By Yong Soo Heong
When Aisha Rashid — an accomplished public relations practitioner I admired when starting as a business journalist decades ago — invited me to her book launch, I was elated. Alas, poor scheduling kept me away. Still, the PR maestro made sure I received a copy of her latest work, “…and God Created Women”.
Across 140 pages and 10 chapters, Aisha weaves a tapestry of women’s lives: sacrifices for love, family honour, filial duty, social decorum, children’s wellbeing, workers’ rights, and political struggles in a multi‑racial Malaya and later Malaysia. Drawing on sharp observations from the post‑World War II years in British Malaya and Singapore, and the upheavals after Merdeka, she distils decades of listening and reflection into fiction that feels deeply real.
Put simply, this is a collection of 10 powerful stories about women facing adversity — often in the name of love, protection, or sheer survival. They grip because they could have happened, shaped by the author’s keen eye and lived experience.
A blurb at the beginning of the book captures it well: “A woman’s life is not a single story, but a constellation of choices, losses, courage and quiet triumphs.”
Editor Fatimah Hashim, in her tribute, challenges the “weaker sex” label: while men may dominate in brute strength, women excel in endurance, immunity, longevity — even pain threshold. The stories here embody that resilience. From the early 20th century to today, women make difficult choices, bound by duty, revived by inner strength, tested by betrayal. Each tale lingers long after the final page.
Reading over two days, I was struck by the diversity of voices: an actress undergoing plastic surgery twice and identity‑based deception to stay in the limelight; household servants navigating survival in chaotic post‑war years; women who entered the jungle for political struggle against colonial rule; and recurring themes of women deceived by men’s lust. Together, they reveal the vagaries of Malayan and Malaysian life across generations.
Aisha herself explains: “Stories have always fascinated me — not simply for the events they recount, but for the truths they quietly reveal about the human heart. Retirement gave me the time to return to a long‑held passion and to shape the countless impressions, memories and emotions gathered over the years into stories.”
She centres women because their resilience often goes unnoticed. “As a woman, I understand many of these emotions firsthand and have witnessed countless others through the lives of those around me. Their experiences — of love and loss, hope and heartbreak, courage and quiet endurance — deserve to be told.”
Though fictional, the stories are rooted in emotions and experiences many will recognise. Aisha hopes readers find moments that move, comfort, challenge, or remind them that none of us journeys alone.
In giving voice to resilience, she reminds us: women’s lives are not footnotes to history, but its very fabric.
For copies of the book at RM45 each (excluding delivery), email: rashid.aisha@gmail.com.
WE