How do you feel being a young woman today?

Monique Natalia, Contributor, Jakarta

With Megawati Soekarnoputri as the first woman ever on the country's short presidential list, young women should not be afraid of sexual discrimination, right? But what is really going on? Six young urban women gave us their experiences and opinions.

Astrid, 22, West Jakarta: Even though people say that today we have globalization, emancipation or whatever it is, whatever you do still goes back to the smallest group that is closest to you, which is your family.

People say that you have to think globally, act locally, and I think it's true. You have to go back to how the people in your society think, especially your family. It all goes back to gender inequality.

Like, even if you are a career woman you still have to pay attention to your roles as a woman. For instance, that a woman must know how to cook, a woman cannot go out at night, and the list goes on.

I really don't like all that discrimination. That's why ever since I was very young, I've always wanted to be a boy. Being a girl is very complicated; you always have to look pretty, neat, and so on. Especially in my family's culture, which is Balinese culture, women are really inferior. The simplest example would be that a wife in the Balinese culture has one main function which is to serve her husband.

Another example of the gender inequality can be seen in the tradition of eloping for couples who come from different castes. If the woman's caste is higher than the man's, the man cannot propose to the woman's house. They have to elope so they don't offend the woman's family.

The bad thing is that when the man does something wrong or if he turns out to be a jerk, like having an affair, the woman can't blame the man. The man would say something like "you were the one who wanted to elope with me, I didn't ask your family for your hand in marriage!"

It's very bad, especially in Indonesian society where people don't have an open mind. Also because here family ties are very strong so we really have to listen to what our family has got to say.

Rina, 22, South Jakarta: I think being a young woman comes with a lot of pressure. When I was a teenager the pressure was mainly physical. People expect girls to be beautiful, white, tall, thin, you know, typical of those girls you see at the malls.

If you don't match those criteria, forget it! Now that I'm older the pressure is more about things I have to be able to do before I become a mother and a housewife, like cook, organize expenses, you know, basically how to run a household. I'm constantly being reminded of those duties.

It really bothers me because I don't think that only girls can do the cooking and all the other "girly" stuff, the man can too! Also I don't like to think that household chores are the only things I'll end up doing.

Other pressures come from the society. In my circle of friends, even though most are liberals and very open-minded, they (the men especially) still say things, like "you really should not be smoking in public, you're a girl!" What would people think?!" But I don't care.

Unfortunately, the validation of the gender roles that women have today does not only come from the society. It can also come from the woman herself. It is because this patriarchal culture has been passed on from one generation to the next ever since I can remember.

It's going to be hard to change all those ideas and values about how a woman should act. I think young women have to be taught how to fend for themselves. They have to be taught how bad all this discrimination can be.

For the future I am pretty optimistic, though, about women's roles in our developing society. Many young women today have learned about gender inequalities and hopefully they will teach that to their children and so on. So hopefully in the next generation women and men will stand together.

Devie, 20, Depok: I think being a young woman today is fun. Today's conditions for women are certainly better than how it used to be in the old days. Before, women are only associated with domestic jobs, like caring for the children, cooking, cleaning and so on, but now people are more receptive to the idea of women doing more jobs in the public domain.

I think women today are smarter. To me, young women today seem more intelligent, and they are also more daring. They are not afraid to engage in some self-actualizing activities. They also speak up more. Before women are afraid to compete with man, now some women are leading the competitions.

But still if a woman is too modern people still think of them as weird. Most men don't like to date women that are too modern. They don't want women who can outsmart them in everything. They feel that women like that re too high to reach. The diamond is too expensive to buy, so to speak.

All this talk of emancipation is good, but sometimes you want to show your feminine side. Sometimes I just feel the need to be protected by men but still I want them to do it with respect. People say that women think with their heart. I don't think so -- women today do not think only with their hearts they also use their brains.

The bottom line is that smart girls survive in today's world, while the dumb ones don't.

Nanda, 19, South Jakarta: Frankly, I think that there is less discrimination today than it was before. Like in my department, of computer science, the number of girls used to be very small.

Even as early as in 1994 for every 40 boys there were only about two girls. Now the percentage is better, girls now take up to 40 percent of the whole population.

Girls are also doing more jobs that used to be reserved only for boys. For instance, the position for the head of the school senate was only occupied by boys, now we have more girl candidates. When we are given projects by companies, girls used to only do the secretarial jobs, while the boys got to do all the work. Now it's vice versa. Still, from the people who are hiring there still is discrimination. Usually when they give us projects to do, they ask for the head positions to be filled with males. It's so unfair!

From what I see outside, discrimination is still very obvious in some fields. Take cab drivers for example. You hardly ever see a woman driver, right? I think it's because people don't associate girls with jobs that are dangerous or complicated. They are associated with jobs in the social sciences, literature or art. Women are also not trusted with important positions. Some women are even paid lower than men.

But then if we ask for a raise, the men would say "you want to be paid the same amount as us, yet you get special privileges like pregnancy and menstruation leaves". It really annoys me, but I admit that it's true. It's hard if you put it that way, because physically women are different than men!

I think women should have the same rights and position as men but they should not be higher, or in that case lower. There should be equality between men and women. It's hard on a relationship if the woman has a higher position than the man. The couple usually ends up quarreling all the time or in the worst cases breaking up.

Shiska, 22, East Jakarta: Because I often take public transportation sometimes I really feel the downside of being a woman. Every day I have to put up with those annoying catcalls and hoots from men on the street and in buses.

I don't know how to react to the sexual harassment since reacting by getting angry will only make them happy that they managed to get a reaction out of you. But if I don't do anything, I feel so violated. How dare they do that and get away with it without any reaction from me.

The difficulty of being a woman is also visible in my family, especially because I come from a very traditional Batak family. Like my dad, he is very conservative. Especially since he is a Raja Adat, which is the person that everybody comes to when they have a question about traditions and customs.

Because of that role he expects his family to be like him, you know, to follow all the Batak traditions and everything. While Batak traditions and customs are really demeaning for women. Take the division of inheritance for example; only the men have a right for the inheritance, the women get nothing.

Another good example is the marriage arrangement. When a woman is married to a man the man has to buy her. Seriously! He has to buy her with money, well I guess you can call it some kind of a dowry. But still it means that the future husband's family has to give some money to the woman's family and in exchange of that money they give him the woman. It's so degrading!

My mom and my view of women is very different. My mom tends to think that a woman should marry fast, be able to cook and forget about high education. I, on the other hand, want a good career, earn my own money, and I also want to be able to decide when I want to get married. I hate the concept of prearranged marriage!

Gadis, 18, North Jakarta: I think that women today are more exploited than before. Just take a quick look at the media and you'll see what I mean.

Take television, for instance, there are all these commercials that advertise products that have nothing to do with women. I remember this one for a motorcyle. But instead of the motorcycle, there is an image of this very sexy girl wearing a tight leather cat suit with the zipper undone to below her breast line.

Sure, in the background you can see a small image of the product being sold, but get real! She's even saying things like, "You want this?" and she holding a key but pointing it to her breasts. "Buy that one first", pointing to the motorcycle behind.

Ugh, I hate that commercial. It's a good example of how women today are viewed by society, especially by men!

I know that the government and the media are always trying to propagate concepts like emancipation and gender equality, but they should take a look at the entertainment industry and the commercials to find the things they should correct.

As for myself, fortunately I don't face any discrimination. Maybe it's because my family is very liberal and maybe also because I am only in college and there isn't any visible discrimination between men and women where I study. Maybe when the time comes for me to look for a job I will find some form of discrimination.

Sometimes when I look at vacancy ads in newspapers, I still see the words "only male applicants" or something similar. For me, that's the kind of discrimination which should not exist anymore.