Many still ask about women's role in society, development
Many still ask about women's role in society, development
By T. Sima Gunawan and Ati Nurbaiti
JAKARTA (JP): Last year Indonesia saw a lot of discussion
about the role of women in society, in keeping with the
government's pronouncement of 1994 as the Year of Women's Role in
Development.
Exactly how much progress Indonesia has made on this front is
a subject of contention, with feminists accusing the government
of putting too much emphasis on the traditional role of women --
as mothers and housewives -- at the expense of what they consider
to be the real issues: equal opportunity, sexual discrimination
and the rest.
Has the Year of Women in Development therefore been nothing
but an empty slogan?
Some of the discussion, here in Indonesia and abroad, where
Indonesia took an active part, have certainly been useful.
One that made newspaper headlines all over the world was the
United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Population
and Development in Cairo in September. The role of women was one
of the most heatedly debated topics.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country with a
population of over 190 million, half of them women, took an
active part in the meeting.
The conference came up with a recommendation emphasizing
family planning for all and recognizing the need to give women a
greater say in these issues. It also emphasized the need to give
women greater access to education. However, critics said that the
conference left out, or avoided, such questions as educating men
on gender equality.
In June, Jakarta hosted the Asia Pacific Women's Ministerial
Conference, attended by 500 delegates from 54 countries in the
region, to pave the way for next year's International Conference
on Women in Beijing.
A declaration and plan of action for the advancement of women
was adopted. However, some delegates registered reservations.
They said the plan failed to take a holistic approach to
establishing strategies for the enhancement of women's roles and
the improvement of their well being.
"We, not just in women conferences, need to challenge
patriarchal, societal structures which oppress women," State
Minister and Social Advisor Shahnaz Wazir Ali from Pakistan said.
But just how sincere has the Indonesian government been in
promoting the cause of women during the Year of Women's Role in
Development?
Head of the Women's Graduate Program of the University of
Indonesia, Prof. Saparinah Sadli, criticized the government for
overemphasizing the traditional role of women. "In their
speeches, government officials keep reminding women time and
again about their role in the family," she said.
She said the role of women as mothers often got in the way of
their ambition to pursue careers outside the home.
The Year of Women also saw State Minister of Women's Affairs
Mien Sugandhi come up with some initiatives of her own.
One which feminists did not particularly welcome was her
proposal to extend maternity leave from the three months
prescribed by the current labor laws to four months, in order to
encourage mothers to breast-feed their babies longer.
She came up with another proposal which was no less
controversial: to expose the faces and identities of rapists on
television as a way of reducing the number of rapes, which has
reached about 1,600 a year in Indonesia. Her proposal came amid
complaints that the courts of law had been too lenient in dealing
with rapists.