard when women take ownership of their sexuality and desires.
Biased media representation, negative comments about her ‘image’ by strangers and relatives are sanctions on women, governing and telling them what they can or cannot do.
Kelly adds: “If I was a hot, shirtless, 26-year-old man, it’s unlikely I’d get the same feedback.” Still, she recognises how she can’t please everyone and “haters gonna hate”.
To all those who disagree with her dating powerpoint slide, Kelly has a message for you: “Imma whip your ass”.
But really, Kelly made her dating powerpoint slides for the lols. After all, girls just wanna have fun.
