Women and Multiculturalism in Indonesia

Dr. Stefani Nugroho

January 15, 2015

Santa Fe College

 

The reason this lecture interested me is because as a proud feminist, I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about the roles and challenges of women in all cultures of the world and of life: women in the workplace, in educational institutions, in their homes, and in scenarios life places us in, like deciding how to balance a career and being a mother and wife. However, I believed I would be challenged by Dr. Nugroho’s lecture.

To my surprise, I wasn’t wrong about my expectations of the lecture. Dr. Nugroho focused on statistics of women in the cultures I mentioned above, giving us these: in Indonesia there is 97% female enrollment in primary education, 90% female literacy, 38% women in adult labor force, 68% women’s wage percentage compared to men, 18.6% women in politics, and women are now being portrayed in elementary books as able to do jobs that normally belong to men. She also spoke about the influence that religion (mostly Islam) has on the Indonesian culture in general matters, focusing on matters concerning women.

 

To my delight, I learned that even though women face different dress code laws and laws banning them from doing ordinary things such as riding a motorcycle in certain attire, I was pleased to learn that women have dominated in business, in politics, and in education. Susi Pudjiastuti is the owner of a major seafood export company and an airline. Megawati Sukarnoputri was Indonesia’s first female president, elected in 2001. Yohana Yembise was the first female professor in Papua.

 

However, just like we see great achievements by great empowered women, we still have cultural traditions that assume the woman to be submissive to her husband (in a Javanese wedding, the bride washes her husband’s feet). We also see this with the nation-wide precepts of wives which are:

• to support husband’s career and duties

• to provide offspring

• to care for children

• to be a housekeeper

• to be guardian of the community

I was also surprised to learn that Indonesia, although simultaneously multicultural and progressive, is still in search for a centralized identity in religion. We can see that in the polarized law-making in different parts of Indonesia. In a part of Indonesia, for instance, women are provided long dresses to wear by the local government, and in Suharta, headscarves are banned.

 

What I would have liked Dr. Nugroho to expand a bit more on are the types women take on from the 38% of women in adult labor force and what non-working women do. I would have liked to hear about a philanthropic view into women in Indonesia, their jobs, their home lives, etc, and how that is perceived by the different religions we can find in Indonesia since I had the hope that feminism was growing steadily around the world.

 

To be honest, this was my first insight into Indonesian culture and Dr. Nugroho gave a great general look into how women are perceived and where women can go with our presently growing feminism not only in women in Indonesia but in other conservative and liberal cultures around the world.

 

With this lecture being my first inside look into the country, it helped me see that Indonesia manages to be a country that allows itself to be progressive and traditional/conservative simultaneously. In truth, Indonesia’s separated landmass gives it the freedom to enjoy multiculturalism, and that’s what makes the country truly authentic. First, we see that since Indonesia isn’t a centralized landmass, the government finds it hard to enforce centralized and somewhat polar opposite laws since the country is separated by different religions and ultimately different cultures. For instance, in the conservative religion of Islam, we could consider long dresses and headscarves as appropriate attire for women to remain conservative. We can observe, however, that in two parts of Indonesia, one is encouraged, and the other is banned. Second, and interestingly enough, the country overall still attempts at establishing a religious identity, which in turn is an attempt at establishing itself as a conservative country. Indonesia’s sense of progression resembles the United States and any other multicultural country. However, the United States does not have the desire of having an established religion, which is why Indonesia is individually authentic.