Why We Should All Be Feminists
We might celebrate the rising numbers of women CEOs and leaders in companies and organizations, but we certainly cannot turn a blind eye on the fate of the less fortunate women, the working-class women, and the marginalized women. Milestones are crucial, but looking at the big picture is even more essential. Again, we must remember that the feminist movement is collective and thrives from solidarity and sisterhood.
What is feminism?
Although shrouded with different meanings and interpretation, feminism at its core is the political, cultural, and economic movement aimed to establish equal rights and legal protection of women; a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.
The first wave of feminism began in the mid-19th Century, with figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It is characterized with white women mostly from the US and UK and focused on legal issues and rights for women such as the right to vote.
The second wave began in the 1960s and focused on issues such as the public and private injustices, domestic violence, the rights to work, and reproductive rights. One of the prominent figures from this era is Betty Friedan, the author of the book “The Feminine Mystique”. The book discusses the lost identity of women, whose daily occupation is mostly as housewife-mother, and how the world force-fed them the idea that they should and would find fulfilment as homemakers. The reality, as Friedan discussed in her book, proves otherwise. She championed the idea that these bright and school-finishing women do not necessarily need to stay at home, especially in a time and place where household chores could be done with modern appliances or even by hiring a housekeeper. There were a lot of critiques about Friedan’s book, especially the fact that it was written during the civil rights movement in the US and yet it fails to adequately mention black or working-class women.
This ignited the third wave of feminism, where the movement largely focused on inclusivity and diversity. This time, a lot of questions were raised on who the feminist movement benefits. The first and second movement visibly benefited privileged white women. Bell Hooks (stylized as bell hooks), a figure of intersectional feminism, discusses this issue in her book titled “Ain’t I a Woman”. The title itself is a line from the famous speech recited by the abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Hooks recognized that a woman’s race, political history, class, and economic worth are some factors that comprised her value, but one cannot separate one or more of these factors when considering her totality of life and freedom.
Beware of Idolism
As feminism is getting traction and women are starting to implement it, we need to make sure that we truly embrace the core ideas, not the figures who deliver it. Idolism — in the context of feminism — is when you overly worship the feminist evangelists more than the idea itself. This happened during the #GirlBoss Era (2013–2020), pioneered by the best-selling memoir of Sophia Amoruso, which explains her ambitious and relentless odyssey in building her fashion empire, Nasty Gal. As a result, Sophia and #Girlboss, along with its striking cotton-candy pink aesthetics, became synonymous with female empowerment and millennial hustle. #Girlboss became ubiquitous on adverts, notebooks, social media hashtags, and printed shirts which ironically were made in countries where women were underpaid for their work. It was slowly becoming a marketing trend and a cult for unapologetic white, cisgender women rather than a groundbreaking movement that assists all kinds of female entrepreneurs to flourish. However, behind the bewitching facade of #Girlboss laid a gut-wrenching reality of the toxic work cultures that perpetuated racism. Amoruso along with other #Girlboss icons gradually began to step down from their reigns and the #Girlboss system crumbled.
We often forget that these figures are also humans — like us — who make mistakes. Instead of placing our faith in certain figures that are mixing capitalism with social justice, we should put more emphasis on the ideas — which should be free from any personal agenda — and focus on structural change that will improve the lives of everyday women and other marginalized groups.
Present Needs of Feminism in Indonesia
To achieve the main goal of feminism, we must clearly articulate the barriers that have deeply ingrained and impeded women to reach equality with men in every culture and every level of society. In many cases, we forget to ask ourselves “for which type of women whose rights are we fighting for? Is it for affluent women who are already established and stable in income? Is it for women who live on $1.90 a day and no matter how hard they work they will always be trapped in poverty?” According to the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (KemenPPA), the disparity between the percentage of the population aged 15 years and over who are illiterate is still quite high, especially in rural areas. The data shows that men are 5% more literate than women. This disparity is the byproduct of poverty which limits women from getting the basic educational support needed to reach equality with men and give them power and independence. There are still many harsh realities that Indonesian women in marginalized communities face every day, such as:
The Unsettling Rate of Child Marriage
In 2018, it was estimated that there were 1,220,900 women aged 20–24 years who got married before the age of 18 which made Indonesia listed among other 10 countries with the highest absolute number of child marriage. Children who live in poor families, rural areas, and have poor education are more prone to child marriage. The coronavirus outbreak is predicted to exacerbate the numbers by putting four million girls globally at risk of child marriage due to deepening poverty.
Pregnant women under the age of 17 are more inclined to have medical complications, both for the mother and the child. Moreover, child marriages also could result in maternal and infant mortality, premature births, underweight babies, sexually transmitted diseases, and postpartum depression because they are mentally and economically underprepared. Data by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) also revealed that provinces with a high percentage of child marriages synchronously recorded a high prevalence of stunting (impaired growth from poor nutrition). The alarming rate of stunting in Indonesia prompts all relevant stakeholders to take action in minimizing or even eradicating child marriages that have been disempowering Indonesian women for decades.
Rapid Growth of GBV Cases Especially During Corona Outbreak
Gender-based violence (GBV) is violence targeted at a person because of that person’s gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately. The examples of GBV are physical harm, sexual harm, psychological harm, economic harm, or suffering to women. According to Statistics Indonesia’s (BPS) survey in 2020, 1 in 3 Indonesian women had experienced violence in their lifetime by their spouse or someone they know. These cases stem from unequal power relations between men and women. For some of us, the stay-at-home order should be an opportunity to reconnect with other family members, however, for some women, this restriction has heightened their risk of being caged up with their abusers. Up to July 2020, there have been 14.719 cases of violence against women. The highest contributor is physical abuse (5.548 cases) followed by psychological abuse (2.123 cases), sexual abuse (4.898 cases), economic harm (1.528 cases), and violence against migrant workers and trafficking (610 cases).
According to WHO, the increased risks of violence against women are due to stress, the disruption of social and protective networks, loss of income, and decreased access to sexual and reproductive health services to limit the virus transmission. These cases should be a wake-up call for the government to progress toward protecting women’s rights by starting to put RUU PKS (Bill of Sexual Harassment) as one of their top priorities. Realistically speaking, it is still a long and winding road to finally get the bill back on its track with all the systemic barriers overshadowing.
The Lack of Sexual Education
It is evident that sexual education in Indonesia is lacking. The only thing taught formally in schools gravitates towards and only limited to human anatomy, as well as sexually transmitted diseases. Other important notions such as consensual sex, protection, forms of sexual intercourse, are among the things not taught, therefore the students are left to themselves to figure it out on their own as they get older. It is not uncommon for these youths, especially those who have access to technology, to ‘learn’ from either friends or the internet. The Indonesian Research Center for Population argues that the absence of sexual education in the national curriculum stems from the fear that this teaching will promote premarital sex within students, even though a 2016 research from the European Sexuality Education Expert Group proves that sex education does not encourage children to have sexual relations, but can provide comprehensive information on issues of sexuality so that children understand and are able to make wiser decisions in living their lives. Aside from that, another popular argument against this is simply the notion that sex is still taboo to discuss even in the household, despite its evident benefits. A representative from The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Program mentions that a lot of families, despite being affluent and not economically challenged, views ‘sex education’ already provided in schools as adequate, and the aversion from teaching more due to the unease of being asked difficult questions, confusion as to how to approach the subject, and fear of being viewed as promoting free sex as reasons why it is absent in home environments.
Maternal and infant mortality, infant prematurity, stunting among children, and early marriages already stated above, stemming from the lack of understanding of sexual reproductive health, due to the absence of sexual education, should be sufficient enough to end this generational and systemic war against sexual education and the overall anathema of sexual intercourse itself.
Prevalent Period Poverty
In Indonesia, this phenomenon is still widely happening, especially in remote and often low-income areas. During their period, women are forbidden to attend cultural and religious ceremonies, and shunning from their surrounding community is common. According to a 2015 report about menstruation hygiene management in Indonesia by Burnet Institute, practices such as not changing their menstruation pads as often as they should make up to 46% of their participants. Common misconceptions such as the wrong method of disposal would eventually cause health concerns and the ban of washing their hair during menstruation are still believed in rural areas. In terms of challenges faced during menstruation aside from physical aspects, the report stated several points including shame and fear of leakage, difficulty to access menstrual supplies due to high cost or unavailability at school, and difficulty in managing menstruation at school due to poor or ill-equipped facilities and social repercussions.
All these troubles indicate the low understanding, especially from society, of a very natural and recurring process that every girl or woman faces. Despite the frequency and how commonplace it is, the menstruation cycle is still shrouded with negative stigma powerful enough to actually hinder girls from doing day-to-day activities from simply changing their pads to attending school. One could only imagine how many opportunities to learn and grow or even be present in their own society for these girls are taken away due to simply having their menstruation. These figures, as well as the imminent stigma and outdated beliefs, need to be unravelled through, but not limited to, better school facilities along with improved sexual reproduction education for students.
Conclusion
To conclude, though its intention is noble, critiques addressed to the movement are not absent. Issues regarding idolism, notably the case of GirlBoss and Sophia Amoruso, have put an emphasis on the figures associated with the movement, instead of fully on the ideas being championed. Aside from idolism, the feminist movement has also been under scrutiny as to which groups are most benefited. White and privileged women have been benefited first and foremost especially during the first and second wave. It is not until the third wave, with underlining on inclusivity and diversity, that the movement started to move towards the matters of race, class, and income.
Feminism should be aimed to fight the injustices faced by women and any other marginalized and oppressed communities. As we can see, there are still many Indonesian women who are underrepresented and whose problems need to be solved. The burdens they are facing every day are heavily entrenched from poverty, ignorance, doubt, stigma, religious values, and gender bias. We need a collective movement that encourages all kinds of women who have power, capabilities, authorities, and privileges to participate. Solidarity and sisterhood are also essential in order for us to be able to see the reality through the lens of poor women who are trapped and defenseless, unlike well-off women who will not be harmed and economically adequate women who have options. While we are trying to gain our own freedom and autonomy, imagine ourselves living in these ironic truths and think of what we could do to support them. Remember, there is no morality without empathy (seeing others like yourself and trying to ease their burdens).
