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.