Aun Koh (AK): How and when did you first hear about Aware?
Ong Soh Chin (OSC): I can’t remember exactly when but I’ve always felt like Aware has been present in my life. From when I became conscious of myself as a woman and my place in society. You know, growing up in Singapore, in the 1970s and ’80s, which were my formative years, thinking about civil society wasn’t such a big thing. But Aware was there somehow, always in the back of my mind.
Corinna Lim (CL): I’d never heard of Aware until a friend said to me, “Hey, there’s a pretty cool women’s group that’s [organising an event], why don’t you come by? I think it might have been the first members’ night in 1991 or 1989. I was just blown away because it was just women sitting in a circle sharing very personal stories. And the main hosts were so warm, so real.
AK: In those days, did you have any idea of what it meant to be a feminist?
CL: None!
I think I had which was my first job. I think I wrote a couple of pieces about feminism and what it meant to be a woman. I became the editor of, a young women’s magazine, in 1994 and I used that platform to try and put in stories with women’s perspectives—stories that would empower women and shed some light on things like domestic abuse, marital violence, sexual choices, freedom of choices over your own body, the right to choose, and things like that.
