GENDER EQUALITY? NOT OUR CULTURE
Pick the woman, Clue - she's in pink, not black
Half the 280 million people in
Indonesia are women, though not in the 48-member ministry; just five
were drafted by the fresh president Prabowo Subianto. It’s a Cabinet fuelled more by testosterone
than talent.
The Republic’s eighth leader was inaugurated
in a stern khaki-coloured ceremony on 20 October where salutes out-ranked handshakes.
No First Lady. The prez was divorced 26
years ago and has since shown no interest in the other sex.
The official photos are not
encouraging for bright girls seeking role models. The happy chappies with new jobs, offices,
limos and stooping staff tell the tale – ranks of middle-age blokes and
occasionally a jilbab (headscarf) peering between shoulders from
behind.
The only dominant woman in the
line-up is the bareheaded Sri Mulyani Indrawati, 62. The US-educated economist
retains the Finance Minister’s job she held under Prabowo’s predecessor Joko
‘Jokowi’ Widodo. (He previously included nine women in his 34-member ministry.)
Dr Sri, the former managing
director of the World Bank, is the most powerful unaligned woman in the
government. The system allows ministers to
be drawn from outside the Parliament.
She’s staying because even Prabowo
understands that a woman can calm the markets better than a soldier, however
many stars on his epaulettes.
Scientific studies reportedly
show that women tend to excel in “humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral
sensitivity, social
skills, emotional
intelligence and kindness”, apparently making them effective leaders.
Had Prabowo picked one of his
meritless military mates instead of Dr Sri the rupiah could have tumbled, the business
lobby turned hostile and shoppers furious at price rises.
For the past decade Indonesia’s seat
at the world’s debating forums has been filled by Retno Marsudi. She was Ambassador to Norway, Iceland and
then the Netherlands before becoming the nation’s first female Minister for Foreign
Affairs.
The apolitical diplomat seemed to
present her country quietly and argue professionally. She’s now the UN Special Envoy on Water.
Her replacement is a career
politician with no diplomatic experience.
The mononymous Sugiono, 45, was a second lieutenant in the Infantry
Corps before joining Prabowo’s Gerindra (Great Indonesia) Party.
Apart from speaking English, his
other qualifications are being Prabowo’s personal assistant and pliant by
repute. Prabowo is expected to show more interest in international matters than
Jokowi and may become de-facto MFA.
Parliament ruled earlier this
century that one in every three candidates on a party list should be female
with a 30 per cent
quota in the national and regional legislatures. It’s never been reached, but is improving.
Last century the 32-year New
Order government of Prabowo’s former father-in-law Soeharto had a membership of
around nine per cent women in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR People’s Representate Council). It’s now 22 per cent, the highest in
history.
Scenes of protests and
celebrations in Constitutionally-secular Indonesia are not like those in other
Muslim-dominated nations. Women are often a prominent street force obvious to
any non-ideologue.
Though not to misogynist Prabowo
who prefers the Soeharto system that had women in the home as breeders and
feeders. Their public life was constrained
by activities around formal religious and state organisations like Dharma Wanita (women’s association)
for the wives of public servants.
The Pemberdayaan Kesejahteraan
Keluarga, PKK (Family Welfare
Empowerment) is no longer important because so many women are in the workforce. But its ten principles focusing on duties and
household management are well embedded, still steering traditional community
attitudes.
The greater imbalance is in Islam
where men are in control. Women praying in mosques must sit at the back behind
a curtain. Occasionally a woman tries to
question the culture but gets the sort of treatment
experienced by Senator Fatima Payman when she broke Labor Party rules.
Outside politics and religion,
Indonesian women are dashing ahead and leaving the lads having to learn ironing. More women than men are getting
into unis. About 60 per cent of graduating
doctors are women.
Feminism is pushing in but the available
head space is still polluted by politics and attitudes. Two-thirds of State primary
teachers are women, but only one third are principals. The figure is below
20 per cent in Islamic schools.
The nearest to a Germaine Greer
social order table-tipper was the high-born Javanese Kartini Raden Adjeng (1879-1904)
who bled to death during childbirth. She
was in an arranged marriage to a noble 26 years her senior and with three other
wives.
Her letters to Dutch friends
about girls’ education and social reform were posthumously published as Door
Duisternis tot Licht (From Darkness to Light). The bestseller had an impact much like The
Female Eunuch.
Noting her nationalism first
President Soekarno capitalised on her fame and created Kartini Day (21 April)
as a national event, defusing her revolutionary sisters and their dangerous
ideas. It’s now mainly a dress-up event lacking clout.
Nepotism thrives whatever the
gender. Megawati Soekarnoputri was
Indonesia’s fourth president (2001-2004).
As Vice-President, she got the job when President Gus Dur was
sacked. Two attempts to get elected were crushed by
voters; her daughter Puan Maharani is currently Speaker in the DPR.
Mega’s Dad was Soekarno - her Mum
his third wife Fatmawati, best known as the seamstress who stitched the
nation’s first red-and-white flag.
Mega, 77, runs the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan, (Democratic
Party of Struggle -PDI-P) an undemocratic leftish-nationalistic autocracy.
Chinese leader Mao Zedong is
supposed to have said that ‘women hold up half the sky’. That includes the clouds above the Indonesian
archipelago though not its legislatures.
Till that changes Indonesians
will proudly sing their anthem praising equality and equity but rarely
experience the benefits. Likewise, the
nation.
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