Women's groups in search for meaning

Women's groups in search for meaning

Hera Diani and Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Juwita" has just ended her maternity leave after delivering her
second son and returned to work as a journalist, putting in much
more time than the specified eight-hour working day.

"I don't have enough time for my children now. I have to start
working at 8 a.m., because the beat requires it. My first son is
really neglected, he ignores his grandmother and skips school,"
sighed the thirty-something woman as she waited for her husband
to pick her up after work late one evening.

There are so many women like Juwita, who choose to work to
help support their families but find they cannot be the mythical
"superwoman" in also taking care of all their family's needs.

Others put off getting married, only to find out later that
their youth has disappeared, along with their ambition.

But as the country marks on Sunday the anniversary of the
birth of Kartini, who is officially credited as a heroine of
women's emancipation, the assumption might be that her
descendants should have every reason to feel better about their
position in society.

The woman of today has probably never had so many non-
governmental organizations and institutions in her corner, as
well as the first woman president at the helm of the country.

At the end of the day, however, the question of who is the
modern Indonesian woman and what she really needs for true
equality will probably remain unanswered amid the clamor of
divergent agendas.

Lies Marcoes-Natsir, a consultant for Muslim gender and civil
society at the Asia Foundation, said the efforts of women's
groups were out of touch with the reality of life for many
Indonesian women.

"Women's non-governmental organizations are losing their
momentum. They have also failed to transform the concept of
gender into something more real. To some people, they are just
seen as an abstract concept, which doesn't touch their lives,"
she said.

She said there were major issues, like violence and regional
autonomy, which were ignored by women's groups despite their
impact on women. If both of these themes were correctly addressed
in a campaign, they would gain much more attention and support.

With more access to funding from foreign donors in the reform
era, women's groups should also have widened their horizons,
including embracing women in rural areas, not only the middle to
upper class, she added.

Some groups have failed to seize the opportunity because they
have remained unable to formulate a perspective on gender and
apply it to diverse issues.

"Every sector has its own gender perspectives. Like food,
health and farming issues, there should be issues concerning
women," she said.

Sita Aripurnami from the National Commission on Violence
Against Women praised the efforts of women's organizations during
the Old Order of Sukarno's presidency because they were more
militant than those around today, but still remained in touch
with the most pressing problems affecting women in society.

For women's rights groups, the most pressing thing to do is
first identify existing problems and ensure that already
designated regulations are implemented in full, she said.

"Take education, for example. The law doesn't discriminate on
gender in education, however the reality is to the contrary. Many
women, especially in rural areas, can't even finish elementary
school," she said.

Labor activist Dita Indah Sari contended that affluent women
remained the focus of the groups, but they now needed to reach
out to the grassroots level, like manual workers and poor
farmers.

Lies said that some newly established organizations have
brought hope because they manage to transform their concepts into
pragmatic realities.

She noted that Muslim women's groups fared better in
translating the concept of violence against women or gender-
related issues into the focus of their campaigns.

Some women's groups really have made a resounding difference,
only for their campaigns to eventually peter out.

As president Soeharto's government teetered toward its
inevitable end in the late 1990s, it was the Voice of Concerned
Mothers (SIP) that brought to the fore issues of poverty, food
scarcity and malnutrition amid the monetary crisis.

"The issues are more eye-catching than corruption and
democracy but, unfortunately, it has just stopped there," Lies
said.

"And now under a woman president, many groups have not seized
the moment to push the women's agenda."

But women's groups could unite to lobby Megawati, who dismayed
many by dismissing the campaign for affirmative action last year,
to pursue gender-friendly policies, as the military has done on
security issues, Lies said.

"Women comprise 51 percent of Indonesia's total population
(210 million) and we can tell her that if she neglects women, she
may topple. There are many things she can do, concerning women
migrant laborers (TKW), violence against Acehnese women and much
more.

"What we have now are wide open ways ... to struggle. What is
needed is the reorientation of the movement's direction and
further studies on the root of the problem," she said.

Women activist and legal expert Nursyahbani Katjasungkana is
pleased by the growing number of NGOS dealing with women's
rights.

"The more NGOs, the more the access for women to women's
organizations that are campaigning and empowering both in
politics and the economy. That's good. Our country is very large.
No matter how big a woman's organization is, it's impossible for
it to cover the whole area," said the chairwoman of the Coalition
of Indonesian Women for Justice and Democracy.

She noted this was better than the past, when the main women's
organization was the Family Welfare Movement (PKK), which only
promoted women's roles as wife and mother and shied away from
political issues.

Nursyahbani said that it's difficult to define a uniform
vision of the present women's organizations.

"Of course, we share the universal vision that women's rights
are human rights and that as humans, women have the same rights
as men. But the implementation and the strategies may vary."

Nursyahbani said differences between women's organizations
could still be bridged to find common ground.

"There is no single solution for problems as big as
discrimination," she added.