Women, power and politics nowadays

By Dewi Anggraeni

Today, Dec. 22, is the Indonesian Women's Day. To mark the event our correspondent Dewi Anggraeni takes a look at the role of women in modern society.

MELBOURNE (JP): Right from the word go, woman has had an equal share of tasks and responsibilities to man. The world would not have been populated without one or the other. Whether it should have been populated the way it is, is a matter for debate.

The traditional role of woman as career, nurturer and companion of man has been enforced and immortalized. It has been the source of tear-jerking poetry and songs. However, while the role of man is continuously redefined and multiplied with the changing times, a woman seems to have an uphill battle redefining and diversifying her role, beyond that of the object of man's pleasure.

For centuries, those women who want to do more than what has been defined by tradition, encounter a great number of obstacles. They have to break with tradition, squeeze themselves out of the hardened mold, and upset the entourage while doing it.

The key to this mythical door to the wider world, it seems, is power.

The last few months have seen various conferences around the world, where issues relating to women were discussed at length. At least, two of these, The Population Control Conference in Cairo in September, and the Women, Power and Politics Conference in Adelaide in October, emphasize the empowerment of women as an important solution to the world problems.

Knowing what to do, however, is many steps too far from knowing how to do it. Men, who have disproportionate control of power, do not easily see reasons to share it with their alleged companions, the opposite sex.

How do women take part in major projects in life, when in almost every level, decision making is in the hands of men? How do women make sure they have their say in issues that not only affect the whole nation, but also affect them mostly?

Only a minority of women throughout the world, are aware that empowerment is possible. Many in fact, know it is merely a distant concept. Australia, one of the most democratic nations in the world, extended the voting right to women only a hundred years ago -- ahead of Britain and the rest of the world. Power and women are new friends. More often than not, those who have access to power are not sufficiently informed as to how to dispose of it. It is also unfortunate that some empowered women even collude with powerful men to repress their less fortunate sisters.

Two major solutions have been aired. First, community education. This is the softly, softly approach, where men are told that the world would be much nicer if they let women participate in the decision making, while women are told that they would only get anywhere if there were solidarity among them. It needs a generation or two to permeate the community. The second solution is more immediate, but more abrupt. Like anything abrupt, it causes a great deal of resentment. The efficacy therefore, is doubtful. Legislate against discrimination based on sex, make women representation compulsory, and make any type of violence against women a punishable crime.

Education is more viable in developed nations, where people are more likely to resent legislation seen as too restrictive by certain groups. The need is also comparatively less urgent. Here women are fighting for more representation in Parliament, as well as in management boards of the private sector. In developing nations where millions are still being exploited and made victims of systematic violence, education alone may have very little short term effect. Legislation, it appears, is crucial. These women urgently need protection, before they even dream of empowerment.

Ironically, where legislative protection is most needed, the enforcement of the law is the least reliable. Take the situation in India. Subashini Ali, a former Indian member of Parliament and currently a women movement activist, explained that personal lives including marriages and divorces, and property and inheritance rights, were governed by the laws of their religious communities. And in all these laws, women have inferior status. While theoretically the law enforcers, who are mostly men, should observe state laws, they are also members of particular religious communities, who have been conditioned to accept the lower status of women as a fact of life. Education may eventually reverse the community attitudes, but how many women will have to suffer in the meantime?

Solidarity is a wonderful concept, if it can reach those who are the most needy. It is not easy to convince a battered woman she should resist her batterer, if she cannot see long term protection.

It appears that the gap between the position of women in the developed nations and that of their sisters in the developing nations cannot be bridged in a hurry.