JP/2/women

Pride and prejudice concerning women's roles

JAKARTA (JP): Nurturing the home and family is not the natural and sole responsibility of women, said a high level official of the State Ministry for Women's Roles on Saturday.

"There are only four natural traits (kodrat) of women," said Syamsiah Achmad, speaking for Minister Mien Sugandhi at a discussion on women's roles at the private Atmajaya University in Central Jakarta.

"These are menstruation, pregnancy, delivery and breast-feeding. Bottle-feeding and everything else can be done by men," the assistant to the Minister said.

She also cited surveys showing that working women carry the bulk of responsibilities in the family apart from what they have to do at work.

Syamsiah pointed at the Ministry itself as an example of the difficulties in changing "human-made, not God-given perceptions."

"Many of the women employees outside Jakarta cannot come to our four-month training sessions because they cannot leave their families that long. This is despite the fact that lots of them have grown children."

Men, she added, "cannot be independent at home."

"This is why most members of our working teams are men. At least the institutionalization of improving women's position indicates the full commitment of the government."

On the legal level, she said the 1945 Constitution, the State Guidelines and laws such as the 1984 law against discrimination, which make the improvement of women's positions here compulsory.

It is urgent, she said, given the statistic that "over the last 15 years" two thirds of illiterate persons in Indonesia were women. Statistics of the last 1990 census note that there are 5.7 illiterate women out of a total of 8.57 illiterates here.

However, she said the Ministry will not go so far as to try to change the Marriage Law, which states that men are the head of the family.

"That means in decision making, you know how it is..," she said.

Perseption

Although Syamsiah said the four natural traits of women has been explained "thousands of times." She admitted the perception is quite new, as reflected among other speakers and participants.

Kemala Motik, a noted businesswoman, defined natural roles as being a wife, mother, and member of society.

A participant and student from the National Maritime Academy, Nurbaiti asked whether she would be "opposed by society" and go against her kodrat if she took up the required minimum of one- year assignment at sea.

In reply Kemala said that, as she had chosen a field that is quite uncommon here for women, she should either take a husband who also works at sea or make a clear agreement "in writing if necessary," with her future husband.

Another maritime student, Hadidjah Ali, said if her future husband did not agree to her job at sea, she did not mind to take up a job on land like shipping administration.

Atmajaya students Jimmy and Ucok said they were ready to take up domestic roles, though Jimmy said the wife should make decisions "on details such as the daily budget, and servants."

Ucok said he would bring up his family very differently from his traditional Batak (ethnic of Sumatra) family, in which the father "was king" and "my mother was often very tired."

Student Mena Haryanto said she would try to bring up her children equally but added that "it is difficult to really trust boys with cleaning up."

However she remembered that her father was better at ironing than her mother "because he had to do feminine jobs in his family."

Other speakers were Yanti Sugarda, president director of PT Surindo Utama, psychologist Dewi Matindas and the director of the Interstudi Communications School, Toto Ariyanto. All of the speakers touched on women's attitudes, particularly at work, and the perception that co-workers had towards women. (anr)