What's wrong with Jack Neo's Cheating...

• It's not about the (staged or not) drama consisting of crying, fainting and shouting...
• It's not about how the wife claims that the husband is 'My baby.... My fifth baby.'...
• It's not about long list of 'attempts and conquests'... Once the wife became aware of his cheating and did not stop him, technically he's not cheating anymore, is he?
  

What's very very wrong is that:

(A) Jack Neo publicly made his wife's tolerance out to be a 'virtue'.

He said,"The luckiest thing for me is that my wife has forgiven me. My wife has endured the pain that many women can't endure."

Read report and/or watch video here.

So, a 'good' wife is one who ought to tolerate repeated cheating.
Imagine how cheaters will convince themselves and their spouses of this henceforth. If Jack Neo and wife can do it, so can we! As of 11 Mar 2010, this is the new spoken social norm.

Perhaps AWARE ought to think about this...


(B) It seems okay that Jack Neo did not apologise to those girls he had taken advantage of.

In fact, it's not clear why Jack Neo apologised today, and who he was apologising to.

While I think it's really none of our business whether Jack Neo has had trysts with women (or even men) who were willing peers and all, but coming onto young hopefuls reeks of abuse of 'authority/position' from all directions.

More pragmatically, I guess it's dangerous for Jack Neo to specifically apologise to those girls. This would mean that he acknowledges that (1) there were more than 1 girl, and more gravely... that (2) he did something 'wrong' to them. One can only imagine the extent of legal implications to come with that.

E.g. According to online reports and chatter, the young then-16 year old whom he had hit on made a police report against Jack Neo. If Jack Neo acknowledges that he did hit on her, he would be in more trouble than he is in with his commercial sponsors.


(C) Minister George Yeo supports this couple.

Yes... This is the most outrageous part of this episode... to date.

Regardless how one attempts to read Minister Yeo's online support for this couple, one cannot deny that the husband has a habit of serial cheating and taking advantage of young girls, and the wife's inaction is in fact abetment.

Now that Minister Yeo has shown very public support for this couple, it must mean either of the following:

1. He was supporting blindly (i.e. without realising the extent of the misdeeds), OR
   
2. He really thinks it's okay for publicly-known and decorated personalities to behave in the abovementioned manner.

Either way, Minister does not emerge as a winner. I really wonder what/whether he was thinking while he was drafting that blog entry! Jack Neo is not the only one who's gonna lose some fans through this incident... Association works both ways... Good AND Bad.
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I personally believe that more public education on sexual harassment ought to be put forth by the government and/or civil organisations. What is sexual harrassment? What is molest? Outrage of modesty, rape etc. I don't remember this being taught in school.

This is not just to educate the potential victims. It also draws a clear line and sends out a loud signal to those who intend to/have been toe-ing the line.

Maybe can get Jack Neo to front the (anti-) sexual harassment campaign... Pro bono... of course.