Feminist seminar

Feminist seminar

I was horrified, yes, horrified, to read that the U.S. in
promoting its own national ideology of naive egalitarianism had
organized a feminist seminar at the U.S. Embassy here in Jakarta
(The Jakarta Post, July 28, 1994). The article Feminist movement
can learn from U.S. rolled out a couple of hoary old chestnuts
like this one for example: "The American women even participate
in a traditionally male activity such as weight lifting." How
rich! Women all over the Western world have been competing in
weight lifting for years. And, sadly, most of them look like men.

In that little quote above lies a major root of the "feminist"
movement. They call themselves "feminists" but they want to be
like men. How sad. Indonesian women are truly feminine and there
are some wonderful traditions which serve to encourage their
grace and femininity. How perverse it would be if young women
across the archipelago now began pumping iron in a misguided
attempt to compete with their husbands for muscle size and to
become liberated. Feminism was always a contradiction in terms.
From the earliest days there has been a strong lesbian influence
and this has had the effect of emphasizing the masculine at the
expense of the feminine.

You see, what a lot of people forget and even more never
knew, is that modern feminism has its roots in Marxist theory. Oh
yes it does. In the Marxist world view the worker is repressed
and enslaved by the capitalist class. All that some of the early
feminist writers did was substitute the word "woman" for the word
"worker" and men for "capitalist". Don't forget too, that Marxism
has a materialist and rationalist orientation which is in direct
contrast to the spiritual and emotional orientation of Indonesian
culture.

Dr. Tuty Heraty Noerhadi (professor of philosophy at U.I.) is
quoted in the same article as saying "Indonesian feminists should
aim at harmony" and in doing so she goes right to the crux of the
issue here. Western feminism is full of dogma, conflict and
confrontation. Harmony is anathema to its way of thinking. I urge
all Indonesian women to take heed of Dr. Tuty's wise words and to
draw on your own cultural foundations. I can assure you that from
my experience of the last 25 years of feminism, it is the U.S.
and Western feminists who should be learning from you, not the
other way round.

JOHN THOMAS

Jakarta