Kartini’s legacy gets the Kiwi touch Duncan Graham
They see themselves as the inheritors and custodians of the spirit of Raden Ajeng Kartini, national heroine and pioneer of women’s rights.
They are modern Indonesian women who are pursuing their own careers through further education and offering the younger generation role models of independence without devaluing their culture.
However their pride is cautious and conservative. Outside Indonesia they are seen as stand-alone professionals, respected for their learning and skills and what they do.
Yet they also know that when they are back home in Malang, East Java they’ll first be assessed as wives and mothers. However smart they may be in a competitive workforce they’ll still be viewed as second-class citizens by many Indonesians, just by virtue of their gender.
“Women are getting better educated and as a result more independent,” said Dr Lily Agustina, an agricultural scientist and lecturer at Malang’s Brawijaya University where she heads a study program.
“There are plenty of opportunities for women in Indonesia, but men are still seen as the head of the household. So are we modern Kartinis? Well, not yet.”
Lily, who specialises in organic farming, was one of seven senior women academics from Brawijaya who have been studying English full time in New Zealand. They’ve been accompanied by ten male colleagues from the same university.
Although they are all highly qualified, mainly middle-aged and well-established in their prestigious positions they have chosen to leave their husbands and children for three months to improve their education overseas. They’ve been doing this in an egalitarian Western country where their status is that of just another student.
New Zealand has been a leader in women’s rights, the first country in the world to give women the vote. That was in 1893, 14 years after the Javanese aristocratic Kartini was born and when she was starting to mildly question the established order and develop her ideas of equality.
Kartini died after childbirth aged 25 and was declared a national heroine in 1964 with her birthday a national holiday.
Her legacy is the acceptance of women’s rights to education, though in other areas, such as property rights in marriage, women still lag behind. The Brawijaya seven have been noting NZ law where a divorced wife automatically has the rights to 50 per cent of her husband’s property, and where joint ownership of bank accounts and land titles are common.
But old ideas about gender roles die hard.
“Men and women can’t be the same because they have different functions,” said plant tissue culture expert Dr Wahyu Widoretno. “Women give birth. Men can’t do that. In our religion men have to be the leaders.”
Eavesdropping was Professor Woro Busono, the deputy vice rector of student affairs who contributed: “And women can’t have more than one husband,” a remark that was greeted with brief and brittle laughter by the ever-so-polite Indonesian women. Fortunately for him there were no Kiwi feminists nearby or an international incident might have exploded, demanding ambassadorial intervention.
Wahyu added pensively, her mind on her domestic situation more than the battle of the sexes: “We don’t know how they can survive without us.”
Others, like Dr Nurul Isnaini from the faculty of animal husbandry, had a more robust take: “We all have our roles but men and women should treat each other with respect, whatever we do. I think we are the new Kartinis.”
The Indonesian academics have been sent to NZ as part of Brawijaya’s bid to set up international study programs where the classroom language will be English. Next year the university plans to recruit students from nearby Asian countries to learn in Malang and establish Brawijaya as a tertiary institution of regional repute.
The 17 Indonesians have been studying at Massey University in Wellington, the NZ capital. On their return they will head new post-graduate programs across several faculties.
For most it has been their first trip to a Western country. They have been staying with host families and their home university has paid all their expenses.
When they arrived in NZ they found that their years of formal study of English to be of little help when they crashed into the Kiwi vowel-warping accents head on. “We had to rapidly learn a new tongue – Tarzan English,” said analytical chemist Dr Atikah who had no qualms about making the appropriate arm-waving, finger-wagging gestures to embellish her requests.
“We were not fluent in English. Our education had been formal and passive. We had concentrated on theory, not practise.
“We’ve had no discrimination, though we were a little concerned before we left home because we’d heard of attacks on women wearing headscarves in Australia. That has not happened. People here have been friendly and helpful.
“We’ve had to forget about jam karet (rubber time). Here we have to be disciplined and that’s been good for us. I’ve changed my habits, and I hope I won’t change back again when I return home.”
Other shocks have been the pace of life – “rush, rush” commented Lily, though most visitors from Europe, the US and Australia reckon the NZ lifestyle is so laid back that it’s practically stationary.
Ignorance of Indonesia has been a concern so the academics have had to spend time explaining that the republic is not a hotbed of terrorism, but a land where friendly folk help each other through the principle of gotong royong – community self help.
When challenged on their mild disapproval of the Western culture of individualism they acknowledged that NZ society, despite it’s mind-your-own-business philosophy, had a similar set of values when it came to people assisting their neighbors at times of need.
(That morning a NZ community had rapidly raised $NZ 8,000 (Rp 50 million) to repatriate the body of a penniless young Kiwi who had died after a fight in Bali.)
The way Kiwi women dress and behave did not worry the academics, though it would distress the police in some Indonesian provinces. “That’s their culture and their business,” said Nurul. “I think it’s more of a problem for the men.”
Commented economist Dr Kusuma Ratnawati: “Some of the difficulties facing women in Indonesia come from within. Many are not brave enough to assert themselves. Some feel their jobs are not as important as men’s work.
“It’s important that we help empower them to have confidence in themselves, to lift their spirits.”
(First published in The Jakarta Post 21 April 2009)
Picture above: From left Hamidah Nayati Utami, Wahyu Widoretno, Atikah, Ani Mulyasuryani, Lily Agustina, Nurul Isnaini, Kusuma Ratnawati.
##
FAITH IN INDONESIA
The shape of the world a generation from now will be influenced far more by how we communicate the values of our society to others than by military or diplomatic superiority. William Fulbright, 1964
Showing posts with label women and equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women and equality. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
SUPERLISS - OR THE GLAMOR OF READING
The glamor of Superliss ©
Why are so many Indonesians reluctant readers?
Nurullita (Lita) Berlianti, 35, has a volume of reasons, and speaks with some authority.
She’s one of those blessed people who chose their parents wisely, rearing her in a book-filled home where sitting hunched over a good yarn was considered behavior warranting reward, not reproof. And when she wasn’t curled up in an armchair turning pages she was airbussing her way around the world turning up other cultures
Which is as it should be because her family were publishers, a business now maintained by their smart daughter.
“For most poor Indonesian women the number one priority is putting food on the table for their family,” Lita said.
“Women are so busy. The average woman is multiskilled. She has to be a wife, a mother, a babysitter, a caregiver to other relatives and a manager of limited resources.
“In most cases books just aren’t on her shopping list. Even to buy a small book that retails for Rp 25,000 (US $3) means that she might have to forego five meals.
“Yet the reality is that kids love books and of course they are an essential part of education.”
Another factor may be the policies of past governments that labelled books as potentially dangerous, seditious instruments that might stir the masses to question their leaders.
During Soeharto’s new order administration tight controls were exercised on authors and publishers. Reading then was considered much like drug use today, an evil that could destroy society.
Bookshops were akin to chemists – the wares sealed and held behind locked glass doors. Today the books are on open shelves, but the plastic wraps remain and grumpy guards watch for those who want to peel, not purchase.
So what to do? Lita isn’t short of ideas, including a proposal that the government should better control school curricula so parents don’t have to buy a new text every year. Instead they should be able to pass the same book down to their younger children.
More radical is her suggestion that the government subsidises the cost of paper for book printing, a policy that she said was having an impact on reading in India, making books cheap and available to the masses.
With a government already crippled by maintaining subsidies on basic commodities like rice and fuel, adding another burden to the economy seems unlikely despite its power for good.
So in the meantime Lita and two friends, businesswoman Litasari and psychologist and social activist Dyah Katarina decided to stop muttering and start motivating.
The results of the trois amigos’ energies (pictured above) peaked at an extraordinary event staged last Saturday (26 April) in a shopping mall convention centre in Surabaya.
Dubbed Superliss it was more like a political rally held before a backdrop of a portrait of national heroine Kartini, a pen and a book. In the auditorium more than 1,000 women dressed in yellow, green and blue T shirts, whipped into a lather by silver-tongued MCs, showed the sort of enthusiasm Hillary Clinton could only imagine.
On the stage speakers gave testimonials of how their lives had been changed since they started reading and writing, using the sort of language normally heard at religious revivals and to the huge delight of the frenzied females.
Entering this maelstrom it seemed the show had been sponsored by an over-zealous manufacturer of skin whitener or hair shampoo. Superliss has that certain ring of freshness, the development of a lissom figure and romantic success that accompanies the destruction of dandruff.
“It’s a made up word from our vision and slogan of Seribu Perempuan Menulis (a thousand women writing),” said Dyah. She also doubles as the wife of the mayor of Surabaya, Bambang Dwi Hartono, but would still be formidable without that cachet.
“We want to get across the message that if you don’t read and write you are going to be left behind. Women are such a powerful influence in the family. They can be agents of change. If we can convince 1,000 of the importance of books then they will spread the message.”
On the stage the electrified Litasari cracked jokes at broadband speed, got her listeners laughing and singing, leaping up and down, whooping slogans and generally having a rollicking good time. In amongst the quips were smart tips on reading faster and staying on course.
“Remain focussed on the task,” screamed Litasari, an expert on speed reading. If the sound system had been linked to a tsunami warning it would have ranked as a red alert.
“If you feel you are getting tired suck a sweet. Glance up from the page occasionally, cover one eye and look at something far away. Then do the same with the other eye.”
On big screens easy-to-remember logos, verses, singalongs and pictures pummelled the message that reading is yeah, wow, like trendy, fun, better than fashion. The women were so enthralled most forgot to use their handphones. If school had been like this no one would ever leave half educated.
“It’s true that we are an oral culture,” said Lita who reads her children bedtime stories and knows this is still unusual parenting. “If you’re a bookworm at school you’re likely to be considered a freak.
“In Europe people understand the enormous importance of books and give authors high status in society. That’s part of their culture.
“In Indonesia the growth of television has also damaged literacy, so we have to make reading and writing look glamorous.
“If we had an internationally famous well-established author sitting on this sofa alongside a starlet from a forgettable sinetron (soap opera), the journalists would only be interested in the actress.”
But this time the scribes and lenses were focussing on the femoforce of literacy in full attack mode and never given a moment to ask banal questions about marital status and womb production statistics. “Despite everything I’m positive,” shouted Lita above the din as a thousand lungs praised the written word. “I really think things are improving.
“There are more books being published and more bookshops being opened. A few, like mine, let customers browse – even when they don’t eventually buy.” Now that is progress.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 May 2008.)
##
Why are so many Indonesians reluctant readers?
Nurullita (Lita) Berlianti, 35, has a volume of reasons, and speaks with some authority.
She’s one of those blessed people who chose their parents wisely, rearing her in a book-filled home where sitting hunched over a good yarn was considered behavior warranting reward, not reproof. And when she wasn’t curled up in an armchair turning pages she was airbussing her way around the world turning up other cultures
Which is as it should be because her family were publishers, a business now maintained by their smart daughter.
“For most poor Indonesian women the number one priority is putting food on the table for their family,” Lita said.
“Women are so busy. The average woman is multiskilled. She has to be a wife, a mother, a babysitter, a caregiver to other relatives and a manager of limited resources.
“In most cases books just aren’t on her shopping list. Even to buy a small book that retails for Rp 25,000 (US $3) means that she might have to forego five meals.
“Yet the reality is that kids love books and of course they are an essential part of education.”
Another factor may be the policies of past governments that labelled books as potentially dangerous, seditious instruments that might stir the masses to question their leaders.
During Soeharto’s new order administration tight controls were exercised on authors and publishers. Reading then was considered much like drug use today, an evil that could destroy society.
Bookshops were akin to chemists – the wares sealed and held behind locked glass doors. Today the books are on open shelves, but the plastic wraps remain and grumpy guards watch for those who want to peel, not purchase.
So what to do? Lita isn’t short of ideas, including a proposal that the government should better control school curricula so parents don’t have to buy a new text every year. Instead they should be able to pass the same book down to their younger children.
More radical is her suggestion that the government subsidises the cost of paper for book printing, a policy that she said was having an impact on reading in India, making books cheap and available to the masses.
With a government already crippled by maintaining subsidies on basic commodities like rice and fuel, adding another burden to the economy seems unlikely despite its power for good.
So in the meantime Lita and two friends, businesswoman Litasari and psychologist and social activist Dyah Katarina decided to stop muttering and start motivating.
The results of the trois amigos’ energies (pictured above) peaked at an extraordinary event staged last Saturday (26 April) in a shopping mall convention centre in Surabaya.
Dubbed Superliss it was more like a political rally held before a backdrop of a portrait of national heroine Kartini, a pen and a book. In the auditorium more than 1,000 women dressed in yellow, green and blue T shirts, whipped into a lather by silver-tongued MCs, showed the sort of enthusiasm Hillary Clinton could only imagine.
On the stage speakers gave testimonials of how their lives had been changed since they started reading and writing, using the sort of language normally heard at religious revivals and to the huge delight of the frenzied females.
Entering this maelstrom it seemed the show had been sponsored by an over-zealous manufacturer of skin whitener or hair shampoo. Superliss has that certain ring of freshness, the development of a lissom figure and romantic success that accompanies the destruction of dandruff.
“It’s a made up word from our vision and slogan of Seribu Perempuan Menulis (a thousand women writing),” said Dyah. She also doubles as the wife of the mayor of Surabaya, Bambang Dwi Hartono, but would still be formidable without that cachet.
“We want to get across the message that if you don’t read and write you are going to be left behind. Women are such a powerful influence in the family. They can be agents of change. If we can convince 1,000 of the importance of books then they will spread the message.”
On the stage the electrified Litasari cracked jokes at broadband speed, got her listeners laughing and singing, leaping up and down, whooping slogans and generally having a rollicking good time. In amongst the quips were smart tips on reading faster and staying on course.
“Remain focussed on the task,” screamed Litasari, an expert on speed reading. If the sound system had been linked to a tsunami warning it would have ranked as a red alert.
“If you feel you are getting tired suck a sweet. Glance up from the page occasionally, cover one eye and look at something far away. Then do the same with the other eye.”
On big screens easy-to-remember logos, verses, singalongs and pictures pummelled the message that reading is yeah, wow, like trendy, fun, better than fashion. The women were so enthralled most forgot to use their handphones. If school had been like this no one would ever leave half educated.
“It’s true that we are an oral culture,” said Lita who reads her children bedtime stories and knows this is still unusual parenting. “If you’re a bookworm at school you’re likely to be considered a freak.
“In Europe people understand the enormous importance of books and give authors high status in society. That’s part of their culture.
“In Indonesia the growth of television has also damaged literacy, so we have to make reading and writing look glamorous.
“If we had an internationally famous well-established author sitting on this sofa alongside a starlet from a forgettable sinetron (soap opera), the journalists would only be interested in the actress.”
But this time the scribes and lenses were focussing on the femoforce of literacy in full attack mode and never given a moment to ask banal questions about marital status and womb production statistics. “Despite everything I’m positive,” shouted Lita above the din as a thousand lungs praised the written word. “I really think things are improving.
“There are more books being published and more bookshops being opened. A few, like mine, let customers browse – even when they don’t eventually buy.” Now that is progress.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 May 2008.)
##
Sunday, August 19, 2007
BEAUTY IN THE INDONESIAN WORKPLACE
SEX IN THE CITY © Duncan Graham 2007
In seeking help for a recently bereaved relative we spoke to a businessman friend of the family; could he please help find an office job for the young widow?
He'd talk to his colleagues and see what was on offer. He predicted no difficulties in her quest for a wage despite knowing little of her qualifications and work history: "She's beautiful," he said, "she'll have no problems."
For that sexist comment he should have copped a verbal knee in the groin. Instead he was thanked for his wisdom.
Do bosses really select staff on the basis of their bra size, so that a DD lady gets an AA rating? Is wearing a short skirt the best way to get on a company's short list?
Does a dearth of wrinkles on a bleached bimbo who failed kindergarten count for more than aptitude and intelligence with a dark-skinned MBA who wears glasses?
If you answered 'yes' to the above questions, take a bow. (After unbuttoning the top of your blouse.) You fully understand the realities of the Indonesian office workplace, a Jurassic environment where caveman rules, rule.
For these brutes of business a gender issue never gets on their agenda. They think emancipation is a synonym for emasculation, and suffragette the misery suffered from jet lag.
Kartini? Isn't that one of those new metro mini autos?
Don't believe me? Just check the sits vac columns: 'PT MegaGlobal Enterprises Inc. seeks secretary for President Director. Must be under 25, unmarried, 1.60 m tall. Send large full-color photo.' How about education and word-processing skills? Not important.
Having a secretary who can distract a boardroom of your mates as she pirouettes across the parquet ensures that it's not just profits that rise. Why bother showing off a trophy from the golf course when you've scored one from the typing pool?
Can't afford a BMW in the executive parking bay? A Big Mammary Woman in the outer office is a lot cheaper and will take your mind to places the automobile can never reach.
In this forgotten world by-passed by liberal philosophy, feminism and equality, business is a boys' club, and the girls are just extras in the background to stimulate limp egos.
Secretaries, receptionists, public relations' staff, bank-tellers and other customer meeters-and-greeters aren't selected on their ability to explain products and procedures.
They're chosen for the way they can smile lasciviously, directing gaze away from the small print, diluting the determination to lodge a complaint or go to a rival company.
The fact that many modern industrialized countries have now introduced laws prohibiting sexual harassment, and have abandoned compulsory retirement ages is proof positive that Western legislators are senile.
When reporting back to family on an overseas trip, I praised policies of letting people stay at work if they're capable and keen. The sight of grannies behind tills and steering wheels, and sixty-somethings taking your term deposit turns no heads elsewhere, but the information had heads shaking in the archipelago.
Instead of admiration there was pity. And this from women:
"Why aren't their husbands giving them enough money to stay at home where they should be? How sad that an older woman should have to work."
Explaining that the ladies wanted jobs – not just for the money but also for self-fulfillment, to assert their independence, to give them status, to use the education and skills they'd amassed and to make a contribution to society -had little impact.
For these matrons the only reason for a young woman to go out to work is to find a husband, to swap maidenhead for a Mastercard. Once married she can close down the computer and prepare the crèche.
Mamas who want their daughters to succeed in business without even trying offer silent prayers as their little girls mature: Dear God, may she be beautiful, not brainy.
Will things ever change? Not while the Government continues to call its employment department Manpower, and not till women start revolting. (OK, no smart comments, thanks.)
Don't expect any help from men – they're more than happy with the present set-up, claiming it's part of the culture.
So was slavery – until the enlightened and civilized ensured it was abolished.
Well it was, wasn't it?
(First published in The Sunday Post 19 August 07)
In seeking help for a recently bereaved relative we spoke to a businessman friend of the family; could he please help find an office job for the young widow?
He'd talk to his colleagues and see what was on offer. He predicted no difficulties in her quest for a wage despite knowing little of her qualifications and work history: "She's beautiful," he said, "she'll have no problems."
For that sexist comment he should have copped a verbal knee in the groin. Instead he was thanked for his wisdom.
Do bosses really select staff on the basis of their bra size, so that a DD lady gets an AA rating? Is wearing a short skirt the best way to get on a company's short list?
Does a dearth of wrinkles on a bleached bimbo who failed kindergarten count for more than aptitude and intelligence with a dark-skinned MBA who wears glasses?
If you answered 'yes' to the above questions, take a bow. (After unbuttoning the top of your blouse.) You fully understand the realities of the Indonesian office workplace, a Jurassic environment where caveman rules, rule.
For these brutes of business a gender issue never gets on their agenda. They think emancipation is a synonym for emasculation, and suffragette the misery suffered from jet lag.
Kartini? Isn't that one of those new metro mini autos?
Don't believe me? Just check the sits vac columns: 'PT MegaGlobal Enterprises Inc. seeks secretary for President Director. Must be under 25, unmarried, 1.60 m tall. Send large full-color photo.' How about education and word-processing skills? Not important.
Having a secretary who can distract a boardroom of your mates as she pirouettes across the parquet ensures that it's not just profits that rise. Why bother showing off a trophy from the golf course when you've scored one from the typing pool?
Can't afford a BMW in the executive parking bay? A Big Mammary Woman in the outer office is a lot cheaper and will take your mind to places the automobile can never reach.
In this forgotten world by-passed by liberal philosophy, feminism and equality, business is a boys' club, and the girls are just extras in the background to stimulate limp egos.
Secretaries, receptionists, public relations' staff, bank-tellers and other customer meeters-and-greeters aren't selected on their ability to explain products and procedures.
They're chosen for the way they can smile lasciviously, directing gaze away from the small print, diluting the determination to lodge a complaint or go to a rival company.
The fact that many modern industrialized countries have now introduced laws prohibiting sexual harassment, and have abandoned compulsory retirement ages is proof positive that Western legislators are senile.
When reporting back to family on an overseas trip, I praised policies of letting people stay at work if they're capable and keen. The sight of grannies behind tills and steering wheels, and sixty-somethings taking your term deposit turns no heads elsewhere, but the information had heads shaking in the archipelago.
Instead of admiration there was pity. And this from women:
"Why aren't their husbands giving them enough money to stay at home where they should be? How sad that an older woman should have to work."
Explaining that the ladies wanted jobs – not just for the money but also for self-fulfillment, to assert their independence, to give them status, to use the education and skills they'd amassed and to make a contribution to society -had little impact.
For these matrons the only reason for a young woman to go out to work is to find a husband, to swap maidenhead for a Mastercard. Once married she can close down the computer and prepare the crèche.
Mamas who want their daughters to succeed in business without even trying offer silent prayers as their little girls mature: Dear God, may she be beautiful, not brainy.
Will things ever change? Not while the Government continues to call its employment department Manpower, and not till women start revolting. (OK, no smart comments, thanks.)
Don't expect any help from men – they're more than happy with the present set-up, claiming it's part of the culture.
So was slavery – until the enlightened and civilized ensured it was abolished.
Well it was, wasn't it?
(First published in The Sunday Post 19 August 07)
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
KARTINI STORY
GENDER PROBLEMS PERSIST DESPITE KARTINI © Duncan Graham 2007
Next Saturday (21 April) is Kartini Day, celebrating the birthday and brief life of highborn Javanese emancipationist Raden Ayu Kartini who died in 1904 aged 25. How have things changed in the past century? Duncan Graham reports from East Java:
………………………………………………………
'Women are too emotional. They are not prepared to take risks. They easily forgive - and easily forget. Overall they are too unstable and therefore unfit to lead'.
A scathing assessment of more than half the population of a nation whose fifth president was a woman – a goal yet to be reached in the US.
You might think those who hold such opinions would be unreconstructed Neanderthal knuckle-draggers out of touch with their feminine side – and the modern world.
Sadly these views were expressed by women surveyed by consultants working for the Indonesia-Australia Partnership in Basic Education program (IAPBE).
The three-year AUD $9.1 million (Rp 65 billion) project covering three regions in East Java (Jember, Jombang and Gresik) has been lifting teaching and education administration skills through 'train-the-trainer' workshops.
The genesis for the project is the 2003 Education Act. This promoted a competency-based curriculum, and community involvement in school management decisions.
Progressive moves – but they've come with decentralization of power; this has left many regional public servants confused about what they should be doing and how.
If you've been a bureaucrat unquestionably carrying out orders made in Jakarta for more than 30 years and never had to think, suddenly being cloaked with the authority to do the job yourself can be a bit of a shock.
This social earthquake is also shaking up parents. Being asked for your input in running the school might sound like democracy in action, but for many young Mums standing up in a meeting and giving the old blokes at the top an earful takes great courage.
As with most overseas aid programs the IAPBE includes raising gender awareness and equality. In the West this is no longer a big deal because society has widely accepted the principles, even if they're not always applied. (For proof of this observation, check the age and gender of big Australian company boards.)
But in Indonesia gender equality doesn't have a well-cured concrete foundation.
To help get the message across Alfianda Mariawati and her colleagues at the IAPBE have produced a set of five big glossy handbooks on how to implement and manage gender inclusive teaching and workplace equality.
This is another of the fancy terms that proliferate in modern education policy, leaving the average parent nonplussed. Even more so when there are no equivalent words in Indonesian – a point flung at Alfianda by some critics.
They claim the lack of language proves there's no problem in Indonesia. Women being barred from promotion, getting lower wages than men and denied access to some jobs just because they have different genitalia is the way things are done in the archipelago.
The other shaft is that making the sexes equal in the home and workplace is a Western ideal that has no place in Indonesian culture and religion. Real men don't change nappies, and only wimps wash dishes.
"Not so," said Alfianda, a former non-government agency activist. Her photographer spouse is a househusband caring for the couple's new baby boy while Mum is at work. Dad apparently looks cute wearing a selendang (the traditional child-carrying sling worn diagonally across the body). But not all the muttering mothers in the kampong smile and nod, proof that gender stereotypes die hard.
"The principles of Islam are that men and women have the right to achieve their potential as human beings," Alfianda said.
"Islam clearly promotes justice and equality for men and women – a point we've made in the handbooks. To improve the welfare of the family women should be smart and well educated – that's an argument with wide appeal.
"Then look at the job facts: The ratio of women to men is two to one in the classrooms but the other way round in education administration.
"Women are better qualified – 63 per cent of teachers with S 1 (bachelor's degree) are women – but only 31 per cent of women are principals.
"When we show such statistics in workshops there's a clearer understanding."
"Gender equality is also part of Indonesian law," said Jakarta-based consultant Leya Cattleya. She used to work for the State Ministry of Women's Empowerment, a department established during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid.
"The policy grew from the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (popularly known as the Women's Bill of Rights) that's been signed by the Indonesian government.
"Gender equality is necessary to improve the delivery of government services to the people."
Commented IAPBE Australian team leader Barry Clark: "This isn't about religion or culture. It's about education and efficiency.
"It's not our job to influence policy in Indonesia or interfere in any way. Our task is to help Indonesian teachers deliver the curriculum more effectively and assist administrators do their job better."
Clark is a well-seasoned educator and veteran of the 1970s sex wars in Australia. He knows why some men will use any excuse – including a lack of segregated toilets and an inability to concentrate on the job in the presence of females– to avoid change. "They see women as a threat," he said bluntly.
Passing a law in Jakarta is one thing – it's quite another to get it accepted and implemented down the line. Officials at the lower levels of government, particularly in distant provinces, don't always accept national edicts with good grace.
Imagine getting an instruction from above to promote women and meeting outrage in an office where men rule. For a quiet life such orders are best left in the pending tray. Apart from the usual excuse of overwork, resistance can be rationalized by pleading the preservation of cultural practices that cement male power into the brickwork of society.
This is where the handbooks become useful because they spell out in detail the ways gender equality can be implemented. Perhaps in too much detail for use outside an intensive and well-planned meeting.
One of the simplest and most effective techniques is to ensure teachers encourage questions and comments from girls. Boys tend to dominate classroom behavior in many cultures and smart teachers will ensure everyone gets a fair go.
There are useful case studies to promote discussion (wife on a higher salary works as a teacher while hubby is a driver and often away from home), questionnaires and some simple pictures to relieve the text-dense handbooks. But overall they look heavy going and the drawings lack credibility because they don't match the quality found in comics.
Leya, who has been involved in gender issues and women's empowerment for more than 20 years, has been hired by the IAPBE to review the handbooks and recommend changes. These will be based on the way the books have been received and used by workshop participants.
Some of the criticisms have been revealing. Consider the reaction to the picture on this page. The text bubbles include comments about the man getting more money and status than the woman even though they have the same education.
But some users were less interested in the message than the drawing that shows a man and woman alone. "She should not be seen talking to a man like that in public," said some. "She should be accompanied by other women, friends or relatives."
Others feared that teaching boys to dance and design batik might make them effeminate.
A VCD is being planned as another tool to help get the messages across. Although the project is due to close at the end of June, revised materials should be ready before the money tap gets turned off.
Then it will be up to the hundreds of teachers and administrators - men and women - who've been trained by the IAPBE project to keep Kartini's message from the 19th century alive: Equality benefits all.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 23 April 07)
##
">Link
Next Saturday (21 April) is Kartini Day, celebrating the birthday and brief life of highborn Javanese emancipationist Raden Ayu Kartini who died in 1904 aged 25. How have things changed in the past century? Duncan Graham reports from East Java:
………………………………………………………
'Women are too emotional. They are not prepared to take risks. They easily forgive - and easily forget. Overall they are too unstable and therefore unfit to lead'.
A scathing assessment of more than half the population of a nation whose fifth president was a woman – a goal yet to be reached in the US.
You might think those who hold such opinions would be unreconstructed Neanderthal knuckle-draggers out of touch with their feminine side – and the modern world.
Sadly these views were expressed by women surveyed by consultants working for the Indonesia-Australia Partnership in Basic Education program (IAPBE).
The three-year AUD $9.1 million (Rp 65 billion) project covering three regions in East Java (Jember, Jombang and Gresik) has been lifting teaching and education administration skills through 'train-the-trainer' workshops.
The genesis for the project is the 2003 Education Act. This promoted a competency-based curriculum, and community involvement in school management decisions.
Progressive moves – but they've come with decentralization of power; this has left many regional public servants confused about what they should be doing and how.
If you've been a bureaucrat unquestionably carrying out orders made in Jakarta for more than 30 years and never had to think, suddenly being cloaked with the authority to do the job yourself can be a bit of a shock.
This social earthquake is also shaking up parents. Being asked for your input in running the school might sound like democracy in action, but for many young Mums standing up in a meeting and giving the old blokes at the top an earful takes great courage.
As with most overseas aid programs the IAPBE includes raising gender awareness and equality. In the West this is no longer a big deal because society has widely accepted the principles, even if they're not always applied. (For proof of this observation, check the age and gender of big Australian company boards.)
But in Indonesia gender equality doesn't have a well-cured concrete foundation.
To help get the message across Alfianda Mariawati and her colleagues at the IAPBE have produced a set of five big glossy handbooks on how to implement and manage gender inclusive teaching and workplace equality.
This is another of the fancy terms that proliferate in modern education policy, leaving the average parent nonplussed. Even more so when there are no equivalent words in Indonesian – a point flung at Alfianda by some critics.
They claim the lack of language proves there's no problem in Indonesia. Women being barred from promotion, getting lower wages than men and denied access to some jobs just because they have different genitalia is the way things are done in the archipelago.
The other shaft is that making the sexes equal in the home and workplace is a Western ideal that has no place in Indonesian culture and religion. Real men don't change nappies, and only wimps wash dishes.
"Not so," said Alfianda, a former non-government agency activist. Her photographer spouse is a househusband caring for the couple's new baby boy while Mum is at work. Dad apparently looks cute wearing a selendang (the traditional child-carrying sling worn diagonally across the body). But not all the muttering mothers in the kampong smile and nod, proof that gender stereotypes die hard.
"The principles of Islam are that men and women have the right to achieve their potential as human beings," Alfianda said.
"Islam clearly promotes justice and equality for men and women – a point we've made in the handbooks. To improve the welfare of the family women should be smart and well educated – that's an argument with wide appeal.
"Then look at the job facts: The ratio of women to men is two to one in the classrooms but the other way round in education administration.
"Women are better qualified – 63 per cent of teachers with S 1 (bachelor's degree) are women – but only 31 per cent of women are principals.
"When we show such statistics in workshops there's a clearer understanding."
"Gender equality is also part of Indonesian law," said Jakarta-based consultant Leya Cattleya. She used to work for the State Ministry of Women's Empowerment, a department established during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid.
"The policy grew from the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (popularly known as the Women's Bill of Rights) that's been signed by the Indonesian government.
"Gender equality is necessary to improve the delivery of government services to the people."
Commented IAPBE Australian team leader Barry Clark: "This isn't about religion or culture. It's about education and efficiency.
"It's not our job to influence policy in Indonesia or interfere in any way. Our task is to help Indonesian teachers deliver the curriculum more effectively and assist administrators do their job better."
Clark is a well-seasoned educator and veteran of the 1970s sex wars in Australia. He knows why some men will use any excuse – including a lack of segregated toilets and an inability to concentrate on the job in the presence of females– to avoid change. "They see women as a threat," he said bluntly.
Passing a law in Jakarta is one thing – it's quite another to get it accepted and implemented down the line. Officials at the lower levels of government, particularly in distant provinces, don't always accept national edicts with good grace.
Imagine getting an instruction from above to promote women and meeting outrage in an office where men rule. For a quiet life such orders are best left in the pending tray. Apart from the usual excuse of overwork, resistance can be rationalized by pleading the preservation of cultural practices that cement male power into the brickwork of society.
This is where the handbooks become useful because they spell out in detail the ways gender equality can be implemented. Perhaps in too much detail for use outside an intensive and well-planned meeting.
One of the simplest and most effective techniques is to ensure teachers encourage questions and comments from girls. Boys tend to dominate classroom behavior in many cultures and smart teachers will ensure everyone gets a fair go.
There are useful case studies to promote discussion (wife on a higher salary works as a teacher while hubby is a driver and often away from home), questionnaires and some simple pictures to relieve the text-dense handbooks. But overall they look heavy going and the drawings lack credibility because they don't match the quality found in comics.
Leya, who has been involved in gender issues and women's empowerment for more than 20 years, has been hired by the IAPBE to review the handbooks and recommend changes. These will be based on the way the books have been received and used by workshop participants.
Some of the criticisms have been revealing. Consider the reaction to the picture on this page. The text bubbles include comments about the man getting more money and status than the woman even though they have the same education.
But some users were less interested in the message than the drawing that shows a man and woman alone. "She should not be seen talking to a man like that in public," said some. "She should be accompanied by other women, friends or relatives."
Others feared that teaching boys to dance and design batik might make them effeminate.
A VCD is being planned as another tool to help get the messages across. Although the project is due to close at the end of June, revised materials should be ready before the money tap gets turned off.
Then it will be up to the hundreds of teachers and administrators - men and women - who've been trained by the IAPBE project to keep Kartini's message from the 19th century alive: Equality benefits all.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 23 April 07)
##
">Link
Monday, March 05, 2007
AI IS NO BULL IN MALANG
Herliantien
NO GENDER ISSUES IN SEMEN CENTER © Duncan Graham 2007
The official all-male Saudi delegation was more than a mite surprised. They knew that Indonesian women are allowed to drive cars and might even be found in offices working close to unrelated men – though undoubtedly in inferior positions.
But to discover in East Java a feisty Muslim woman minus headscarf as head of a branch of a national government department was a bit more disturbing. Particular when the business conversation turned to issues of testicle size, ejaculation rates and sperm count.
For Dr Herliantien is the only woman in Indonesia running a livestock artificial insemination center – and when you're dealing with potentially embarrassing issues there's just one way to behave – direct and matter-of-fact.
She's also a lot of fun, though it's clear that behind the laugh lines are the scars of some tough times on her road to the top.
"I didn't experience discrimination while studying veterinary science at Surabaya's Airlangga University, though there were only seven women and 42 men," she said. "The difficulties came after graduation.
"I had a staff problem at one time so I challenged the man to compete against me. If he could do the job better then he was welcome to it. He backed down."
Not surprisingly, for although this public servant is no Madam Lash she's also no cipher. Unlike some bureaucrats she didn't get her job by coming from the boss's village or having a dad in the military.
"I came from a poor family in Surabaya, one of eight children," she said. "My parents were determined we should have a good education – for them this was the number one issue.
"My mother was a strong woman who'd had minimal schooling. Yet she confronted the local Catholic schools and successfully pleaded with them to enroll me despite having no money."
Clearly the policy paid; all eight kids have become tertiary educated professionals. Herliantien is the only vet, a discipline she chose because her father was involved in selling animal feed.
The chance to work for a private company where she could earn a mint was turned down, because it meant living in a dormitory and separation from her husband, sculptor Djoni Basri.
So instead she joined the government and for the first few years had to walk or hitch rides to work at a farm on the slopes of Mount Arjuno, north west of Malang in East Java. The couple didn't even have enough money for a motorbike.
At the time livestock husbandry was hardly taken seriously. The story goes that president Soeharto had a ranch and got interested in cattle breeding. He decided that artificial insemination (AI) was the way to lift the quality of the nation's herd, and suddenly the cash tap was turned on.
Helped with grants and loans from the Japanese, a purpose-built facility was created on a beautiful 67-hectare site seven kilometers outside the ancient city (now the village) of Singosari. The center's slogan: One drop of semen – One million hopes.
Herliantien studied in Japan, learned English, worked in the laboratory, became its head and four years ago while still in her 40s took over the whole complex.
This now houses 134 bulls and bucks, many that she's selected and imported from Australia. All have names. Hygiene and health care are critical issues, making the center a five-star hotel for celebrity studs with massage and pedicures on the house. Plus free sex.
Twice a week Dandy, Missy, Rozzy and their mates are led to a dummy cow draped with a hide and sprayed with the odor of oestrus.
With a minimum of foreplay and indifferent to the feelings of his mechanical mate he mounts and enters an artificial vagina made of wrinkled rubber and pre-warmed for maximum pleasure.
His ejaculate is trapped in a test tube, passed into the lab and after checking for sperm quality is diluted and frozen in thin glass tubes known as straws. These are preserved at low temperature in liquid nitrogen, then sent to farmers around the province for use by trained inseminators. One ejaculate can be used to serve up to 300 cows.
This means that a bland old bovine with no redeeming features can carry the offspring of a mighty broad-shouldered bull whose mum may have been a top Aussie milk machine, and his dad the sire of splendid vealers Down Under. Genetics rules, right?
The AI system has been a huge benefit to Indonesian farming. The Singosari center (one of nine in the nation) has been so successful that it has won numerous awards and international accreditation.
It's the showplace of choice when presidents and other heavyweights want to display Indonesian innovation and the ability of government agencies to exceed targets and meet overseas standards. It also has a clever marketing and promotion section producing, among other things, school materials encouraging kids to drink milk and eat meat.
The center is exporting semen and aggressively hunting for new markets. It sells fish sperm (it would take another story to explain how this works) and has pioneered a program offering farmers a choice of progeny. The technique used is a commercial secret.
What would you like in your stable – a red calf or a black and white cutie? Male or female? One that will go to the butcher – or the dairy?
A quarter of the 78 staff are female, and not all are wearing white coats in the air-conditioned lab and offices. Herliantien urges young women to take on any task, but it seems it's the blokes who have the hang-ups.
Why aren't women working in the bull barn? "Because the bulls are too strong," said an otherwise progressive male supervisor, a little sheepishly. So are there men on the staff like Bali bodybuilder Ade Rai so powerful they can stop a determined 750 kilogram bull with the scent of heifer on heat up his nostrils? "Well, no, but …"
"Women should not be deterred from getting work in animal husbandry," said Herliantien, 51. "It's quite wrong to think we can't work with animals and outside. It's a very satisfying job.
"Issues of complexion and dirt no longer apply. There are cosmetics and sunscreens to stop our skin turning black and protective clothing like overalls to keep you clean.
"This is not a female take-over. We need to work cooperatively with men, not in competition.
"Using money we've earned through exporting semen we run an incentive scheme paying bonuses, and a study program sending employees around the country and overseas.
"I urge my staff to use every opportunity to better their education and continue sending their children to school. We need to think ahead, to understand what others are doing.
"Even though our budget is inadequate we've been able to do so many things because we're committed. We've been able to adapt. We don't get lazy.
"We'll create a new breed of beef cattle - the Indonesian Red. It might take 25 years, but we'll do it. I want to show it can be done. Our dream will come true."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 February 07)
">Link
NO GENDER ISSUES IN SEMEN CENTER © Duncan Graham 2007
The official all-male Saudi delegation was more than a mite surprised. They knew that Indonesian women are allowed to drive cars and might even be found in offices working close to unrelated men – though undoubtedly in inferior positions.
But to discover in East Java a feisty Muslim woman minus headscarf as head of a branch of a national government department was a bit more disturbing. Particular when the business conversation turned to issues of testicle size, ejaculation rates and sperm count.
For Dr Herliantien is the only woman in Indonesia running a livestock artificial insemination center – and when you're dealing with potentially embarrassing issues there's just one way to behave – direct and matter-of-fact.
She's also a lot of fun, though it's clear that behind the laugh lines are the scars of some tough times on her road to the top.
"I didn't experience discrimination while studying veterinary science at Surabaya's Airlangga University, though there were only seven women and 42 men," she said. "The difficulties came after graduation.
"I had a staff problem at one time so I challenged the man to compete against me. If he could do the job better then he was welcome to it. He backed down."
Not surprisingly, for although this public servant is no Madam Lash she's also no cipher. Unlike some bureaucrats she didn't get her job by coming from the boss's village or having a dad in the military.
"I came from a poor family in Surabaya, one of eight children," she said. "My parents were determined we should have a good education – for them this was the number one issue.
"My mother was a strong woman who'd had minimal schooling. Yet she confronted the local Catholic schools and successfully pleaded with them to enroll me despite having no money."
Clearly the policy paid; all eight kids have become tertiary educated professionals. Herliantien is the only vet, a discipline she chose because her father was involved in selling animal feed.
The chance to work for a private company where she could earn a mint was turned down, because it meant living in a dormitory and separation from her husband, sculptor Djoni Basri.
So instead she joined the government and for the first few years had to walk or hitch rides to work at a farm on the slopes of Mount Arjuno, north west of Malang in East Java. The couple didn't even have enough money for a motorbike.
At the time livestock husbandry was hardly taken seriously. The story goes that president Soeharto had a ranch and got interested in cattle breeding. He decided that artificial insemination (AI) was the way to lift the quality of the nation's herd, and suddenly the cash tap was turned on.
Helped with grants and loans from the Japanese, a purpose-built facility was created on a beautiful 67-hectare site seven kilometers outside the ancient city (now the village) of Singosari. The center's slogan: One drop of semen – One million hopes.
Herliantien studied in Japan, learned English, worked in the laboratory, became its head and four years ago while still in her 40s took over the whole complex.
This now houses 134 bulls and bucks, many that she's selected and imported from Australia. All have names. Hygiene and health care are critical issues, making the center a five-star hotel for celebrity studs with massage and pedicures on the house. Plus free sex.
Twice a week Dandy, Missy, Rozzy and their mates are led to a dummy cow draped with a hide and sprayed with the odor of oestrus.
With a minimum of foreplay and indifferent to the feelings of his mechanical mate he mounts and enters an artificial vagina made of wrinkled rubber and pre-warmed for maximum pleasure.
His ejaculate is trapped in a test tube, passed into the lab and after checking for sperm quality is diluted and frozen in thin glass tubes known as straws. These are preserved at low temperature in liquid nitrogen, then sent to farmers around the province for use by trained inseminators. One ejaculate can be used to serve up to 300 cows.
This means that a bland old bovine with no redeeming features can carry the offspring of a mighty broad-shouldered bull whose mum may have been a top Aussie milk machine, and his dad the sire of splendid vealers Down Under. Genetics rules, right?
The AI system has been a huge benefit to Indonesian farming. The Singosari center (one of nine in the nation) has been so successful that it has won numerous awards and international accreditation.
It's the showplace of choice when presidents and other heavyweights want to display Indonesian innovation and the ability of government agencies to exceed targets and meet overseas standards. It also has a clever marketing and promotion section producing, among other things, school materials encouraging kids to drink milk and eat meat.
The center is exporting semen and aggressively hunting for new markets. It sells fish sperm (it would take another story to explain how this works) and has pioneered a program offering farmers a choice of progeny. The technique used is a commercial secret.
What would you like in your stable – a red calf or a black and white cutie? Male or female? One that will go to the butcher – or the dairy?
A quarter of the 78 staff are female, and not all are wearing white coats in the air-conditioned lab and offices. Herliantien urges young women to take on any task, but it seems it's the blokes who have the hang-ups.
Why aren't women working in the bull barn? "Because the bulls are too strong," said an otherwise progressive male supervisor, a little sheepishly. So are there men on the staff like Bali bodybuilder Ade Rai so powerful they can stop a determined 750 kilogram bull with the scent of heifer on heat up his nostrils? "Well, no, but …"
"Women should not be deterred from getting work in animal husbandry," said Herliantien, 51. "It's quite wrong to think we can't work with animals and outside. It's a very satisfying job.
"Issues of complexion and dirt no longer apply. There are cosmetics and sunscreens to stop our skin turning black and protective clothing like overalls to keep you clean.
"This is not a female take-over. We need to work cooperatively with men, not in competition.
"Using money we've earned through exporting semen we run an incentive scheme paying bonuses, and a study program sending employees around the country and overseas.
"I urge my staff to use every opportunity to better their education and continue sending their children to school. We need to think ahead, to understand what others are doing.
"Even though our budget is inadequate we've been able to do so many things because we're committed. We've been able to adapt. We don't get lazy.
"We'll create a new breed of beef cattle - the Indonesian Red. It might take 25 years, but we'll do it. I want to show it can be done. Our dream will come true."
(First published in The Jakarta Post 5 February 07)
">Link
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)