Cock-a-Doodle-Doo !

And so it had come to pass....... sometime in early July, Malaysia's Sharia Court appointed two women judges. Suraya Ramli was appointed for Putrajaya and Rafidah Abdul Razak was made a judge in the Kuala Lumpur Sharia Court. Both women are in their thirties.

But later came a proviso - these ladies could only hear civil cases, not criminal cases. Also, they cannot sit on Divorce cases except for issues related to child custody, common property and alimony. Call this One Step for Women ....??

Nowadays you often hear the term "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus". According to this notion, women complain about problems because they want an acknowledgement of their problems, while men complain in order to find solutions to their problems. The Malaysian Sharia Court situation seems to be a twist of this. While the men acknowledged the problems, the women really wanted solutions.

Well, even in the secular world of the West, the two sexes are at loggerheads. It was not too long ago that women in Britain were required to be seen and not heard - to be a soft and attractive comforter for their menfolk.

Do watch this video by my favourite comedian Harry Enfield which illustrates brilliantly the Martians and Venusians of Planet Earth.

And so, boys and girls, let me lead you on to a real story. We were attending the One-day Conference "In the Spirit of Rachel Corrie and Mavi Marmara" at PWTC on the 11th of July. During the lunch break we met a blogger who was keen to inform us of his publications. Most of the time he was conversing with the spouse.

But I broke The Rule.

I opened my mouth and offered my view - like the woman in the video clip. The said Blogger decided to ignore me and stared vacantly somewhere else like I was invisible. Mind you he was no irascible old codger like we over-60s are supposed to be. He must be at least 15-20 years younger.

What did I do to court the displeasure of Our Brown Sir?

I only made what I thought was a modestly intelligent and intelligible comment - for a woman!

When we got home I decided to beat up the spouse. Ouch! Ouch! The poor sod!