Trend of women's projects - how beneficial for women?

By Nori Adriyani [10 pts ML]

JAKARTA (JP): In two villages in Klaten, Central Java, there are at least two groups of women involved in projects which the organizers say are improving the women's welfare.

One group, consisting of around 20 women, runs a goat-raising cooperative, facilitated by a women's non-government organization (NGO) based in Yogyakarta.

Another small group, working with a different NGO, produces knitted handbags.

I recently visited these groups, because any small step to organize women will hopefully lead to important changes.

The projects, which both started about a year ago, seemed to be running well. Membership has increased, the goats in the cooperative are well cared for. The group making handbags said they have acquired new skills.

Yet, although they said the addition to their husbands' or parents' income was significant, they also added that it was only additional income, and they appeared to be particularly busy.

"We make sure that all household chores are done before going to our meetings," said "Muryani," a leader of the goat-raising group.

"And we make sure that the meeting ends in time for us to get home and prepare the evening meal.

"That way we don't have conflicts with our husbands."

We, the visiting women's activists, were surprised that such a problem was not tackled in a women's NGO project, although it would not have been surprising if the activities had been under the nationwide government sponsored Family Welfare Movement (PKK).

We also did not expect to be greeted by women in uniform who prepared a ceremonial feast for us.

Indeed the NGO supervising the project had never said it aimed at consciousness raising, but at least we had expected a little more.

If, for instance, the meetings took important time out of homemaking, couldn't their husbands or other family members help?

The NGOs, we thought, should have been more aware of women's specific problems--such as low self-confidence and dealing with bureaucratic structures--since the beginning of the projects, and find ways to encourage the women to handle them together.

Likewise, the women making handbags said they were still afraid to go to the bank for a loan.

"We leave that to our supervisors," said the group leader.

The supervisors she referred to are men, a leader of the village youth group (Karang Taruna) linked to the Village Defense Body (Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa) and the village head.

As the women had not been encouraged to deal with the bank themselves, this strengthened our impression that the projects were co-opted by the local patriarchal political system and values.

Yet this should be expected.

Trendy

The two projects are clear-cut examples of "women in development" (WID) projects, which have increased, most likely because women's issues have become a trendy issue among NGOs.

The main objective of the WID concept is to integrate women in development, as development schools and agencies began to see in the 1970s that development might harm, rather than benefit, women when introduced into societies with class and gender imbalances.

Funding agencies then started to implement intervention programs to balance development in favor of women, such as developing appropriate technology for women and setting up credit facilities.

It was this turn favoring WID that generated projects for women. In Indonesia, the case has been no different. In 1978 the government appointed a State Minister of Women's Roles.

Within the existing NGOs, women departments were established to handle women's projects.

Meanwhile, new women NGOs considered to be outside the mainstream have sprung up since the early 1980s.

These new women's NGOs believe in the importance of addressing women's subordination persistent in society; while "mainstream" groups such as the compulsory civil servant's wives organization, Dharma Wanita, maintain that a woman main role is in the family.

So it was disheartening, yet not very surprising, to hear that the organizers in Klaten had not made any effort to address any problems the women might face.

From above

With the pressures from funding agencies -- the NGOs' bread and butter -- projects have been driven by concerns from above.

While NGO staff argue that income generating projects are "entry points" towards more important aims like encouraging women to be able to control economic resources, it turns out that the activities are "forever" entry points.

Hence, in the early 1980s critics, propagated that the women in development approach only addressed women's practical needs, and not the strategic issues of overcoming political, economic and social obstacles -- a complex relationship of gender, class, race and development imbalances.

This is a critical issue for all concerned about the improvement of women's position in society. If we fail to see these dangers, efforts for improvement are bound to stand still or even regress.

From the two examples, the need to clarify the approach of each project "for women's welfare" is clear -- whether it is aimed to meet the practical needs of women or one that at least takes a small step to unravel the structural barriers.

The writer is a staff member of a Jakarta-based NGO, Yayasan Perempuan Mardika.

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