Gender inequities await polytechnic graduates

JAKARTA (JP): Many women graduating from Polytechnic Indonesia have risen up the career ladder in accordance with their academic qualifications. That's the good news. The bad news is that most will not reach the top rung.

Saparinah Sadli, the noted psychology professor and staff lecturer of Women's Studies at the University of Indonesia, attributes this to gender discrimination.

Sadli said at a university seminar on Saturday that a study of 50 women that graduated from the polytechnic since 1985 shows that 45.16 percent of them work as assistant managers -- the highest position available for such graduates.

In terms of career development, women with the same degrees as men have not been treated too much differently in the early stages.

But discrimination occurs when it comes to "access" and "placement," she said. Most female polytechnic graduates end up doing desk work while their male counterparts are in the field doing work more appropriate to their educational backgrounds.

The research was conducted by the female teaching staff at Polytechnic Indonesia, an institution under the University of Indonesia, with sponsorship from the Australian Agency for International Aid.

Sadli said that gender discrimination exists because employers, most of whom are men, still perceive women as having a "communal" character better suited to serving others.

Such stereotyping influences the way employers assign jobs to their women employees, Sadli said.

Yulfita Raharjo, head of the Research Center of Population and Employment of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the women themselves are often trapped in unfair "gender ideology".

Only a few women do field jobs because they feel they are not suitable for work often deemed as "harsh".

The study also shows that more than 83 percent of the respondents work for personal fulfillment. Only four percent work for money.

Many women do not consider money a top priority because society considers men to be the breadwinners, Yulfita said.

"People believe that it is not appropriate for women to earn bigger salaries than their husbands. The women themselves feel uneasy if they earn more because they are afraid that the husbands will feel bad," she said.

"As a matter of fact, many women are afraid of being successful," she pointed out.

Few women are involved in the fields of science and technology because the two are still widely considered to be the domain of men, Yulfita said.

According to certain gender ideologies, men are rational and women are emotional. "Of course, we know that many men are irrational and many women are rational. Ironically people believe in the gender ideology," she said.

Women have little opportunity to develop their careers also because of society's belief that it is a woman's destiny to take care of the children and the household.

"This has nothing to do with destiny. This is social engineering," she said.

This also explains why only a few women have had the chance to take part in advanced training programs abroad, she added.(sim)