The Lede: International Women's Day 2020 | Indonesia Intelligencer
Hello Coconauts!
Welcome back to The Lede, where the Indonesia Intelligencer team takes a longer look at one story shaping the country this week. Feel free to share, forward, print off and mail, do anything you like with this email. But if you’d like to join us for the weekly premium newsletter rounding up business, politics, the economy and other must-know stories, do so here:
Enjoy!
This year’s International Women’s Day, held annually on Sunday, March 8, celebrated the theme Each for Equal. In Indonesia, that took on the form of a massive street protest rejected many of the government’s more controversial law reforms and fighting to end violence against women.
Hundreds of participants — both women and men alike — took to the streets of Central Jakarta Sunday morning in commemoration of the global event. Controversial law reforms were the main target, with the labor law omnibus bringing activists to the streets arguing that changes will deeply impact women workers. “The state is the perpetrator; they legitimize violence against women through repressive regulations such as the family resilience bill and the job creation omnibus bill,” Lini Zurlia, coordinator of the Women’s Movement against Violence Alliance (Gerak Perempuan), told the massive crowd.
Still, the demonstration itself wasn’t immune to the very complaints protestors and activists make. Asumsi has reported a series of complaints of harassment of participants, particularly relating to their clothing or signage — made by other participants. Others have said issues that can be considered more sensitive, particularly relating to LGBT, were rejected by parts of the crowd during speeches. "In #iwd2020 when rape, HIV and LGBT issues were brought up, we were wooed and laughed at," one participant posted on social media.
Women lawmakers used to occasion to voice messages of equality. The country’s first House Speaker, Puan Maharani, whose mother, Megawati Sukarnoputri, was the first woman president, spoke on female empowerment on Sunday. “I believe a nation will fail to prosper if the women are left behind,” she said in a statement, adding that more programs are needed. “This is the spirit we must seed in ourselves upon building a world where women and men have equal dignity, progress, and well-being.”
Not everyone agrees. Maimon Herawati is a highly-educated political activist who is working against the feminist movement in Indonesia. Maimon and her fellow activists have pushed back against the sexual violence law and have come out in support of the widely-panned familiy resilience bill. How did this split happen among educated Indonesian women?
Want to know more? Antara recommends getting to know the work of three key Indonesian women writers. N.H. Dini pushed the boundaries of sex and love in her work in the 1970s and is now viewed as a literary legend well before her time. Okky Madasari leads the charge in the contemporary literary community with a string of awards and high profile appearances behind her. Bali’s Oka Rusmini speaks to the wider archipelago with her stories on tradition, customs and violence against women.
Recommended read
Girls do better than boys at school in Indonesia – if they get the chance (Indonesia at Melbourne)
These broad findings about female students’ stronger interest in learning were confirmed by a school library pilot project Inovasi conducted in Sumba. In almost every school visited, borrowing records showed that female students borrowed books much more often than male students. A librarian we interviewed said that during break periods, male students tended to play outside while female students were more likely to visit the library.
Other sociocultural and economic factors may help to explain the gender gap in education outcomes. The Inovasi program is being implemented in poorer areas of Indonesia where both boys and girls are often expected to help parents to meet their economic needs. Girls are more likely to be asked to perform domestic work, while boys more often work in the field or out of the home in activities such as farming or fishing. This means male students are at greater risk of skipping school and may have less time to study at home after school.
Despite these strong results at the elementary level, female students’ participation is still at significant risk at the high school level, particularly in remote areas. As noted, across the country as a whole, Indonesia has now achieved gender parity in education participation. But in two of the Inovasi program’s partner districts, Probolinggo and Sumba Tengah, male students’ participation rates return to being higher than female students at the senior high school level.