tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2009-11-12:/A Feminist BlogI am a feminist, so, I write a lot using feministic perspective. But, I also love writing anything related to my loved ones :)MokoFeed2009-11-12T05:48:17+01:00tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2009-02-07:/2009/02/07/teaching-literature-5523644/Teaching Literaturenan292009-02-07T09:35:23+01:002009-02-07T09:35:23+01:00 <p><span><span>In my workplace, besides being assigned to teach English and Bahasa Indonesia, I am also responsible to watch students during ‘library’ sessions. Every student is assigned to read one book—minimally 100 pages for grade 7, 150 pages for grades 8 and 9—every one term. After finishing reading one book, they are to write ‘book review’. In writing the book review, I must check whether they write good English sentences or not. If not, I will return it and have them revise it.</p>
<p>The main reason why students have library sessions (two slots per week) is to help them improve their vocabulary and also skill in reading English books. As a language as well as literature teacher, I am of opinion that this reading assignment is also important to balance students’ left and right brain. Literature—a part of art—is essential to smoothen people’s soul, to be more humane.</p>
<p>I have read some articles related to some criticism addressed to schoolteachers—especially who teach Bahasa Indonesia subject—in some sites. Some complained because many teachers themselves do not like reading. Even in one article I read several months ago—sorry, I forgot to cite the site address—the writer stated that many Bahasa Indonesia teachers he interviewed had not read LASKAR PELANGI novel yet, one very famous novel by Andrea Hirata recently, moreover this novel portrayed the life of schoolchildren studying in a remote and poor school, but still they had very high spirit and enthusiasm to study. Isn’t it a very good example to boost students’ enthusiasm to go to school. Why did those teachers not read LASKAR PELANGI yet? Several reasons gathered were: they did not like reading; they were busy teaching (at school as well as had part time job outside to get more income) so that they could not spare their time to read; the price of books was expensive and teachers who got low salary could not afford to buy them.</p>
<p>For the first reason, it is indeed very shameful if teachers do not like reading. I have loved reading since I was a kid. Feeling unhappy with the fact cited by the writer in that article, I commented that not all teachers did not enjoy reading. Some did, including me.</p>
<p>For the second and the third reasons, I think they come from the same background: lack of sufficient income. When teachers get enough income, they do not need to have part time jobs, in order that they get enough spare time to read, to improve their knowledge and skill as well. For the third reason, schools can be of any help by providing books to be lent to teachers.</p>
<p>I think my educational background has made me a bit different from those teachers interviewed by the writer of the article. I did not graduate from Teachers’ College. Instead, I graduated from Faculty of Letters, especially English Department, and American Studies, with literature interest. When teaching Bahasa Indonesia in my workplace, I just need to adjust the material: from American literary works (or any other work written in English), to any literary works written by Indonesian, in Bahasa Indonesia.</p>
<p>Talking about educational background, this is also a very crucial issue. Many schools prefer having teachers graduating from Teachers’ College. They are assumed to be supplied with teaching techniques and methods. On the other hand, people graduating from other than Teachers’ College only get science and knowledge, minus teaching techniques/methods. As a result, they are not considered to be capable to teach, or to transfer their knowledge to students.</p>
<p>When it comes to teaching literature at high schools, it is understandable when teachers teaching literature (who graduated from Teachers’ College) do not really master anything related to literature, they even do not enjoy reading any piece of literature. When they themselves do not enjoy reading it, they do not know how to make their students enjoy it either. How can they make their students enjoy studying literature and make them realize that studying literature is as fun and important as studying any other exact subjects, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology?</p>
<p>Going back to my job—assigning students to read and ask them to write reviews—I can conclude that many students from grades 7 and 8 enjoy this assignment. However, only a few grade 9 students who enjoy it. It seems to me that their concentration is more absorbed by the National Examination they will face a few months again.</p>
<p>PT56 21.21 250109</span></span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2009/02/07/teaching-literature-5523644/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2009-02-07:/2009/02/07/women-in-indonesia-s-soap-operas-5523604/Women in Indonesia's soap operasnan292009-02-07T09:20:25+01:002009-02-07T09:20:25+01:00 <p><span><span><span>I remember one day during my college days, a male senior lecturer of mine protested the portrayal of ‘modern’ women in many soap operas in television (Indonesians call them ‘sinetrons’). ‘Modern’ women were portrayed as women who left behind the stereotypical characteristics of ‘traditional’ ones, such as submissive, soft-spoken, feminine, weak, motherly, etc. To my disappointment, he also opined that that kind of portrayal of women was triggered by feminist movement; feminist movement seemed to be the scapegoat that eventually resulted in women’s hatred to anything feminine.</p>
<p>Since I hardly ever watched sinetrons on television, I did not have any idea what kind of portrayal he meant. Therefore, I did not debate my lecturer at that time although I was strongly convinced it was not merely because of feminist movement.</p>
<p>Years passed by.</p>
<p>Today I remembered it again, especially when reading one article in a scientific journal ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA vol. 30, No. 1, 2006; the title of the article is “Menjadi Perempuan di dalam Sinetron: Kekinian Femininitas” (“Becoming women in Sinetrons: the recent femininity”) by Widjajanti Mulyono Santoso. This article was resulted from her research based on one sinetron played on television in 2004; the title was “Inikah Rasanya”.</p>
<p>What kinds of women were portrayed in “Inikah Rasanya”?</p>
<p>First, a woman who has a crush on a man. Since feminist movement believed that women also had right to express their feeling to men earlier (until now I still find many men and women who find it embarrassing and unfeminine for women to ‘shoot’ men first), it was okay then for a woman to do it. However, in this sinetron, Rena, one female character was portrayed very aggressive so that she made the boy whom she had crush on feel insecure and threatened. She was highly emotional and temperamental.</p>
<p>Second, a single mother/woman who was illogically emotional. Jason’s mother as well as Nadia’s aunt was portrayed as a woman who had psychological problems since none of them had a spouse. Having these problems made them treat their kid or niece cruelly. In fact this is not far from the portrayal of single women—especially those who have reached certain age brackets—in patriarchal society. Since people adore marriage and consider only in marriage both men and women will achieve ultimate happiness, they—especially women—are accused of feeling insecure when they are single. Therefore, they will do anything to cut the insecure feeling, even sometimes by grabbing any guy. Oftentimes, to express their depression due to the society’s insecure accusation to them, they do aggressive things to people close to them, such as kids and nieces. Feminist movement teaching women to be more expressive seemed to be the best media (as a scapegoat): because of it Jason’s mother and Nadia’s aunt became uncontrollably aggressive.</p>
<p>Third, a female teacher who was irrationally annoying and irritating. Women with capabilities are considered unconventional in patriarchal society. Power that (female) teachers usually have in front of their students is a weird thing. This resulted in the students’ laughter at their female teachers. Mostly female teachers are also illustrated as old maid that have mental problems because of no spouse. Worse, they are also portrayed physically unaccepted: their voice is ridiculously high-pitched, wearing thick glasses, stiff uniform, unfriendly facial expression.</p>
<p>I am of opinion that the visualization of three women above is not only in “Inikah Rasanya”. Many other sinetrons portray similar characteristics of women like that. Realizing that many scriptwriters are male, I concluded that there was a very wrong deviant of feminist movement on men’s head. Or I can also say that men (although not all) felt threatened by feminist movement so that they portrayed very cruel images of women who were independent. What kind of men blaming feminist movement (READ => movement for equality between men and women)? They are men who feel confident before women ONLY when women are weak, stupid or uneducated, submissive, controllable.</p>
<p>What did they expect? Society will stop feminist movement because it will make women heartless, monsters, unfeminine, against natural law for women, etc.</p>
<p>PT56 22.33 240109</span></span></span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2009/02/07/women-in-indonesia-s-soap-operas-5523604/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-11-13:/2008/11/13/why-bike-to-work-5029623/Why bike to work?nan292008-11-13T14:45:31+01:002008-11-13T14:45:31+01:00 <p><span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SKI4q-4D8jI/AAAAAAAAAwA/Bzs1ONYQZb8/s1600-h/Wargo.jpg"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SKI4q-4D8jI/AAAAAAAAAwA/Bzs1ONYQZb8/s320/Wargo.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br><span><span>“At first my workmates considered me weird. However, since they knew me as someone who usually have weird hobbies, they no longer gave a damn on my biking to work.”<br>This was what Pak Wargo—one pioneer of bike to work in Semarang—said. He further said that he started biking to work in 2005, the same year when ‘bike to work’ community was first established in Jakarta. The basic reason why he biked to work at the very beginning was because he loved traveling. Another reason was to do exercise to keep healthy since he didn’t have spare time to do that. By going to work by bike, he did not need to spend special time to go to a gym, let’s say, or a swimming pool. He just had to wake up earlier, to go to the office earlier than when he went to work by car. He considered 35 kilometer distance from his house in Klipang—one eastern part of Semarang to his workplace in Mangkang—the most western part of Semarang as a challenge. Practically he biked around 70 kilometers away almost everyday. He explained that he usually went to his office on Monday morning by car, his bike was at the office. He went home by bike, leaving the car at the office. He biked to work from Tuesday until Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, he went home by car.<br>He usually needed one hour fifteen minutes to cover the 35-kilometer distance, by avoiding ‘hilly’ areas, such as in Kedungmundu. Instead, he chose to pass Majapahit street and directly went straight to the west, till his office located somewhere in Mangkang.<br>Doing exercise is indeed one most favorite reason for bike to workers in Semarang. Doctors’ claim that the safest exercise done by those who are more than forty years old are swimming, jogging, and biking is often cited. Some bike to workers said that they could not swim. Biking was a better choice than jogging because by biking people could reach further distance, meaning that they could enjoy more beautiful views, than just jogging. Moreover for people who weigh more than 90 kilograms, they say it is much heavier for their legs to support their bodies in jogging than they bike. <br>People’s complaint about the soaring price of gasoline can be decreased by biking to work too. They can save their money since they do not need gasoline at all when biking. Pak Wargo claimed that he needed around Rp. 300.000,00 per week to buy gasoline before he biked to work. You can imagine how much money he can save since then.<br>As we all know the fact that gasoline’s price soared did not only happen in Indonesia. One national newspaper stated that nowadays even in the super power country—America—more people are seen biking on the street than before the soaring price of gasoline.<br>The last but the most important reason for biking to work is absolutely to help reduce the air pollution as well as the negative impacts of global warming. Bicycles obviously do not produce emission gas that pollutes the air we breathe. It even makes the cyclists healthier.<br>So, what are you waiting for? Join Pak Wargo and the other bike to workers to save our earth while saving your money and making your bodies healthy. <br>It is expected that in the future, people will bike not only to go to the office, but also to go anywhere they need to do activities.<br>PT56 22.24 110808</span></span> </span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/11/13/why-bike-to-work-5029623/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-11-13:/2008/11/13/saved-juno-gilmore-girls-5029607/Saved!, Juno, Gilmore Girlsnan292008-11-13T14:42:41+01:002008-11-13T14:42:41+01:00 <p><span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-2TwfqpII/AAAAAAAABCg/kdsGvq_NAKk/s1600-h/Juno.jpg"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-2TwfqpII/AAAAAAAABCg/kdsGvq_NAKk/s320/Juno.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br>A coin has two sides. <br>Just like a movie has many interpretations, not only two.<br>I plan to watch <span>JUNO</span> with my students this Monday. I have watched this movie with another class before, around a month ago, and I think this movie is quite ‘safe’ to be watched by teenagers: there is no vulgar scene, although the story is about a sixteen-year old teenager who gets pregnant outside the wedlock. I opine that the script writer as well as the producer of this movie wanted to give an alternative to teenagers how to face unwanted pregnancy; and to parents a kind of suggestion how about to stand together with the pregnant kid, to be supportive with the kid’s choice, instead of just blaming her without showing any comforting response, without realizing that sometimes female teenagers get pregnant not merely due to their own mistakes—such as accusation to have low moral because having sex out of a wedlock—but can also be engendered by the parents who don’t give enough attention, or too much controlling.</p>
<p><span>Saved!, Juno, Gilmore Girls</span><br><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-2iix9CXI/AAAAAAAABCo/iEtltjcHn6U/s1600-h/Saved.jpg"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-2iix9CXI/AAAAAAAABCo/iEtltjcHn6U/s320/Saved.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br>In this article, I want to compare three movies that have similar cases: <span>SAVED!, JUNO</span>, and one serial <span>GILMORE GIRLS</span>. They all have the similar topic: a sixteen-year-old girl who got pregnant outside the wedlock. Nevertheless, the cause of the pregnancy is different. The way to handle the case is different too.<br><span>SAVED!</span> was produced in 2003/2004. This movie has very strong Christian teachings as the background. Mary, the leading character, got pregnant because she wanted to “save” his boyfriend who admitted that he was a gay in a telling-secret-under-the-water game. Feeling shocked, and with her head crashed something hard when she was about to go out of the pool, Mary saw a vision of Jesus coming to her, telling her that she was chosen to ‘save’ Dean (from being sinfully homosexual). Being able to make Dean enjoy their lovemaking, Mary thought she was successful to “cure” his ‘psychological/mental disease’. Therefore, she was very disappointed when knowing that Dean’s parents still sent him to Mercy House, a kind of rehabilitation to ‘solve’ any kinds of problems; such as addiction to drugs, homosexuality, until girls getting pregnant outside the wedlock. She felt cheated by Jesus’ vision coming to her.<br><span>JUNO</span> was produced in 2007. The cause of Juno to get pregnant was merely she was curious to know what sex was like. ‘Playing’ something she didn’t know with one good friend, Paulie Bleeker rewarded her unwanted pregnancy.<br><span>GILMORE GIRLS</span> was produced in 2004/2005. Lorelai Gilmore got pregnant when she was 16 years old merely because she wanted to rebel her controlling parents, especially her mother, who never gave her freedom to be herself. She always felt strangled in her parents’ luxurious house. Meanwhile, her teenage boyfriend, Chris, did that to get rid of his parents’ obligation to continue his study at Yale because he didn’t feel sure to be able to do that.<br>The solution to face the unwanted pregnancy is different. Mary, at SAVED! kept it secret, trying to hide her pregnancy She even did not tell Dean about it, not to her mother either. With help of her two schoolmates, Cassandra and Roland, she tried her best to hide her swollen belly under some special clothes. In another word, it can be concluded that Mary decided to keep her baby, although at the very beginning she was thinking of abortion.<br>At Gilmore Girls—as people can easily guess, because this serial focuses on the very intimate, best-friend-like relation between the mother and daughter—Lorelai decided to keep her baby too, but by leaving her parents’ home and doing her best to survive, as well as raising her daughter. She refused Chris’ offer to marry him because she thought both of them were not ready yet to live together in a marriage, moreover she knew very well that Chris was not psychologically and financially mature yet. This would just make the marriage not work well that possibly would just ruin the relationship of three of them—Lorelai, Chris, and Rory, their daughter, especially Rory’s mental development.<br>At JUNO, a bit similar to SAVED!, Juno was thinking of terminating her pregnancy too. However, then, she got a very brilliant idea, to find a couple of husband and wife who wanted to have a baby very much. She got one. The difference from SAVED was that Juno didn’t try to hide her pregnancy from her parents as well as her schoolmates. Bleeker, the father of the baby-to-be knew too the result of their ‘playing game’.<br>None of the three movies gave solution to marry the sixteen-year-old girl with the boy with whom they had sex, or with any other guy who was willing to “save” the good name of the family, a typical solution that usually happens in Indonesia.</p>
<p><span>Solution in Saved!, Juno, Gilmore Girls</span></p>
<p><span>SAVED!</span> The failure of Mary to ‘cure’ Dean to me means that the producer as well as the script writer wants to tell the viewers that some people indeed were born to be homosexual, not because of the influence of wrong socialization. Before Dean told Mary about his secret—being a gay—he was involved in a Christian community, dedicated his life following Jesus’ steps. Any celestial religion will consider homosexuals sinful therefore they must be ‘saved’. In fact, Dean eventually had to give in his innate call.<br>Mary—who was involved in the same Christian community as Dean—was excited to be ‘chosen’ to help cure her boyfriend with the Jesus vision inside the pool. However, after she ‘sacrificed’ by having sex with Dean, Dean was still a gay. Furthermore, she seemed to be ‘punished’ by God to have sex outside the wedlock with the unwanted pregnancy. This ‘accident’ made her lose her strong belief that people would always find solution in religious teachings blindly, without using their common sense. Eventually, her mother accepted the fact that Mary got a baby; she did not need to send Mary to Mercy House because Mary was not a problematic teenager only because she was pregnant outside the wedlock. Mary needed the support of her mother to live her life much more strongly than to be sent to that kind of rehabilitation center which in fact did not really help the ‘victims’.<br><span>JUNO.</span> Juno had decided to give away her baby to a couple when she told her parents about her pregnancy. Feeling shocked, but trying to hide it, the parents showed a strong support to Juno’s decision. The father—worried if Juno would be cheated because she was just a kid—accompanied Juno when meeting the couple who would adopt her baby. The mother protected Juno’s mental condition when people accused her a problematic teenager with her unwanted pregnancy. Juno expected that she would continue her life ‘normally’ (read just like any other teenagers who didn’t get similar accidents) after she delivered her baby.<br><span>GILMORE GIRLS</span>. Lorelai decided to run away from home, to deliver her baby, and to raise her using her own way—having intimate relationship with the baby, open communication, without ‘you’ve-got-to-listen-to-me-coz-I’m-your-mother’ trait toward Rory, a way to raise up a baby Lorelai believed would work much better than just controlling. By doing so, she believed that Rory would not end up getting unwanted pregnancy at a very young age. <br><span><br><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-20Z_H9RI/AAAAAAAABCw/IXoFioUGUHc/s1600-h/GG2.jpg"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SM-20Z_H9RI/AAAAAAAABCw/IXoFioUGUHc/s320/GG2.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p>
<p>Multi-interpretations</span></p>
<p>Especially the two movies above—Saved! and Juno—some people around me opined that the movies even encouraged teenagers to ‘play’ with sex because when they accidentally got pregnant, their parents would even support them and didn’t punish them anything, not even to scold them. (This reminded me of one article in a local newspaper stating that in the movie of BERBAGI SUAMI—LOVE FOR SHARE in English—Nia Dinata wanted to encourage men to be polygamous.) <br>I have never invited my students to watch SAVED! so that I don’t get any input yet from my teenage students. However, in JUNO, my teenage students could see the complicated things Juno had to undergo, the insecurity a teenage girl had to face in their daily life when getting unwanted pregnancy. This obviously will NOT encourage them to get similar problem, moreover if their parents punish them for embarrassing their ‘good name’ by getting pregnant outside the wedlock.</p>
<p><span>Conclusion</span></p>
<p>A movie indeed can be interpreted from different points of views. When showing a movie about teenagers’ life, we as parents/teachers are supposed to accompany the teenagers and then have a live and open discussion to come up to a beneficial interpretation for both sides.<br>PT56 11.54 140908 </span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/11/13/saved-juno-gilmore-girls-5029607/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-11-13:/2008/11/13/homosexuality-5029595/Homosexualitynan292008-11-13T14:39:31+01:002008-11-13T14:39:31+01:00 <blockquote>
<p><span><span><span>“God never made mistakes in creating human beings!”</span></span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span><span>The statement above was said by one student of mine several months ago when I asked the class to discuss homosexuality/transgender/transsexual. I cited a statement of one transsexual I found in a book entitled <span>Transekssualisme</span>: “I was trapped in a wrong body.” And then I asked the class consisting of college students to discuss in small groups. The background of the discussion was the ‘gossip’ of one celebrity in Indonesia, <span>Krisna Mukti</span>. (Absolutely I am not a fan of infotainment program. However, I was interested in discussing this gossip in my class since the movement of feminism is indispensable from the movement of LGBT—lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. And I am an open claimed feminist as you can find in my blogs.) <br>In responding my student’s opinion (I directly realized that I was facing a group of students who would probably oppose my way of thinking that is pro to freedom of choosing sexual orientation), I had to do it very carefully and wisely.<br>Obviously I also do believe that God never made mistakes in creating anything; name it human beings, animals, plants, this universe. Human beings made mistakes though. In this case, including to limit human beings only into two kinds—female and male, and then decide that the ‘normal’ one is when female is attracted to male and on the way around, especially romantically, sexually, and sensually. Outside that, there must be something wrong. Strongly opining that “No one is supposed to think that he/she is trapped in the wrong body” is indeed narrow-minded because we view things only from one perspective, ignoring that there is another—even some other perspectives.<br>Based on researches done, anthropologists have classified human beings into at least four categories, in terms of sexuality:</span></span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><span><span><span>Male that is sexually attracted to female</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span><span><span>Female that is sexually attracted to male</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span><span><span>Male that that is sexually attracted to male</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span><span><span>Female that is sexually attracted to female</span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<p><span><span><span>The strong influence of celestial religions (read: Jewish, Christianity, Islam) narrowed the four categories into only two during the Victorian era, the first and the second categories, leaving the third and the fourth become unknown, and eventually they were labeled abnormal or against natural law.<br>The Dutch colonial government brought this influence to Indonesia; making some communities that used to give respected position to homosexuals (such as <em>bissu</em> community in Makassar, <em>warok gemblak</em> in Ponorogo, <em>dalaq</em> in Madura, <em>shaman</em> in Dayak Ngaju, etc) cornered and gradually disappear. Besides, the strong influence of two main celestial religions (Christianity and Islam) brought to Indonesia made the homosexual communities come to an end. While before, those communities were viewed normal, even respected.<br>Isn’t it time to start viewing things from other perspectives, to understand the way others think and feel, to be empathetic. <br><span>Irshad Manji</span> (a feminist Muslim that claims herself as a lesbian) said, “<span>Bukankah Tuhan sangat bisa dengan keMahaKuasaan-Nya menjadikanku untuk tidak menjadi seorang lesbian?</span>” -- <strong>God absolutely has the most powerful ability to make me not as a lebian</strong> (Jurnal Perempuan number 58) and still she is a lesbian. There was God’s interference behind it.<br>PT56 20.20 261008</span></span></span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/11/13/homosexuality-5029595/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-11-13:/2008/11/13/into-the-wild-5029562/Into the Wildnan292008-11-13T14:31:48+01:002008-11-13T14:31:48+01:00 <p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SRL8yDpZV2I/AAAAAAAABC4/hkjrpJ9Wfms/s1600-h/thewild.jpg"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SRL8yDpZV2I/AAAAAAAABC4/hkjrpJ9Wfms/s320/thewild.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br><span><span>This movie is based on Jon Krakauer’s book that tells us about the true story of Christopher Johnson MacCandless who was born on February 12, 1968 and died on August 18, 1992. Getting very disappointed by his own parents, Chris (Emile Hirsch) left them and his younger sister, Carine, (Jena Malone) as well after graduating from Emory College, where he studied only to make his parents happy, and not to pursue his own ideal. The disappointment to his parents was supported by his sickness to hypocrite society. This made him leave the crowd of people and go INTO THE WILD.<br>Some favorite scenes and conversations of mine in the movie are:</p>
<p><span>“Some people feel like they don’t deserve love. They walk away quietly to the empty space trying to close the gaps with the past.”</span></p>
<p>Apparently Chris talked about himself; he left his family since his parents’ problematic marriage and their trying to cover it from public as well as from the children made him label the parents big hypocrites. By saying the aforementioned statement, he realized that his parents loved him. However, his deep disappointment toward them made him feel he did not deserve the love. Therefore, he disappeared quietly from his parents’ life. He was pursuing his own happiness in the wild. He did not use the name his parents gave, and named himself as Alexander Supertramp; he even simply told some people he met during his journey that he did not have family.<br>Hypocrisy in society has been one mainstream topic in my blog. Examples: people who let themselves trapped in a loveless marriage only because they live in marriage-oriented society; many in that kind of marriage, women become the main victims (just like what is illustrated in this movie), then the children. People (mainly women) who think that they are luckier since they find men who are willing to marry them and feel sorry for single (moreover old maids) women, while in fact deep down in their hearts they envy those free women. People who have children not because they love having offspring but only for their own pride and selfishness. </p>
<p><span>“… get rid of this sick society. Why people, every fucking person is so bad to other people, so fucking awful. It doesn’t make sense to me; judgment, control, all that whole spectrum…”</span></p>
<p>What happened to Chris’ parents—to be hypocrites, Chris said—was also for the sake of judgment from society—to be considered happy and romantic family while in fact inside, Billie, the mother was bruised. (Why do women always become victims?)<br>Some people feel like they have full rights to make judgment to other people, to say what is good what is bad using their own eyes, without trying to view things from different point of view.<br>PT5623.05 021108<br></span></span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/11/13/into-the-wild-5029562/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-08-20:/2008/08/20/change-your-perspective-join-student-exc-4611655/Change Your Perspective: Join Student Exchangenan292008-08-20T06:38:48+02:002008-08-20T06:38:48+02:00 <p><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SIpvKfEgPcI/AAAAAAAAAu4/s2YVH67TGVg/s1600-h/cutie...0330.jpg"><img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/SIpvKfEgPcI/AAAAAAAAAu4/s2YVH67TGVg/s320/cutie...0330.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br>I have got an answer to my question to myself a year ago, “Why are the five students selected to go abroad by AFS committee all studying at Islamic boarding school?” <br>I have been looking for the answer for a year when out of the blue I got the answer. The story is like this.<br>On Saturday July 19, 2008 I was invited by Yayasan Bina Antar Budaya (The Indonesian Foundation for Intercultural Learning) Chapter Semarang to attend the farewell as well as welcoming party. Farewell party is to let go the selected students abroad; while welcoming party is to welcome some students having come back from abroad. The program was held for two days at Bandungan, not far from Semarang. On my way to Bandungan, I was together with Erik, one student who just came back from Norway. Leo, one volunteer, drove his car, while listening to my chat with Erik, and once in a while asking questions to Erik or giving comments.<br>Among several questions I asked Erik, I asked one crucial question: about religion.<br>“So, how is the religiosity life in Norway, Erik?”<br>To my surprise, Erik seemed very enthusiastic with that question. <br>“I assume that 85% of Norwegian people are atheist.” He directly answered.<br>Then, he went on telling us …<br>At first, his father—who works for Religion Department—minded his going to Norway. Erik himself was very disappointed to be selected by AFS committee but was sent to a country he chose the last one to visit. (In fact, it was Erik’s own mistake because he misunderstood the instruction when ranking which country he wanted to visit very much). Before letting Erik go, his parents took him to one relative in Kudus who happened to be one ‘ulema’ they believed could foresee what would happen. Guess why? His parents were worried if Erik would be a non-believer too after getting in touch with atheist people for a year. Fortunately, the relative gave green light to Erik’s parents to let him go.<br>“Honestly I got mentally ‘slapped’ by my foster parents there when they said, “Erik, you are a Muslim because you were born in Indonesia. We are non-believers because we were born here in Norway. I believe if you were born in Norway, you would be a non-believer too. Likewise, if we were born in Indonesia, we would be Muslim too because it is a religion adhered by the majority Indonesian people.” <br>My experience living there among non-believer people taught me something contradictory from I used to believe: “Atheist people are not criminals. What people say that atheist people have chaotic life because their life is not divided by the rigid five pray times a day is absolutely not correct. Their life is fine, and they are obviously good people. My foster parents did not know me at all before I arrived there, but they took care of me very well, as if I were their own son. Not recognizing God in their life does not necessarily mean they become heartless people. I have learned something very different from what my religious teachers used to teach me.”<br>B-I-N-GO!!!<br>The number of imbeciles in Indonesia has decreased one number: ERIK.<br>I expect that the other students sent abroad together with Erik (all from one famous Islamic boarding school in Sukoharjo) underwent similar experience in understanding different perspective about religiosity/spirituality.<br>Absolutely I have been expecting that this number will decrease now and again so that we Indonesian people all will live side by side peacefully regardless different religions, ethnic, etc.<br><br>
<strong>*</strong>
During ‘talent show’ that night, I was sitting next to a woman whose daughter went back from Belgium a year ago. One of our ‘chats’ was also about this religiosity thing. I assume that the daughter got similar ‘enlightenment’ as Erik so she had courage to debate her mother when the mother said, “Atheist people must have chaotic life because they don’t have ‘something’ to hold on –GOD. In Indonesia here there are many religious people but still people do crimes, such as corruption. Moreover in a country where people don’t believe that there will be life after death where everyone must be responsible with everything they do in this world.”<br>A very narrow-minded way of thinking, do you believe? This becomes the daughter’s responsibility to ‘teach’ the mother a new perspective in viewing life. As stated in the motto of AFS program: CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE IN VIEWING THE WORLD.<br>PT56 12.40 220708
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/08/20/change-your-perspective-join-student-exc-4611655/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-07-02:/2008/07/02/bike-to-work-4391941/Bike to Worknan292008-07-02T02:19:26+02:002008-07-02T02:19:26+02:00 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/b2w/2632023" title="b2w"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/023/2632023_ccb7d84266_s.gif" alt="b2w" hspace="5" vspace="5"></a><br>“I am not sure if you will succeed in gathering many people to join that b2w community,” this was Angie’s pessimistic comment when seeing the flyer of ‘bike to work’.<br>I said nothing to hear that. I am more optimistic than she is, I assume.<br>However, Angie’s comment reminded me of one nineteenth-century American thinker, Henry David Thoreau with his experience living around a pond, all alone, away from ‘civilized society’, that he wrote in his book entitled <em>WALDEN</em>. He did that to criticize American government that he thought damaged the environment by building trans-continental railway during the decade of 1860s. Despite the fact that the railway would help improve the transportation so that it would also result in good business plus profit, smoke coming out of the train would absolutely damage the environment. Thoreau, the true environmentalist, extremely objected the railway building. But what could a Thoreau do to stop it? Even, his good friend as well as teacher, Emerson, only expressed his objection toward the then government’s so-called crazy idea. Emerson did not do any real action to show it.<br>Bike-to-work idea itself is great and easy to do. This is also obviously more possible to carry out rather than Thoreau’s idea to leave the city he lived to live in a forest, living like a hermit, away from other people, only consuming anything he found in the forest. I believe that it is an absurd thing to do what Thoreau did in this internet era. Do you agree?<br>So, why is it difficult to attract people’s attention to join b2w community? (This is the result of seeing some people’s reluctant reaction when getting the flyer of b2w during ‘fun bike’ held in Semarang on June 15, 2008) It is essential that we do care for our environment, isn’t it? <br>I think the answer is on Indonesian people’s way of life. We are ‘popular’ to have high-class lifestyle. Have you ever heard how Indonesian government officials went to a building where they would get debt from some debtor countries? While the officials from the debtor countries came by a simple car, Indonesian officials came by a luxurious car.<br>Japan that used to colonize Indonesia from 1942-1945 successfully rose from the crumble due to the bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It has become one giant country in Asia. But look at the people’s way of living. Although many of them have private cars, they would prefer to go by public transportation. In Indonesia, people would prefer to show off their ‘property’ by driving cars or riding motorcycles that probably they haven’t fully paid. They would rather expose their prestige. Likewise, other people would prefer to show their respect to people driving cars rather than people riding motorcycles. (Try going to a mall or supermarket close to your dwelling place by bike and see how the parking person will treat you!)<br>Last Saturday morning on my way to my workplace located 11 kilometers away from my dwelling place, when passing Gombel ‘hill’, suddenly I daydreamed to see other motorists riding a bike. No vehicles on the road but bikes and buses (as public transportation). I daydreamed not to breathe polluted air.<br>PT56 21.31 150608<br>
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/07/02/bike-to-work-4391941/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-06-05:/2008/06/05/breastfeeding-bylaws-4276472/Breastfeeding Bylaws?nan292008-06-05T15:04:07+02:002008-06-05T15:04:07+02:00 <p>This recent week one mailing list I join has been talking about the plan of the Health Institution of South Sulawesi to issue a provincial bill to (somewhat) force women who just deliver babies to breastfeed them as well as to manage the distribution of formula milk in the area. The deputy head of the Health Institution, Saad Bustam said that there was a tendency for women (especially working women) nowadays to give their babies formula milk instead of breastfeed them with practicality as the main reason while in fact it is believed that mothers’ milk is the best for babies. The background of this plan is because Human Development Index of the area is in the twenty-third rank. It is assumed that giving mothers’ milk to the babies will improve the quality of human resources in the area so that in the future it is expected to be able to increase the Human Development Index.<br>The discussion of this subject in the mailing list is related to the anti pornography bill that eventually just makes women criminals. For example, women are not allowed to wear sheer clothes that will turn on men in public places. When sexual abuse is done by those men, due to the sheer clothes women wear, the women will be imprisoned. So, instead of protecting women from sexual abuse, the anti pornography bill just makes women criminals. <br>So will the “mothers’ milk bill”, I assume. When a woman cannot breastfeed her baby—with so many reasons, such as the woman has to go out of town to work while she doesn’t have money to bring the baby with her so that she has to leave the baby in the village where the grandmother, or any other female relatives, takes care of the baby, or because of natural cause, the woman cannot produce any milk from her breasts, which is oftentimes possible to happen—the woman will be put in jail, or pay fine. <br>A good thing has been done by the Health Institution though: providing special rooms for women who want to breastfeed their babies in malls so that the women do not do that in open public areas. Related to the anti pornography bill, a woman can be imprisoned too when she breastfeeds her baby in a public area. She will be accused to intentionally show the sensual part of her body—breasts. <br> <strong>*</strong><br>When delivering my baby in 1991, I did that in one midwife’s house close to my dwelling place. Before my breasts produced milk, the assistant of the midwife prepared a glass of sugared water to give Angie when she was crying because of feeling thirsty or hungry. We used a small teaspoon to put the water into Angie’s tiny mouth. (She weighed 2.6 kg and 49 cm long.) Several hours after that, my breasts produced milk and I could breastfeed Angie directly. The midwife also prepared a box of formula milk in case we needed that. The midwife opined that it was better not to give the baby any formula milk yet before the mother produced milk.<br>I concluded that the midwife wanted to indirectly campaign to breastfeed babies for women who delivered babies in her house. This is absolutely good.<br>FYI, I breastfed Angie till she was four months old without giving her any other milk or any food. After that, I still breastfed her until she was one year old, (because I had to resume my study out of town and she was with her granny) but of course plus food. I started to give her formula milk when I was busy resuming my study. <br> <strong>*</strong><br>Recently when some good friends of mine got married, got pregnant, and then delivered their babies in hospitals (not in a midwife’s house like my experience), I heard similar experiences. Before their breasts produced milk, the nurses gave the babies formula milk when the babies cried. They apparently didn’t have patience to wait until the babies’ mothers could breastfeed them. Or perhaps there was cooperation between the hospital and the formula milk distributors for profit.<br>What happened after that? Some friends told me that their babies didn’t want to drink the mother’s milk, they chose the formula milk instead. That was the first liquid they tasted and they didn’t want any other. Some others said that they still could breastfeed their babies, but not as the main milk, only as the additional one.<br> <strong>*</strong><br>Is breastfeeding included women’s destiny? So that they are not supposed to avoid it? I don’t agree with it although only women have breasts, and not men. Under some special circumstances, some women cannot produce milk from their breasts although they just deliver babies. What is wrong? Well, I never know why.<br>When Angie was born in April 1991, there was a neighbor of mine who delivered her baby several weeks afterwards. Without knowing why, her breasts didn’t produce any milk so that she had to give her baby formula milk. She felt very disappointed but any effort she did to make her breasts produce milk was in vain. Was she a bad mother? Of course not. What happened was really beyond her capability.<br>PT56 11.45 190508
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/06/05/breastfeeding-bylaws-4276472/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-05-21:/2008/05/21/freedom-writers-4203161/Freedom Writers 2nan292008-05-21T14:13:05+02:002008-05-21T14:13:05+02:00 <p>After writing the result of the discussion in my class on FREEDOM WRITERS, in this article I will write what I like most from this movie.<br>Erin Gruwell is always the most conspicuous character. She really did her very best for her students although being a teacher at Wilson High School didn’t give her much money. Her own father, Steve Gruwell, who inspired her to treat others as well as she could, without looking at the different ethnic groups (from Steve’s involvement in the civil right movement), praised his daughter as a gifted person. I do appreciate her willingness to do two other part time jobs to make her earn more money where she used the money to provide facilities her students needed, especially books, and some other experiences they got from the trips they did out of town. The trips as well as the books opened her student’s awareness that there was a different kind of life beyond their own hard life. She opined that assigning her students to read DIARY OF ANNE FRANK would make them realize that they were not the only one to suffer from racial discrimination. Living a life as a gang member would even make their life more chaotic.<br>Among Erin’s students (I noted down eight of them, Eva, Marcus, Andre, Jamal, Cindy, Tito, Gloria, and Ben), I was very interested in Eva and Marcus. Eva easily attracted my attention since her life was portrayed at the very beginning of the movie. Her father raised her to believe in “Don’t go against your own people, your own blood.” Since she was a kid, she already got to know the racial ‘principle’ in America that the Latino people “are less than the white”. She grew up hating the white since the white cops imprisoned her father although her father was innocent. <br>Eva amazingly controlled herself well (to show that she was a very careful person, she didn’t easily like other people, moreover if they were white) while her classmates already showed their attraction toward Erin. Her disappointment when finding out that Anne Frank died was resulted from her big dream that Anne Frank, as the symbol of resistance, had to survive. She viewed herself as in the same shoes as Anne in the past. When Anne died, would she have to die too? <br>Eventually, Eva made a big change when she showed her courage by telling the truth in the court. She decided to do this by herself in spite of the fact that her parents as well as her Latino community asked her to protect Paco. This “seemingly small” step was expected to open people’s eyes to tell the truth so that they would do the same thing.<br>Marcus also stole my attention. His rebellious character came to an end in Erin’s way of teaching. Erin successfully made him realize that education would really make a big change in his life. Going back to his family’s house showed his seriousness to alter his way of life besides studying seriously.<br>My favorite scene in the movie is the discussion between Erin and Scott, her husband, before he left the house. When Scott asked her to choose between the class and him, Erin came to her realization that what she was looking for in her life was to make her life meaningful by helping her students get rid of their hard life as gang members where they would oftentimes get involved in racial tensions. Her dedication to her job gave her a much greater satisfaction as well as happiness than to dedicate her life to her husband. ‘Helping’ more people to live decently gave her life more senses than just ‘helping’ one person—her husband.<br>This reminded me of one character in T.S. Eliot’s play “The Cocktail Party”, Celia. Celia who didn’t find what she was looking for in her relationship with Edward realized that she wanted to dedicate her life to human beings, not just one person, Edward, who happened to be married to Lavinia. This awareness—that what she was pursuing in her life was to dedicate her life to God by taking care of human beings—made her decide to go on a missionary. <br>Happiness in someone’s life—especially in women’s lives—is not necessarily always related to marriage life. When some women find deep happiness in dedicating their life to their husband and children, some other women possibly find it in different ways. Erin chose her students because that was her call. Btw, luckily Erin didn’t live in Indonesia where women get praised as “true and honorable women” only via marriage, especially by dedicating their life to their husband. Erin would get ‘bitch’ label since she ignored her husband, and chose her students instead. People would say that Erin just cared for her own happiness.<br>Another part of the conversation between Erin and Scott that attracted me was as follow:<br>“Why can’t you stand by me, and be a part of it, the way a wife supports her husband?” asked Erin to Scott.<br>“Because I cannot be your wife,” answered Scott.<br>The above exchange has always been my favorite dialog in the movie. Scott—or patriarchal men in general—would feel impotent when realizing that his wife was more successful than they were. This also apparently would hurt men’s ego. <br>Scott had shown his disappointment when Erin had the second part time job at Mariott hotel during weekend. “You even didn’t ask me,” was his first complaint. His second complaint was, “Everyone knows you can do anything!” He showed his being inferior in front of his smart wife since he lost his spirit to pursue his architect degree. <br>In patriarchal culture, men are always welcome to work hard, they even will get appreciation from society as good husbands. However, when women do that, they will even get mockery and they will be considered to oppose their destiny to be domestic creature, because they don’t do household chores as they “are created”. So, instead of getting appreciation because she had dedicated her life for her “unfortunate” students, Erin would get disapproval from society.<br>To end this writing, I want to cite my own idea of being a feminist: women are free to choose what kind of life they want. I do appreciate Erin’s choice to make her life more meaningful by dedicating her life to her job and deserting her marriage life. In our life we often come to time when we have to make a choice. Erin has absolutely made the best choice, to help more people (her students) than just one spoiled man (her husband).<br>PT56 16.10 180508
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/05/21/freedom-writers-4203161/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-05-21:/2008/05/21/freedom-writers-4203124/Freedom Writers 1nan292008-05-21T14:04:46+02:002008-05-21T14:04:46+02:00 <p>On Saturday 17 May 2008 I invited my class to watch FREEDOM WRITERS. The class consisted of 15 students, 4 guys and 11 girls, and all of them are college students. Before watching the movie, I gave three questions to be discussed afterwards:<br>
<ol>
<li>Which character attracts you most? Why?</li>
<li>Which scene in the movie attracts you most? Why?</li>
<li>What do you think of the moral lesson conveyed by the movie?</li>
</ol>
For the first question, since Erin Gruwell has always been chosen by my students (when I invited some other classes to watch this movie), I asked the students in this class to pay more attention to the students in Gruwell’s class.<br>In short, Freedom Writers portrays the struggle of the new teacher, Erin Gruwell, to make her students—that mostly have been involved in gang life, violence, killing, drugs, etc—realize that education is the most important aspect in their life if they want to make a change to their lives. <br>For the first question, 8 students chose Marcus to be the most attractive character. They had a similar reason for that: they considered Marcus the most successful to make a change in his life. He left his family to get involved in street life as gang member because he thought it was the only way to show ‘tolerance’ to other African American people who had always been marginalized. In one long discussion/debate between Erin and the class (spurred by one student’s cartoon to ridicule Black people), one can find out how Marcus viewed his life: he felt like a hero when he showed tolerance to the sufferings of other African American people who happened to live on the street. He opined that if he got killed in a racial discrimination, he would get respect from his ‘community’. “We live in a war everyday,” he said to Erin. However, after he got enlightened by Erin, he realized that living on the street by joining gang life to survive was not right. Therefore he decided to come home and show his family that he changed. He proved that by studying seriously and graduating from high school.<br>Meanwhile 6 students chose Eva Benita as someone who made a great change in her life. Eva was raised by a father who believed that the white always marginalized the other ethnic groups. No wonder if Eva hated Erin who happened to be white. However, eventually Eva realized that not all white people were like what her father described. Erin who introduced the students to the Holocaust disaster—as an analogy to the kind of life her students had—successfully made Eva break what her father always taught her, “Don’t go against your own people!” In the court, Eva told the judge the truth about one accident where she was the crime witness. Although Eva had to risk being hated by her own father and Latino community, Eva daringly did what she thought it was the right thing to do. She must have been inspired by what Mip Gies did, the woman who help hide Anne Frank during the Holocaust. <br>One student chose Ben Samuel, the only white student in Erin’s class. Outside the classroom, the white were the majority while inside the class, Ben was the minority. If at the very beginning Ben showed his restlessness to be in that class, felt very insecure among the Cambodian, Latino and Black students, eventually Ben stayed put in the class and behaved like one member of a big family consisting of various ethnic groups comfortably. <br>To discuss the three questions, I divided the class into four groups. For the second question, the first groups chose a scene when Erin did ‘line game’. She put a red line in the middle of the classroom. Afterwards, she asked some questions to her students. If the question applied to the students’ interest (or if the students answered ‘Yes’ to her Erin’s questions), the students were to stand close to the red line. The essence of the ‘game’ was that Erin wanted to make her students realize that they were all undergoing similar lives. When they had similar experiences in life, they were supposed to have one strong emotional tie among themselves and not to hate the other ethnic groups. Erin was successful to make her students aware that they did not need to show hostility to the others because in fact they faced the same problem. While for Ben, the only white in the class, Erin wanted to make him view life from other ethnic groups’ perspective—who happened to be the minority groups in America. <br>The second group chose a long debate—spurred by Tito’s cartoon on Black people, especially to ridicule Jamal—between Erin and her students. This debate made Erin know more what kind of problems her students faced. This also inspired her to broaden her students’ horizon that happened to know nothing about anything else but their own life. This resulted in Erin’s bigger dedication to her job. She did two other part time jobs to get more money to buy books for her students, also to take them on trips: to visit museums, to have dinner with ex Holocaust victims, etc. This “impractical” way of teaching of Erin’s proved to work well.<br>The third group chose the scene when Erin read her students’ journals. This made Erin realize how difficult her students’ lives were. That’s why they had bad behavior and didn’t pay serious attention to their studies. Writing to let go off their restlessness and anxiety seemed to help them release tensions in their daily life. Moreover at the same time their writings let the world know their sufferings. To know this would make people give sympathy. <br>The last group chose the scene when Erin started the first day in the sophomore year by having ‘a toast for change’ session. After making it till the end of their freshman year, the students were expected to have a new perspective in viewing their study. Erin was also successful to make her students feel like they were in one big family in a ‘warm home’ in their classroom, Room 203. <br>For the third question, the four groups agreed that the movie conveyed “No more racial discrimination, please!” It will be very lovely if, despite difference in ethnic groups, languages, customs (plus religions), people live together hand in hand peacefully as well as respect one another.<br>PT56 14.35 180508
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/05/21/freedom-writers-4203124/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-05-21:/2008/05/21/on-kartini-day-4203102/On Kartini Day 2008nan292008-05-21T14:01:39+02:002008-05-21T14:01:39+02:00
<p>On Kartini Day, 21 April 2008, I was invited as one resource person in one local television of Semarang. The theme was talking about Kartini, as a woman who was popularly known as the ‘triggerer’ of women emancipation movement. The other two resource persons were Fitriyah, the leader of KPU (The Commission for General Election) of Central Java, and Nuki, one public relation officer of one hotel located at the heart of Semarang, Simpang Lima. The hostess was Ayu, one employee of the local television.<br>To tell you the truth, before the program started, I didn’t have any idea what questions would be asked to me. When reading the invitation letter, I found the main theme of the program was “the application of gender mainstreaming in our society”. For that, I equipped myself by reading JURNAL PEREMPUAN number 50 with the main topic PENGARUSUTAMAAN GENDER (gender mainstreaming). For sure, I didn’t want to disappoint my fellow feminist allies. It didn’t mention about Kartini day, women emancipation, etc, that probably (so I thought) was already a bit out of date. Now it is the time to apply gender mainstreaming in all aspects of our lives! It is time for the REAL ACTION! ‘Women emancipation’ has been a quite hot issue in Indonesia for many decades but we still can find many unfair policies for women. <br>However, when the four of us were in the studio, waiting for the time to be aired, Ayu told me that she would ask some questions related to feminism; for example, how many kinds of feminisms, etc. I am of opinion that kinds of feminisms are not important to really improve women’s lives in Indonesia. <br>After introducing the three special guests to the viewers, Ayu asked Fitriyah what she was thinking about Kartini and the relationship between her struggle and women’s betterment in life in recent decades. One very important thing was mentioned by Fitriyah: “Kartini struggled to improve women’s lives. It is time for women to have rights to make decisions, to make choices in their own lives. They are not always to listen to what their father or brother or husband asks them to do.”<br>“Making a choice for themselves” is one thing I always underline in my blogs.<br>When Ayu asked my opinion, I said, “What Kartini struggled for her fellow women citizen was to get education. Being educated is very important so that women are considered ‘able’. Related to what Ibu Fitriyah said before, I completely agree that women must have rights to make choices and decisions for themselves. In the past, women were not believed to be able to make their own choices probably because they were not equipped with what people needed to have to make choices: knowledge and education. With much bigger chances to pursue as high education as possible, it is time for women to ‘enjoy’ their independence to make choices and decisions.”<br>The question for Nuki was a bit different. Ayu related this issue to Nuki’s job as a public relation officer in one hotel. “Does working in a hotel (which was traditionally stereotyped as having a bad environment for ‘good women’) make Nuki feel at ease in her surrounding?” Nuki said even the first disagreement she got from her parents. But it happened when the first time she started working. After some time, they believed that Nuki could face the environment. Besides, she said people would recognize kinds of people from their appearance. So far, she never got a serious problem (read sexual abuse). <br>The following question for Fitriyah was related to her main job as the chief of KPU. “Why, among five pairs of governor and the vice governor, is there only one woman? And she is only as the candidate of the vice governor, not as the governor?”<br>Fitriyah related this question to the affirmative action for women to be involved as legislative members. Each political party is expected to include women as their representatives until 30%. However, in the election for a leader of one region, (mayors for cities, regents for regencies, governors for provinces, and presidents for the country), there is no regulation to fulfill the 30% number. Political parties are free to choose their own candidates regardless sex. Therefore, Fitriyah thought that it was a good idea that in the next general election, Indonesia will give more chances to women to be chosen by political parties to go to the leader election.<br>The following question for me was not related to the question for Fitriyah. Ayu asked me about feminism, whether feminism was triggered by emancipation movement. I cited the woman movement in the middle of the nineteenth century America as the main real action by women to equalize their position in society. The nineteenth century American women struggled to get suffrage that they believed would give them equal feeling to their fellow male citizens. This meant ‘emancipation’. The term ‘feminism’ itself was coined in the last decade of the nineteenth century to refer to this woman movement.<br>“Well, we know many kinds of feminist movement, such as radical, liberal feminist movement, etc, don’t you think that they are really not ‘Indonesian’? Ayu went on asking me.<br>I said that we must admit that feminist movement was ‘born’ in the western countries, radical as well as liberal (and some other kinds) feminisms represented western women. I agreed if people said that these two feminisms were not really the representatives of Indonesian women. <br>“There are more other kinds of feminisms though that can represent Indonesian women. For example, multicultural feminism.” I responded further. <br>This made Ayu go on with the following question about women who want to ‘enjoy’ the equal roles but they also want to be treated ‘special’, such as in the workplace. As an example, Ayu mentioned about right for women to be off several days from the workplace due to menstruation. Fitriyah wisely said that biologically women were different from men. Women who get menstruation every month are to be treated differently from men who don’t get menstruation.<br>I added that the equal treatment to women was not supposed to be related to that biological difference. As an example I mentioned the income tax for women that generally is bigger than men. A woman—no matter whether she is single or married and having kids—is always regarded single. This makes the taxed income bigger. A married woman who has one child must pay bigger tax than a married man who has one child. (With one note: this man and woman have the same position and the same length time to work in the same company.)<br>I also said if the special treatment for women to get several days off due to menstruation made men envy, this was really wrong. Women were created having womb and vagina that made them get menstruation monthly. Men were not. How could they envy this? Why should they envy this?<br>My answer in fact invited two viewers to make a phone calls to ask. The first question was about the regulation that gives women right to be off from the workplace due to menstruation because in her company, there is not such a thing. Even pregnant women don’t have enough days off when delivering their babies. Unfortunately, I was not equipped by the law and regulation about this so I could not give a satisfying answer. However, if there were not such law and regulation yet, I proposed it to be made as soon as possible. (Fitriyah whispered to me quickly that the law and regulation was still being made.)<br>The second questioner asked my opinion about a career woman who neglected her household chores as well as the husband and children. She even said, “This emancipation movement has made women become too independent so that they forgot their ‘destiny’ to be born as women.” To answer it, I related to the question asked by Ayu about a highly-educated woman who chose to be a housewife. <br>“As long as the decision to be a housewife is made by the woman herself, it is okay. So, it is not a force from the husband who selfishly wants his wife to be at home only. However, when a woman chooses to have a career outside the house, the husband must support her. And this support is also included to give a hand in doing household chores, plus taking care of the children. There must not be an accusation for this woman to neglect the husband and the children. There must be a compromise between the husband and wife on this.” This was my answer. <br>Further, Ayu asked Nuki whether her workplace—one three-star-rated hotel—gave enough ‘protection’ to women employees there. Nuki answered that her boss was very supportive. She mentioned one incident when there was a sexual abuse done by one male employee to another female employee; the boss directly laid off the male employee so that the atmosphere became conducive again.<br>This is really interesting to me since mostly I heard or read articles somewhere about contradictory things. The way patriarchal society accuses women as temptress is still strong, in my opinion. The pornography bill proves this. (Check my article on this pornography bill in my blog at <a href="http://afeministblog.blogspot.com)">http://afeministblog.blogspot.com)</a> One example: in many rape cases, the victims were even accused as the ones who “tempted” or “encouraged” the rapist to do the rape, such as from the way the victims got dressed, or talked or behaved.<br>Btw, this led Ayu to the following question to me, a question which was very immature and sexist, in my opinion. She mentioned about women’s want to be considered equal with men but they still want to get special treatment. For example when there was an accident in a ship—let’ say a ship is sinking—the order to the ship crew was: “Save women and children, first!” why women? If they were equal with men, there were not supposed to be such ‘unfair’ treatment to men.<br>“No matter what,” I responded, “when talking about physical power, everybody must agree that men are stronger than women. Men are expected to have enough power to swim to the seashore. Therefore women—who don’t have such a strength—must be saved first, together with children.” Again, I mentioned when men envy what women are supposed to get—let’s say several days off at the office due to menstruation—this was really illogical. When men—who generally have bigger body and power—envy women who get saved first in a sinking ship accident, how do you call such men?<br>Ayu’s another question about which kind of feminist ideology was suitable to be applied in Indonesia, I refused to mention one kind of feminist ideology. (Just like in one article I wrote some time ago in my blog at <a href="http://afeministblog.blogspot.com">http://afeministblog.blogspot.com</a> , I refused to include myself as the follower which feminist ideology.) Kinds of feminist ideologies are not important. The main core to apply the movement to equalize women to men is giving women rights to make their own choice and decision in their life. <br>The last question from Ayu to end the program was what Fitriyah, Nuki, and I expected in the future, in the name of the betterment for women’s lives. I expected that gender mainstreaming is really applied in all aspects in our lives. To do so, we have to make sure that all country decision makers understand what gender mainstreaming is, issue policies that support the betterment for women—that eventually will also be good for men. Fitriyah mentioned the importance of educating children in families about no stereotyping of gender roles. (FYI, Fitriyah as the chief of General Election Commission is very busy outside the home. Nearing the gubernatorial election in Central Java next June 22, she must be bloody busy outside the home.) This will create younger generations who do not think, “Father goes to the office, mother goes to the market” anymore. <br>Nuki made me disappointed by saying, “Women must be given as broad opportunity as possible to show their capabilities without forgetting their ‘destiny’ as women.” <br>Luckily she said so by the end of the program. I didn’t have time to ‘explain’ or ‘lecture’ the misconception of ‘women’s destiny’ as domestic creatures—“the angel of the house” this was how women movement activists in the nineteenth century America cynically chose the term. I knew exactly this was what Nuki thought about “without forgetting their destiny as women”.<br>P.S.: The article is especially written for <br>1. Radit, the producer of the program who has invited me. I wrote this article several weeks after the occasion (I was so damn lazy to do it soon. LOL.) Therefore, I already forgot some things discussed in the program. I didn’t have any note on it. I just wrote what I still keep in my mind well till now.<br>2. Ibu Fitriyah, how proud I am to be together with Ibu in this special occasion. I will be happy if in the future Radit will make us meet again in the next special occasion. Huehehehe …<br>3. Nuki, I assume that we need to talk a lot about what is created and constructed in our life. You are just still too young and do not get enough exposure to be with ‘women activists’ like me. <br>4. Ayu. In fact I am wondering who made those questions you had in your list? From you? Who else was involved in ‘creating’ some questions that made me easily see that this particular person didn’t know a lot about feminist movement? <br>5. The makeup artist. LOL. I mean the one who made me look more ‘eligible’ to be shot by camera. Angie said, “Mama looks odd!” hahahaha …<br>6. The other crew who welcomed me warmly.<br>PT56 15.44 010508</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/05/21/on-kartini-day-4203102/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-04-26:/2008/04/26/why-getting-married-4095801/Why getting married?nan292008-04-26T01:49:13+02:002008-04-26T01:49:13+02:00 <p>A workmate of mine, whose stories oftentimes inspired me to write for my blog, told me an experience of her cousin some days ago. Her cousin, a woman, lives in a small town in Central Java while her husband lives in the metropolis Jakarta. Before they got married, they knew very little about each other. Because of respective jobs, they decided to undergo a long distance marriage. However, not long after their wedding day (three months or so), the husband started to stay away. He didn’t visit his wife regularly anymore. <br>Several months passed until the wife’s family found out that in Jakarta the husband had a boyfriend.<br>“If he already realizes that he is a homosexual, why did he marry my cousin?” my workmate asked me.<br>“Well, you know in our ‘culture’, most people still think that homosexual is a kind of disease. They believe that this kind of ‘disease’ maybe can be cured after getting married, to force the homosexual to ‘go back to the destiny’ that men—read it as human beings born with penis—were created to get attracted and marry women—read it as human beings born with vagina and breasts. As you read in some articles openly written by some homosexual people, many of them found out that they fail to ‘be cured’ after marrying a woman. This made them realize that marrying a woman is not the best cure, or perhaps this made them change their mind that homosexual is not a kind of disease. However, their voice is silenced by the very strong and oppressive opinion by the public that get powerful so-called justification from religious people.”<br>“What do you think of some people who say that they are really ‘cured’ after getting married?” my workmate inquired.<br>“I am sorry to say that I am not one of them so I don’t know how to answer that question of yours. In fact, I have never had a heart-to-heart talk with such people you mentioned.” Was my response. LOL. “There are many things to consider; one of them is whether they were truly born homosexual—such as Dede Oetomo (the writer of MEMBERI SUARA PADA YANG BISU—“Give voice to the dumb”) , or they ‘became’ homosexual after socializing with other homosexuals, or because of ‘trauma’ they got when they were very young, such as being raped by a man.”<br>My workmate also told me about her cousin—the wife—who refused to divorce her homosexual husband. “I will wait…” was her excuse. “What is she waiting for?” my workmate asked me again. (You can comment that my friend mistakenly asked me, and not directly asked her cousin and her husband. LOL.)<br>“Perhaps she also thinks that being homosexual is a kind of disease. It means she is convinced that one day her husband will be cured, and he will be back to her.” I was trying to analyze. (So “wise guy” of me. LOL.)<br>“But you said that it is not a kind of disease. If her husband is not cured, her waiting will be very useless. She doesn’t know what she is waiting for?” <br>(You can say that this workmate of mine is very naïve. LOL.)<br>To answer that question, I cited an experience of another woman. This woman said that her husband has never treated her well since they got married twelve years ago. He always makes her cry. Recently, she got a job, to help someone open a burger stall. She said that the money she got really made her feel that she was really an important person. The money also made her feel confident to face her future.<br>“If only my pay is enough to afford my own life and my two children, I would prefer to live separately from my husband who never loves me,” she said to me.<br>I, who intended to be a mediator between her and her husband, then told her husband about this. FYI, her husband told me that he married her only ‘to follow what patriarchal culture believes that everyone must get married to be considered ‘normal’ because the girl he loves married someone else. The wife who oftentimes loses her control when being angry and becomes a boxer and the husband is the victim failed to make him love her due to that habit. The husband seemed very relieved hearing what I said. “How much is ‘enough’ to afford her life and our two children? I don’t mind at all to give all my pay to her as long as she lets me go.” He said.<br>The following day, I told the wife about what her husband said. Can you guess what she responded? <br>“No <span>mbak</span>, No matter what I don’t want to be separated from him. I will do anything he asks me to as long as this marriage goes on. Please tell me what I should do, <span>mbak</span>? I don’t want my husband to leave me.”</p>
<p>What is your conclusion? <br>
<ol>
<li>The two couples have a wrong intention to get married. </li>
<li>The two women follow what public believe, “To stay married is better than being divorced, although they have to live in a loveless marriage, although they have to shed blood tears because of unhappiness inside it.” </li>
</ol>
<br>PT56 15.00 230308
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/04/26/why-getting-married-4095801/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-04-26:/2008/04/26/nh-dini-4095791/NH Dininan292008-04-26T01:43:12+02:002008-04-26T01:43:12+02:00 <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/nh_dini/2490443" title="NH_Dini"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/443/2490443_c5801e8220_s.jpeg" alt="NH_Dini" hspace="5" vspace="5"></a><br>Several weeks ago I attended a sort-of promotion book of ARGENTEUIL by one senior writer in Indonesia, NH Dini at RUMAH SENI Semarang located at Kampung Jambe number 280. NH Dini herself as the main speaker, with Adhyanggono from Unika Soegijapranata as the moderator. NH Dini called ARGENTEUIL her autobiography which she wrote in the form of novel.</p>
<p>The first thing attracted my attention was when Dini said she has made herself accustomed to writing anything daily since she was very young in one special book she labeled ‘a red book’—because the cover of the book is red. The way she wrote in the red book was not like writing in diary—at least my way in writing diary --because she often used kinds of symbols recognized by herself only. From this ‘red book’ she improved her notes into many novels.</p>
<p>I asked whether she continued writing in her ‘red book’ after getting married. The background of my question was in the patriarchal culture—at least what I learned when I was a teenager from articles I read in magazines/books/newspapers—people believed that after getting married man and woman became one, each was the soul mate for the other. Therefore, women were not supposed to ‘confide in’ anybody else—including in their dead diary, the reflection of their own self—but to their husbands (I call ‘living diary’) that could be considered as the substitute of the dead diary. Husband and wife were supposed to be open to each other, no secrets between them. Dini said she continued writing in her diary—still using her secret symbols. Her husband let her do that and she was not ‘beaten’ by the so-called culture that I illustrated previously so that she didn’t teach her husband how to read the symbols. In other words it can be said that Dini kept doing her hobby and her husband let her have secrets. One moral lesson I was supposed to learn when I was in teenager—it was not sinful to keep something secretly from your husband—so that I wouldn’t have been beaten by the culture. Consequently, I would have had one most loyal friend, my ‘dead’ diary, when I was ‘buried’ under my sorrow because I couldn’t tell a human being. As a result, I wouldn’t have needed to be so depressed.</p>
<p>This is one thing I admire from NH Dini: as a Javanese woman who was born in the patriarchal Javanese culture, she already had a very progressive way of thinking. I believe this had happened before she moved to western countries to follow her husband where of course she was somewhat westernized.</p>
<p>The second thing I noted down from the discussion was when Dini said her two novels—PADA SEBUAH KAPAL and LA BARKA—were forbidden to be in the library of some schools in Jakarta in 1970s. The reason was because the two novels illustrated many inappropriate scenes. Surprisingly when she went to Indonesia to visit her mother in that decade, she was invited by Pondok Pabelan to give a talk about her writing career, and she found the two novels in the library there. She was questioning if some public schools in Jakarta—usually considered more receptive to anything since it was the metropolis city—forbade the students to read the novels, why Pabelan, the Islamic school, provided the novels in the library. It means Pabelan let the students read them.</p>
<p>When Dini asked one teacher there, the teacher explained, “We tell the students that these ‘inappropriate scenes’ are a part of western culture. We as eastern people are not to imitate what they are doing.”</p>
<p>This reminded me of what Ayu Utami said about her novel SAMAN. Ayu wanted to offer a new way of thinking to view women’s bodies. Women must listen to their own bodies, and not just listen to what patriarchal society demands from women. I also remember what Dewi Lestari said when she promoted FILOSOFI KOPI in Semarang around two years ago. When someone asked her converting to Buddhist, Dee explained “For someone who is going to sink in a wide sea, she/he will consider islands she/he sees the same. In Indonesia, the government (un)fortunately only gives six choices: Islam, Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Luckily, the ‘island’ closest to where Dee was about to sink was Buddhism.” In her SUPERNOVA series, Dee illustrated her spiritual experience, to share with her readers. I could draw one similar conclusion between Ayu and Dee; that was to give a new paradigm.</p>
<p>This inspired me to ask Dini about her motivation to write her novels, especially the two novels I mentioned above. To my surprise (or disappointment), she said, “I didn’t have such a motivation when writing the two novels. I just wrote my experience.”</p>
<p>“What kind of moral lesson did you expect to convey to your readers?” I continued asking.</p>
<p>“Well, I just wanted people to know that this kind of experience happened, especially in an intermarriage involving one Indonesian and a westerner.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, when someone asked her why she wrote, Dini gave four reasons:</p>
<p>First, she realized that she had a talent in writing, so she improved that gift.</p>
<p>Second, her mother knowing that she had a talent in writing asked her to write books. It means Dini wanted to make her mother happy.</p>
<p>Third, she could earn her own money by doing her hobby.</p>
<p>Fourth, she got satisfaction when knowing that other people enjoyed reading her books.</p>
<p>And I was not supposed to expect ‘deeper’ and more critical reasons just like the contemporary writers. </p>
<p>PT56 12.40 060408
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/04/26/nh-dini-4095791/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-03-22:/2008/03/22/one-day-in-my-life-3918716/One Day in My Lifenan292008-03-22T05:40:10+01:002008-03-22T05:40:10+01:00 <p>“You don’t work, do you?” accused a salesclerk when I was about to buy a pair of goggles the other day, in one sport store at Ciputra Mall Semarang. <br>I understood why she accused me like that. I went there around 11.40 am (usual working hours), wearing jeans, t-shirt, a jacket, and carrying a backpack; not usual outfit for workingwomen, is it?<br>I wanted to find out what made her fussy like that (instead of just considering it as a small talk to a customer). <br><span>The first possibility</span>: Was she jealous of me because she had to work as a salesclerk to make her ends meet?<br>Referring to women from low social class who had to work hard to earn money, to be able to give their children food and clothing (perhaps including education) in the nineteenth century America, they could be said that they were somewhat jealous of their fellow women citizens who came from middle and high social classes. The latter did not need to keep their nose to the grindstone only to buy food and clothing. Therefore, the first probably did not have any idea what on earth made the latter struggled to get right to work outside home. <br>This similar phenomenon is also easily seen in Indonesia. Many women coming from low class society do not understand why women from higher social class have to work (they don’t understand self actualization as well as self esteem needs proposed by Maslow) when their husbands can give them enough earnings every month. (enough is always relative, isn’t it?)<br><span>The second possibility</span>: did she underestimate me as a financially dependent creature? Since she thought I didn’t work, it was easily concluded that to her I was a housewife. To some people, a housewife is just a pathetic ‘profession’ because she financially depends on her husband. Being a financial dependant, a woman is prone to domestic violence, especially if she has a husband who doesn’t appreciate a housewife because this ‘profession’ doesn’t make money, a husband who thinks that money maker is always superior. <br>Why should she underestimate me if I chose to be a housewife? Because in this twenty first century, with its gender equality “phenomenon”, women are more honored when they make money? <br>I assume that she needs to read this blog of mine to know my personal ‘ideology’. LOL. As a feminist I am fully aware that the core of gender equality lies in the right to make choices in life. Women have full rights to have their own kind of life. (You can refer to my previous post.)<br>PT56 20.17 070108
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/03/22/one-day-in-my-life-3918716/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-03-22:/2008/03/22/gender-equality-3918712/Gender Equalitynan292008-03-22T05:36:31+01:002008-03-22T05:36:31+01:00 <p>I am oftentimes bothered when finding well-educated people don’t understand the importance of gender equality in social life, for both sexes betterment, not only for women, but also for men. To me, this kind of well-educated people are people who limit their own interpretation of what a woman is born for; people who let themselves ‘blinded’ by their narrow-minded interpretation of their religious teachings, as well as the narrow-minded understanding of what a culture is.<br>One of its examples is when I read an article in one local tabloid. The article was about a profile of a woman who has been busy in social organizations in Central Java. She said that gender equality does not necessarily mean the equal number. It means that she criticized the affirmative action given to women in politic sphere. Women do not need affirmative action to show that they are as capable as men. Furthermore, she said that gender equality clashed religious teachings as well as Indonesian culture.<br>Unfortunately the article didn’t give thorough explanation of that woman what she meant by saying that the success of gender equality does not automatically result in the more number of women involved in public sphere. Therefore, I had to use my interpretation when reading such a limited accusation, “gender equality is a failure if the success of it lies in the quantity”.<br>To know my opinion on feminism (gender equality means feminist movement), read my previous post on “Feminism: a western culture?”<br>I am of opinion that it is necessary to give affirmative action to show that they are as capable as men in politics due to the fact that women have had limit access to politics because they have been considered incapable. Why incapable? Because they have been considered as domestic creatures so that their main duty is to take care of children and husbands. Take a look at the example of the number of students for vocational schools. Many vocational schools offering the skills to cook, to sew, and recently including for makeup have been full of female students. On the other hand, vocational schools offering the skills for machines, electricity, etc have been full of male students. Besides, one thing we cannot deny is that parents give sons more priority to continue their education than daughters when they have financial constraints, without trying to analyze who has a higher intellect. <br>Because women have been imprisoned in domestic sphere, they have had limited experience in public sphere. <br>So, how to find out that women are also as capable as men in public sphere, especially in politics? Give them a chance to show their capability. How? Give them affirmative action. Don’t limit them only as domestic creatures. <br>Women are human beings, and not just the second sex. It means that they have full right to make a choice in their life, without any limitation based on religious teachings or the so-called cultures. They are free to choose <br>1. to be single, or married. <br>2. to be a full housewife or have career outside home<br>3. to be a full mother or a part time mother because they want to have career outside home<br>4. to be single parent when they don’t find any man suitable with their way of life<br>5. not to have a baby or to be a breeder<br>6. to work in public as well as domestic sphere<br>7. to be lesbian or straight<br>8. including to be a superwoman who is willing to fulfill their religious teaching requirement (read => to get married, having kids, be a super wife as well as mother, not to mention as money maker too, without forgetting her ‘main duty’ as the servant of their husband and children)<br>Once again, women are free to choose which suits their interest, without any burden in following religious teachings or cultures. Treat women as adult and human beings and then ask them to be responsible with their choices.<br>PT56 19.44 070108
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/03/22/gender-equality-3918712/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-03-22:/2008/03/22/racial-prejudice-3918690/Racial Prejudice 2nan292008-03-22T05:27:42+01:002008-03-22T05:27:42+01:00 <p>In FREEDOM WRITERS movie, the role of Erin Gruwell, the teacher who happened to be white, is very strong to make her students coming from various ethnic groups—the Black, the Asians (especially the South East Asians), and the Latino—realize that not all white people discriminate the colored. <br>Eva Benita, one daughter of a Latino family, is raised by her father to see the white as the oppressor. The bitter experience undergone by her father strengthened Eva’s hostility toward the white. He is imprisoned for one thing he never does: he is accused to kill one of his neighbors. The lifestyle she chooses—to involve in a Latino gang, as one ‘heritage’ from her father—obviously shapes her point of view to see relationship among ethnic groups: you only make friends with people from the same origins. People from other ethnic groups are enemies. Eva, with her gang members, believes that their life will be a lot better without those ‘enemies’. Therefore, their life is always full of hostility and hatred, as well as ‘war’. <br>Fortunately, Eva, with her classmates, gets a white teacher who proves to them that she is not like any other white people (another example of a white teacher who is discriminative toward the colored in the movie is Brian Gilbert, an English teacher who teaches the junior and senior students). Erin, raised by a father who is absolutely not discriminative either, tries her best to show to her students that discriminative treatment toward other ethnic groups is something intolerable. <br>Erin successfully opens her students’ eyes about the beautiful life without hostility and hatred toward other ethnic groups. Eva shows that she can win her common sense by telling the truth in the court while ignoring her father’s teaching, “you are not against your own people, your own blood”. She chooses to listen to her heart although the impact of it is that her Latino gang, especially her father, hates her. She is even considered betrayer. <br>If I relate it to my previous post, we always need people like Erin and Eva to create a more peaceful and friendly life among ethnic groups in Indonesia. Elizabeth Widjaja, in my opinion, is one example like Eva: although her ethnic group is discriminated, it doesn’t mean that she has to do the same thing, especially to the indigenous, as a revenge. Besides, we also need help from the indigenous to show that Indonesia will progress more and more when all people, from all different ethnic groups, work hand in hand to develop the country where we live.<br>PT56 09.56 170208
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/03/22/racial-prejudice-3918690/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-03-22:/2008/03/22/racial-prejudice-3918674/Racial Prejudice 1nan292008-03-22T05:22:22+01:002008-03-22T05:22:22+01:00 <p>When reading the previous post at THE JAKARTA POST, I remembered one discussion I had with a good friend of mine, especially on the way the Dutch colonial government divided society into three hierarchical classes: the highest class was the Dutch living in this archipelago; the middle belonged to the indigenous people who had blue blood, as well as un-indigenous people, referring to those who had Arabian and Chinese blood; the lowest class was the commoners, the indigenous people who did not have blue blood. In that era, it was almost impossible for commoners to be rich, so it means the lowest class meant to poorest class as well.<br>Unfortunately, my good friend never heard such a ‘policy’ issued by the Dutch colonial government. (FYI, he is a Chinese Indonesian.) What he learned and remembered was the Chinese have been treated discriminatively since the colonial era until recently. And since I could not refer any published book or article to base my argument, we did not end the discussion satisfactorily. Therefore, when finding such short information in the previous article published at THE JAKARTA POST, I was glad. I can prove to him that I was not just talking bullshit thing to him. I really don’t remember where I read or heard such a thing before. Perhaps I heard it from my history teacher at school. <br>When I was a kid, I almost never had any experience to deal with Chinese in my neighborhood. And as I have written before in one post of mine, when I was a kid (read when I was in the elementary school), all of my schoolmates and most neighbors were Muslim. I found a difficulty to start making friend with non-Muslim when I entered junior high school. Therefore, it was more to different religion rather than different ethnic groups. My parents never taught their kids not to deal with people from different ethnic groups (this would be very impossible to do of course since our family don’t have Javanese blood. We are a family having Gorontalo—one ethnic group originating from North Sulawesi—blood living in the middle of Javanese.). They just taught us not to deal closely with non-Muslim. One main reason behind this: they were worried if their children fell in love with non-Muslim boy/girl because that meant let one of us go to hell. LOL. <br>Therefore, I found it weird when some friends living in the same boarding house with me when I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree (1986-1990) didn’t like Chinese at all. I never had any idea why the hell was that except that they got the hostility toward this ethnic group from their parents. I could not avoid thinking that perhaps it was also based on racial jealousy: many Chinese people were successful in their lives while many Javanese people (the commoners, not the nobles) had to live from scratch. They did not want to see the most probable reason behind that: the Chinese worked hard (their parents or grandparents migrating from China passed down the hardworking character to them; China was a place where people had to work hard to survive, be it the weather as well as the social life) while the Javanese did not work as hard as their Chinese contemporaries since they were taught since born that their land was fertile so that they did not need to work hard to survive and they were luckier to have friendlier weather compared to that of China.<br>Several months ago, especially when Semarang had its ambitious program—Semarang Pesona Asia—I had discussion with some students of mine where one of them had Arabian blood. I found out how this male student of mine had a big hostility toward the Chinese because his parents taught him so. If this is related to what happened to the way the Dutch colonial government divided the society, in the past the Arabian blood people were in the same level with the Chinese ones. This even perhaps strengthened the hostility between them (maybe especially from the Arabian toward the Chinese). After the colonial era ended, the indigenous showed their sharp teeth that they even deserved to have a higher social status in their own land than the non-indigenous. The Arabian were welcome more warmly than the Chinese because of the same religion: Islam. Most of the Chinese did not adhere Islam. Therefore, the Arabian, together with the indigenous people, cornered the Chinese hand in hand. The regimes of Soekarno and Soeharto prolonged and worsened the discriminative treatment toward the Chinese.<br>From what I wrote above, I can draw a conclusion that it will take a long time to let go of the discrimination toward the Chinese because of the long history. However, we are not to be pessimistic. I personally adore what Elizabeth Widjaja has done (see my previous post) toward her surrounding to decrease the racial gap inherited by the previous regimes. Besides, the cooperation of other ethnic groups is strongly needed to support the future warm and friendly relation among all ethnic groups in Indonesia. <br>PT56 09.30 170208
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/03/22/racial-prejudice-3918674/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-03-22:/2008/03/22/chinese-indonesians-3918664/Chinese Indonesiansnan292008-03-22T05:18:30+01:002008-03-22T05:18:30+01:00 <p><span>CHINESE-INDONESIANS FRIGHT PREJUDICE<br>By Lilian Budianto</span></p>
<p>Elizabeth Widjaja, a Chinese-Indonesian housewife who has opened her cozy home to disadvantaged children, is well known throughout the community.<br>Since 2003, Elizabeth has designated an area of her home to be a classroom for dozens of needy students. All of her pupils are non-ethnic Chinese children from the surrounding community in Kemang, South Jakarta. Her school promotes an understanding and appreciation of people’s differences and seeks to counter any prejudices.<br>She says she never designed any special curriculum to educate the children on mutual respect and how to maintain harmony in diversity. She believes children can learn better by the example she sets in breaking prejudice.<br>“I have learned to be an open-minded person and this school is the result,” says Elizabeth, who is married to an American.<br>Racial prejudice in this country dates back to the Dutch colonial period, when the Chinese community was placed second in a caste-like social system above other Indonesians. During the Dutch administration, integration among communities was almost impossible.<br>The post-colonial regimes of Sukarno and later the New Order continued to preserve the Dutch legacy of prejudice by endorsing laws that discriminated against ethnic Chinese descents.<br>Under Sukarno’s leadership, there was, among others, Government Regulation No. 10/1959, which restricted the business activities of Chinese Indonesians to cities.<br>The social and political position of Chinese Indonesians worsened during Soeharto’s regime, which banned Chinese names, characters and cultural performances in public. Chinese Indonesians also had to produce an Indonesian Citizenship certificate (SBKRI) to obtain official documents.<br>Although the government abolished the SBKRI in 1996, Chinese Indonesians were still asked for the certificate when dealing with government institutions.<br>Since the reform movement of 1998, discriminatory policies have been slowly phased out. In 2002, the government declared Chinese New Year a national holiday. The Chinese Indonesian community has since celebrated the day openly.<br>Although previous regimes institutionalized discrimination, many members the Chinese Indonesian community were able to advance not only in business but also in Government.<br>Johanis Tanak, who heads civil legal aid at the Attorney General’s Office, says his Chinese ethnicity has never inhibited his career as a state prosecutor. Hailing from Makassar, he applied to the prosecutor’s office after earning his degree in law.<br>“I enjoy working here. While people warned me of the many difficulties I would encounter because I am of Chinese descent, I don’t find it true,” he said. “If you show people you are self confident and do not tolerate discrimination people will not dare to take benefit by discriminating against you.<br><span>From The Jakarta Post<br>Published on Friday 8, 2008<br>Page 9</span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/03/22/chinese-indonesians-3918664/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-31:/2008/01/31/soekarno_vs_soeharto_my_dad~3659542/Soekarno vs Soeharto: My Dadnan292008-01-31T14:48:18+01:002008-01-31T14:48:18+01:00 <p>When my dearest Dad was still alive, I was not very close to him. He was a kind of old-fashioned parent who probably thought that he didn’t need to be close to the children, to make the children respect him. No wonder, as far as I remember, I never had a chance to talk heart to heart to him.<br>In the beginning of 1980s, after my family moved to our present dwelling place, I found a small book containing the story of Soekarno. I didn’t have any idea who bought it. But of course it must have been either my Mom or Dad who did it. For days after I found that book (I don’t remember the title), I made myself preoccupied to read the book. Reading the book made me know how great Soekarno, the first president of Indonesia, was. With several women falling in love with him and becoming his wives, I was thinking if I would fall in love with him too if I got to know him personally. :-p<br>In the general election 1984, the first election I joined, my Dad seemed worried that I would vote PDI. “Nana seemed to enjoy reading that book about Soekarno,’ he said to my Mom. “Tell her not to vote PDI. I don’t like Soekarno for his being polygamous. Not to vote Golkar either. We are Muslims. We are supposed to choose a political party that represents Islam, that is PPP.” He further said.<br>When my Mom told me what my Dad said, I complained, “My choice is my own choice, right? I am supposed to keep it for myself, aren’t I?” I showed my being rebellious.<br>“But don’t forget you are your Dad’s kid. He feeds you. You are to listen to what he says!” my Mom showed her authoritarian look. <br>Behind it, in fact I felt very surprised. My Dad used to work for state-owned bank, (used to be called Bank Pembangunan Indonesia). As a civil servant, he was to vote Golkar, if he wanted to go on working there. How could he not vote Golkar? <br>But my Mom told me that was my Dad. I never knew his political vision. He frankly told my Mom that he didn’t like the first nor the second president of Indonesia. As a very religious person, I believe he mixed his worldly life with his religion. Everything done must be based on religion. Abusing religion for someone’s worldly life seemed illogical to his opinion, perhaps. (Like we often see from many politicians nowadays.) He strongly believed that religion would really save someone’s life.<br>After I grew up, and I could see clearly many people abused religion for their own benefit, and especially after claiming myself as a feminist, sometimes I want to have a heart to heart discussion with my Dad. I want him to see me as an adult—no longer kid. Something impossible to happen though. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="middle" border="0"><br>(For example, when I was in senior high school, the New Order regime produced a movie about 30 September 1965 bloody event, to promote the heroic struggle of Soeharto to “save Indonesia from Communist”. All students, civil servants, as well as their spouses had to watch the movie in the cinema. I was very bothered with what I saw in the movie at that time. I easily “got led” by the main theme of the movie: DN Aidit with his allies under the Communist Party was the cruelest group of people. On the contrary, Soeharto was the hero. When I told my Dad about this opinion of mine, he easily said, “Don’t get cheated easily. The reality was not like that.” However when I asked him to explain what really happened, using his point of view, he didn’t say anything. He said that I was still too young to “know everything”.<br>I have a very different relationship with Angie. I often have heart to heart discussion with her, about anything. Besides, I also often treat her as an adult when discussing something.)<br>What I remember from my late Dad was that he was not the supporter of both Soekarno and Soeharto. However, since we never had a deep discussion, I never know his reason. <br>PT56 13.13 280108
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/31/soekarno_vs_soeharto_my_dad~3659542/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-31:/2008/01/31/soeharto_passed_away~3659520/Soeharto passed awaynan292008-01-31T14:42:47+01:002008-01-31T14:42:47+01:00 <p>On Sunday 27 January 2008 around 13.15 Angie and I entered a food stall selling chicken noodle and meatballs somewhere on Jalan Suyudono Semarang, not far from my dwelling place. Before both of us sat down, a child around five years old entered the food stall, running while yelling, “Soeharto tutup usia …. Soeharto tutup usia…” <br>He must have referred to Soeharto the second president of Indonesia who had been ailing now and again since he stepped down of the presidency on May 21, 1998. But still I was a bit surprised to hear that. <br>“Soeharto, our ex president?” I mumbled, meaning to talk to Angie.<br>She shrugged her shoulders, showing disinterest.<br>Meanwhile, the seller, a man around in his mid thirties, didn’t show any shock or surprise. He smiled widely, somewhat laughed, saying, “Entar malem melek-melek nih?” (“We will stay awake tonight?”)<br>An adult man in the food stall showed his doubt with that news, so he quickly went out of the stall, entering a small house behind the stall, where there was a television set in the living room. I could see it clearly from where I was sitting.<br>The seller said again, jokingly, “Perlu layat ga nih?” (“Will we go visit to show condolence?”) without showing any mournful expression on his face. <br>Since I had poor eyesight, I couldn’t see clearly what I saw on the television set from my seat. Still almost disbelieved in what I heard, I told Angie, “Honey, please watch that television and sharpen your ears, is it right what that little child said? Soeharto, the ex president passed away? Eventually?”<br>Angie seemed astonished to hear me saying so. “Don’t you think that he will die anyway, Mama? He has been ailing for some time, right?”<br>“I know he will die anyway, honey. But I also always thought that he would still be alive for some more time, to protect his children. You know what I mean? People say that Indonesian government will not really daringly do any legal action towards his family as long as he is still alive. And he had sort of power, in my opinion, that he would protect his offspring.” I explained.<br>“He has passed away now Mama.” Shortly Angie commented.<br>“Yes, he has. And I will be waiting for what will happen to our beloved country after this. I sometimes think that you are luckier than me living in an era where you can ‘undergo’ to have different presidents. Since I was born, until more than 31 years afterward, there was only one president, Soeharto. When I was attending school, until I graduated, I only underwent under one president to rule this country.”<br>Angie smiled widely to hear that. <br>After we finished eating our meal, hurriedly Angie and I dropped by at our ex dwelling place, not far from the food stall. Once in a while we visit this house since no one lives there anymore.<br>After Angie turned on the television set, I watched clearly the report given by many television stations about the death of Soeharto, making me talk to myself, “He has really gone now. At last …”<br> ****<br>Monday 28 January 2008 in the fitness center, after doing aerobics for about 50 minutes around 08.30am, I did some more exercise in the fitness area. There was one television set there. You can guess it showed the process of Soeharto’s burial. However, nobody there but me seemed interested in what was shown on television. <br>“Apparently, the grass root people don’t find it a big event.” I talked to myself. <br>I looked at the sky which was cloudy. The weather seemed mourning but not all people showed the same thing. <br>Although listening to some songs from my MP, I still tried to listen to the television, while doing some exercise there. However, not long after that, someone talked to the clerk of the fitness center, “Mbak, please play some songs, house music, to accompany us to do exercise.”<br>It was complete then. Nobody seemed interested in watching the television. The sound from it couldn’t be heard either.<br>Although some television stations aired programs showing so many people mourned Soeharto’s death, from what I saw in my surrounding, no one seemed to care about it. <br>Anyway, all human beings will drift away to the following kind of life. No one can avoid it.<br>PT56 12.40 280108</p>
<p>P.S.: My workmates felt intimidated by the programs related to Soeharto all the time for these past two days, 27-28 January 2008. And they also said, "Why were we forced to raise the flag? Why were we forced to show that we were mourning while in fact we are not?" LOL.
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/31/soeharto_passed_away~3659520/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-27:/2008/01/27/not_knowing~3638819/Not Knowing ...nan292008-01-27T12:41:03+01:002008-01-27T12:41:03+01:00
<p><span>I sometimes think that not knowing something is better than knowing. Or, not knowing makes someone’s life <em>more peaceful</em>.</span></p>
<p><span>In Javanese culture, in general, and in Central Java (or Semarang) in particular, people suggest that when someone is hospitalized, he or she is to leave the hospital (after getting cured) NOT on Saturday. Why? Javanese people believe that when someone leaves the hospital on Saturday, he or she is “doomed” to be back to the hospital, to be hospitalized again not long after that. </span></p>
<p><span>Although my family don’t have Javanese blood in our bodies, we somewhat believe in that so-called “myth”. It is easily understood because we have been living in Java for decades. Therefore, when my youngest sister was hospitalized last December (from the Christmas’ eve until the New Year’s eve), and the doctor let her go home on Saturday (December 29), my family chose to bring her home on Sunday December 30. (Un)fortunately, on that Saturday morning December 29, her temperature increased again and she got chilled terribly. This made the doctor ask us to let her stay in the hospital longer. We ourselves didn’t dare to bring her home. </span></p>
<p><span>Two days after that, Monday December 31 she seemed much better. She also started to feel bored of the situation in the hospital while her elder sisters felt exhausted attending her days and nights. My younger sister proposed an idea to bring the youngest home. Around 1pm when the doctor came to check her condition, I asked him that possibility. To our heart’s relief, he let us to bring her home.</span></p>
<p><span>Meanwhile, at the administration office, I met a guy who paid his sister’s expense. He was so in a hurry that he didn’t wait for the hospital to give him the computerized receipt. He simply said that he would come back afterwards to take the receipt and the change. (He didn’t live far from the hospital.) When asked by one of the nurses, he said, “We want to bring her home as soon as possible since tomorrow is Tuesday. We’ve got to do it before 4pm.” While giving you-know-what-I-mean look toward the nurse as well as to bewildered me. </span></p>
<p><span>I was dumbfounded. I didn’t ask him to explain what he meant. My being wise guy made me draw a conclusion—or a rhetorical question—whether the Javanese also treat Tuesday the same as Saturday as a “bad day” to go home from the hospital. Since that out of the blue made me uneasy, I called my mom (I was at the hospital attending my youngest sister together with Angie at that time) to pick us up before 4pm. ((NOTE: although it was still Monday, Javanese people believe that after 4pm, it could be considered to “have entered” or “to be counted” Tuesday already.)</span></p>
<p><span>(FYI, we left the hospital after 4pm because of some things. I didn’t tell my family about my “new finding” that Tuesday is not a good day to leave the hospital, not different from Saturday.)</span></p>
<p><span><strong>*</strong></span></p>
<p><span>Friday January 11 my youngest sister’s temperature increased again. </span></p>
<p><span>Sunday January 13, her body was very weak and the temperature was still high although we already took her to one doctor whose house was close to our dwelling place. The medicine that particular doctor gave didn’t work at all to decrease her temperature. Consequently, we decided to take her to the (same) hospital again. She had to be hospitalized due to dengue fever. Two weeks before, it was due to typhoid. </span></p>
<p><span>My mom commented, “We’ve avoided bringing home from the hospital on Saturday before this. However God “destined” that she had to be hospitalized again, what can we do? This is obviously out of our power.”</span></p>
<p><span>I kept quiet. I remembered the guy giving me you-know-what-I-mean look to explain why he brought her sister home in a hurry around two weeks before. This made me think that I had better not hear such a “rubbish myth” than I made myself sound so ridiculous and silly. </span></p>
<p><span>(I wrote this on January 18, 2008. My youngest sister was let go home on the day believed as the best day for Muslims. Since the doctor came to check her condition early, around 10.30—compared to the previous doctor who was responsible to treat her last December—I could ask my Mom to pick us up before 12, to make sure that it was STILL FRIDAY.</span></p>
<p><span>PT56 21.00 180108</span></p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/not_knowing~3638819/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-27:/2008/01/27/feminism_a_western_culture~3638724/Feminism: A Western Culture? 2nan292008-01-27T12:16:03+01:002008-01-27T12:16:03+01:00 <p>When I was in the elementary school, the second half of 1970s, I used to find many girls getting married after graduating from elementary school. Don’t imagine that they were around 11 or 12 years old when graduating though. For some reasons, many went to school at a later age (not around 6 or 7 years), so that it was possible they were already 15 years old or older than that when graduating from elementary school. In that decade, especially in the environment where I lived, it was common for girls around 15 to get married.<br>I was lucky because my parents didn’t just adopt such a “culture” so that they didn’t think of marrying me to anybody after graduating from elementary school. They let me continue my study to junior high school. And as a rebel, I didn’t continue to Muhammadiyah school, I chose a state school instead. It means I did not conform to the “culture” in my family. I went to a state senior high school too.<br>In a narrow sense, in that decade, it was a culture for women to get married before reaching 18 years old. (According to Children’s Convention, anybody who is under 18 years old is still considered a child that needs to be protected by the parents, society, as well as the country.) Women stopped getting a higher education after elementary school was also a culture at that time. <br>However, the condition is not really as “bad” as like that nowadays, although there are still same cases similar to that. Mentioning this, I want to remind my blog readers that to say culture is something dead, moreover culture is created by God, instead of constructed by society, is absolutely mistaken. Nothing doesn’t change, wise people say.<br>Referring to my previous post, “Feminism: a western culture?” in this writing, I want to give another simple example to counter people’s accusation that feminism was just a movement from the west that was not suitable for the easterners. It is right that the term ‘feminism’ was coined for the first time in 1891 in America (Bauer, 1998:33). However, the most important thing is that the struggle behind this term—feminism. To me, feminism is to give women freedom to choose what they want to do in their lives, without any limitation only because they were born with breasts and vagina plus womb. <br>Not only women in the west can make decision for their lives; women in the east can do that too. Women are also human beings, as men who have enjoyed their being superior for centuries. It does not mean that I want women to be superior though. LOL. Equality is more beautiful.<br>In my own life, by claiming myself as a feminist (though it is not really important), I want to emphasize that I adore making decisions for myself. <br>Please stop abusing the term ‘culture’ only to keep the status quo of the patriarchal society. <br>PT56 13.45 220108
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/feminism_a_western_culture~3638724/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-27:/2008/01/27/feminism_a_western_culture~3638705/Feminism: A Western Culture?nan292008-01-27T12:12:18+01:002008-01-27T12:12:18+01:00
<blockquote>“Feminism is western lifestyle. Therefore, as eastern people, we are not to follow it because it is not our culture. It can be added too that feminism is against Islamic teachings. Consequently, as eastern Muslim, we are forbidden to give green light to feminism to “intrude” our way of life.”</blockquote>
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<p>How often have you read such a statement? Or probably, how often have you stated such a doubt about feminism?<br>To counter such a doubt (I just got such an accusation at my blog at <a href="http://afemaleguest.multiply.com)">http://afemaleguest.multiply.com)</a> in this writing, first of all I’d like to cite the definition of culture I took from “World Book 2005” (the digital version).</p>
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<blockquote>“Culture is a term used by social scientists for a way of life. … People are not born with any knowledge of a culture. They generally learn a culture by growing up in a particular society. … Therefore, one of its characteristics is that culture is acquired through learning, not through biological inheritance. Children take on the culture in which they are raised through enculturation.“</blockquote>
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<p>Hundred thousands years ago, our ancestors moved from one place to another place. They could move from the east to the west, or on the way around, from the west to the east. They would bring their habits (read => culture) wherever they would go. When the era of ‘nomad’ ended (this started especially after women invented agriculture), they would develop their culture in their respective place, based on their way of thinking. Different places absolutely would create different ‘culture’. <br>Meanwhile, gender bias has been on men’s minds since immemorial time. The “invention” of some celestial religions would strengthen it since those religions were “invented” by men. Therefore, no matter whether one culture was developed in the east or in the west, apparently those cultures had one similarity, the marginalization of women. <br>Perhaps you still remember the glory of Islamic nations with their ‘cultures’ many centuries ago. Muslim scientists invented many things. However, the fight among three Abrahamic faiths (to win “the prize” as the most righteous religion) made those nations left behind. I assume that it was due to the unnecessary fight. Therefore, when the western nations progressed with their sciences, way of thinking, advanced inventions, etc, the eastern nations were even in the dark age. <br>Related to that, it is very understandable when women in the west started to question why they were marginalized first while women in the east were still ‘dumb’. However, to say that feminism ideology is ‘western’ and that it is not appropriate for the eastern women, with reason that it is not our culture is very shallow. <br>Started with the first women summit in Seneca Falls in 1848, American women (read western women) began struggling for equality. The printing machine and publishing companies obviously were more developed there rather than, in Indonesia let’s say, in that era. Although those women were attacked by the cult of true womanhood (where one of its tenet was that women were not allowed to write because writing was men’s sphere), they still produced writings to protest. <br>In Indonesia, around the same era, very few women got their chance to get education. It is understandable then if they could not pour out their protest in a form of writings. However, we have one very good example of it, R.A. Kartini with her letters to her Dutch friends. She protested why she could not continue her study to a higher level. She also questioned why her fellow women citizens were not allowed to get education at all. I believe many other women also questioned similar things, only their protests were not recorded appropriately. <br>It is also underestimating to say that women in the east are not supposed to follow the struggle for equality. In other words, it can be said that those women cannot perceive the unequal treatment they get from the society, using ‘culture’ as the tool. (e.g. by saying “feminism ideology is just not eastern culture.”)<br>At the beginning of its ‘birth’, we know that feminism was proposed by white, middle class women so that it did not really represent the whole women in all nations. Therefore, to accommodate this lack, more kinds of feminisms appeared, where one of them is multicultural feminism. Their emergence apparently has made feminism ideology something down to earth, something very common in women’s lives for women living in the developing countries. <br>Culture is often used as a scapegoat to refuse a new thing. It is ‘abused’ in a form that human being is not a free creature to use their awareness to value something. As I have cited above, culture is acquired through learning. There is no wrong when someone has different way of thinking, or different value as long as they do not harm the society. They have different ways to view culture through their learning, using their common sense, and not just passively follow what the crowd considers as ‘culture’. <br>To end this writing, whether feminism ideology is western or eastern ‘culture’, it is no longer important. The more important thing is that using our common sense and awareness to view a piece of culture is appropriate for our lives or not. Afterwards, respect other people’s values in the hope that they will respect our values too. <br>PT56 13.35 210108
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/feminism_a_western_culture~3638705/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-09:/2008/01/09/women_the_oppressed_and_the_oppressor~3551256/Women: the Oppressed and the Oppressornan292008-01-09T14:38:23+01:002008-01-09T14:38:23+01:00 <p>Several weeks ago, a workmate of mine told me about a neighbor of hers who was treated very unfairly by his mother. The mother has four children. She treated her husband (or ex husband, I am somewhat not clear, but they lived in different houses) very selfishly. My workmate’s neighbor who was not treated well by his mother would be scolded very poignantly by the mother if he went to the father’s house to “look for an ally” to “face” the selfish mother. <br>When telling me about this case, my workmate said, “I don’t understand how a woman can be such a cruel person. She didn’t treat her husband well. She forbade her children to be close to the father while she herself didn’t treat the children fairly. She really didn’t represent “woman’s face” who, in the patriarchal culture, was usually the oppressed. Instead of being the oppressed, she herself was the oppressor. How could such a thing happen?”<br>To comment my workmate’s rhetorical question, I said that we could not really generalize things that happen around us. There must have been a very crucial thing that happened to that woman so that she acted like that. It could be the way she was raised by her parents, or the “lesson” she herself “deducted” from her life experience, or any other things. <br>“Was she a kind of woman that feminist movement wanted to ‘shape’, very contradictory from the stereotypes of women in the patriarchal culture: submissive, weak, feminine, vulnerable, etc? How could she know about feminist movement while in my opinion she was just a very common woman, not really educated?”<br>This was the following rhetorical question from my workmate.<br>I said that when feminist movement wanted to reach ‘equality’ between men and women, it was very different from what she illustrated as “women control men”. Instead of being the oppressed (men were the oppressor), feminist movement did not automatically mean women oppress men back. It was not ‘equality’; it was taking revenge. <br>How could such a woman exist in the patriarchal culture?<br> <strong>*</strong><br>In Jurnal Perempuan number 54 with the main topic “Celebrating Women’s Diversity”, there is one main article that attracted me. It was entitled “’Batu Permata Milik Ayahanda’: Dongeng Tradisional Indonesia” (“’Father’s precious stone’: Indonesian Traditional Fairy Tales”) written by Riris K. Toha-Sarumpaet, a professor of children’s literature from University of Indonesia. The article was the result of Riris’ research on many fairy tales in Indonesia. <br>In short, there are two categories of women in those fairy tales: the oppressed, and the oppressor. The oppressed women can be found in some fairy tales following Cinderella motive, such as “Putir Busu dan Bawi Sandah” from Dayak, one ethnic group located in Kalimantan, the biggest island in Indonesian archipelago. As an oppressor, people can take “Malin Kundang”—this tale illustrates how the son was cursed to be a stone by the mother. Besides teaching children to be obedient, this fairy tale also depicted a heartless mother who was not willing to forgive the only son. Fairy tales illustrating sibling rivalry—such as “Bawang Merah Bawang Putih”, women simply are contradicted to each other—the oppressor and the oppressed. <br>When reading or listening to fairy tales with two contradictory kinds of women, children probably internalize the stories into their sub-consciousness. Patriarchal culture—with the help of those fairy tales—cruelly shapes children’s way to view women. As a result, they can grow up without any choices but the two: being the oppressed or the oppressor. <br> <strong>*</strong><br>Going back to the case of my workmate’s neighbor, his mother in fact is just another victim of the status quo of patriarchal culture. <br>PT56 12.45 080108</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/women_the_oppressed_and_the_oppressor~3551256/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-09:/2008/01/09/educational_system_in_indonesia~3551196/Educational System in Indonesianan292008-01-09T14:26:35+01:002008-01-09T14:26:35+01:00 <p>Monday afternoon December 24, 2007, I attended a class having a presentation time. There were five students to present their papers. However, I was attracted only to two of them. One student talked about “After graduating from senior high school, what’s next?” and the other one talked about “Deterioration of the educational system in Indonesia”. Both of them are high school students.<br>The first student. He mentioned three possibilities of what a person usually does:<br>1.Continuing their studies to a higher level education<br>2.Postponing their studies<br>3.Working<br>Related to the second possibility, the presenter gave two reasons: There are two reasons for this: the first shocking reason (for me of course) is because someone wants to enjoy his/her life. I was wondering to find out that there were a group of people that want to “enjoy their life” after graduating from senior high school. They don’t want to directly continue studying perhaps because they are tired to study. They don’t want to face any responsibility they have to bear as students: studying, making assignments, doing examination, etc. They don’t want to work either because they are not ready yet to be responsible with their own life. Both studying and working need big responsibilities. <br>Life means responsibility. When we dare to live, we’ve got to dare the risk.<br>The second reason (very logical for me) is to save some money before continuing their study since they don’t have enough fund. Some unfortunate people cannot continue their study at once because their parents cannot afford the tuition.<br>For the third possibility, some people choose to work because perhaps they want to collect some money to continue their study, referring to the second possibility with the second reason. Some other people perhaps think that the diploma they get from senior high school is enough already for them to get a job with enough income for their life. Or sometimes the fact that people graduating from a higher level education do not get appropriate job so that they have to do jobs done by senior high school graduates probably makes people lazy to continue their study to college. <br>When I asked the presenter whether he did a research by distributing a questionnaire to find out how many percents senior high school graduates do the first, second, and third possibilities, I got a disappointing answer: he did not make that research. When I asked him the second possibility for the first reason—to enjoy life--, he mentioned his brothers and cousins did that. “They have money to directly continue their life, I assume. However, they choose to stay home and do their hobbies: such as being racer (an amateur one).”<br>“Will you do that later after graduating?” another teacher asked him.<br>“Maybe Ma’am,” was his disappointing answer. <br>“Deterioration of the educational system in Indonesia” the second presenter meant was referring to the idea of the government to include six subjects in the national examination for senior high school students. For several years (I am sorry I don’t pay attention for how many years exactly), the third grade senior high school students had only three subjects tested in the national examination: English, Bahasa Indonesia, and Mathematics. They did the examination for three days. It meant they prepared only one subject for one day. While the new policy—six subjects to be tested—will comprise three days too. It means students have to prepare two subjects in one day. The presenter conveyed his doubt whether students would really have enough time to prepare it. When they don’t have enough time, it is doubted that they will not prepare it well. They will just ‘memorize’ the material to be tested without comprehending it thoroughly. Indonesia’s next generation’s quality will be decreasing.<br>To comment this topic, I remembered the time when I was at high school, more than twenty years ago. Majoring in “Language”, I got five subjects to be tested in the national examination while my fellow students majoring in “Science” got also six or even seven subjects to be tested. We did that also in three/four days. Minimal score to pass one subject was 6 and WE DID NOT COMPLAIN for that. <br>The presenter got surprised to hear this and said, “Well, Ma’am, I believe at that time you didn’t get lots entertainment so that you could concentrate well. My generation gets lotsa tempting entertainment so that it is difficult for us to concentrate only on our study.”<br>“I am sorry to say but you HAVE TO set your first priority for your own future!” was my response.<br>Talking about the educational system in Indonesia that obliges students ONLY to memorize, and not really comprehend, it has been going on for several generations. I will take one example I experienced. When studying English grammar, I learned and memorized twelve kinds of tenses, from Simple Present Tense until Past Perfect Continuous Tense. I memorized the pattern very well, I could answer questions on tenses flawlessly when those tenses were given separately. However, when I needed to use it in the daily life, mixing many kinds of tenses at once, I did not really know which was which. Memorizing the theory was done perfectly. However, applying the theory in the real life meant something else.<br>Referring to what Bob Sadino said about the educational system in Indonesia, (in one seminar in one city in Indonesia), he said about the human resources in Indonesia who are smart, memorizing theories perfectly, unfortunately they do not get time to apply the theories. It means those brilliant human resources are not really ready to be used at workplaces. Worse, even the teachers also do not know how to apply the theories because what they master is only the theories but not the application. When the teachers do not know, how will they teach the students?<br>The deterioration of the educational system in Indonesia is not simply the policy of the government to give high school students more burden in the national examination. It is more thorough and complicated.<br>My comment for the two presenters: they needed to prepare the papers to be presented more seriously. Their topics were interesting enough but they did not make the papers well. This is also a sign showing that there is deterioration in the quality of the graduates in the English Course where I work. (FYI, since 2003 we have used new books with more up to date topics discussed.)<br>BWT 10.15 261207</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/educational_system_in_indonesia~3551196/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-09:/2008/01/09/the_death_of_the_author~3551183/The Death of the Authornan292008-01-09T14:24:39+01:002008-01-09T14:24:39+01:00 <p>I am not sure whether I would come to the same conclusion when writing my thesis if I had not used some theories I chose: Goldmann’s Genetic Structuralism, Feminist Literary Theory (referring to Susan Schibanoff’s READING AS A WOMAN), and psychoanalytical criticism proposed by Sigmund Freud. I used THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as the mental evidence to do my research. I needed to know Gilman’s background—her familial as well as her intellectual ‘journey’; the social values adhered by the majority of Americans when the short story was written. This was the reason why Goldmann’s Genetic Structuralism was chosen. Schibanoff’s idea—reading as a woman—was picked up to emphasize that when reading THE YELLOW WALLPAPER using men’s point of view, although someone has used Genetic Structuralism, he/she could still come up with patriarchal result. For example, instead of blaming the husband for leading the unnamed narrator to the edge of insanity, he/she could share the same opinion with the husband that the narrator really needed to be “saved” from the nervous breakdown by staying away from writing. Freud’s psychoanalytical criticism was necessary to use to see the work as the manifestation of Gilman’s suppressed wish—to openly criticize Dr. S. Weir Mitchell for his wrong treatment toward nervous breakdown patients.<br>I don’t belong to the brilliant type of student so that maybe I wouldn’t be able to come to such a conclusion if I “killed” Gilman, let’s say by adopting Barthes’ theory “The Death of the Author”; moreover with the very strong religious indoctrination I got in my younger years believing in men’s superiority on women. </p>
<strong>*</strong>
<p>There was somewhat relief feeling in me when finding out that Ayu Utami did not really agree with Barthes’ theory “The Death of the Author”. Her main reason was she was often invited abroad to “explain” what she wanted to convey in her novel SAMAN, especially after it was translated to one foreign language. Besides she was considered ALIVE, so that it was important to listen to her explanation what her book was all about, Ayu also admitted that she did partly to promote her book, either to help the publishing company or for her own profit. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="middle" border="0"> <br>Since I do not support Barthes’ theory, I myself also do expect that the readers of my writings (both in my blogs and in many personal emails I have sent to my loved ones or friends, as well as many comments I have written in some mailing lists I join) do not “kill” me; I hope that they read my writings exactly like what I want to convey. <br>However, I must realize that in fact this expectation of mine is sometimes somewhat “high” to reach by some people. I found out some people misread my writings and asked me something that made me dumbfounded, “How could they come to this conclusion?” I asked myself, feeling (a bit) unhappy. <br>I have been trying to find out why this happened. I asked myself some questions:</p>
<p>1. Have I written it thoroughly so that people will easily understand it?<br>2. Or on the way around, have I written it so little, expecting people can “guess” by themselves what is in fact I am talking about, without giving complete data? It sometimes happens, especially when I take for granted that the topic is widely known.<br>3.Or have I written it so “loudly” that people are just enchanted by the choice of words and the flow of my ideas but they do not really catch what I convey?<br>4.Do the readers read my writings thoroughly to understand them?<br>5.The last, and the most annoying question (YOU CAN JUST IGNORE IT! LOL.) is whether the readers have enough intellect to understand my writings. This probably happens as the result of the four questions above (I don’t write it thoroughly, I don’t give enough data, I write by giving too much redundancy or complicated choice of words and the sentence flow, plus the readers don’t have enough time to read my writings comprehensively).</p>
<p>Above all, I must GIVE IN that Barthes’ theory does exist so that the readers of my writings can “kill” me. Nevertheless, I assume if the two-way communication happens between the readers and me, this violent “killing” would not happen to me. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="middle" border="0"><br>PT56 22.11 231207</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/the_death_of_the_author~3551183/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-09:/2008/01/09/angie_versus_mia~3551157/Angie versus Mianan292008-01-09T14:20:25+01:002008-01-09T14:20:25+01:00 <p><img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/R2zdF43rqGI/AAAAAAAAAmQ/Re93QbxZwb0/s320/DSC00520.JPG" border="0" alt=""><br>Angie means my Lovely Star—Dzikrina Angie Pitaloka; while Mia is the nickname of Mia Thermopolis, the narrator of teen-lit novel entitled Princess Diaries written by Meg Cabot.<br>I bought the first serial of Princess Diaries in 2003, four years ago, when Angie was twelve years ago. In the first book, Mia was fourteen years old. As far as I remember Princess Diaries is the first teen-lit novel Angie read. At first, she complained why I bought here such a book, “Mia is fourteen while I am only twelve,” she said.<br>“Well honey, only two years difference, that’s not a big deal of course. I do hope you can get a good lesson from this novel.” I reasoned four years ago.<br>And my guess was right: Angie loved it. And sometimes she even was so absorbed that she saw herself as a “princess to be”. LOL. I assume she mixed it with Cinderella story (with its Cinderella complex!!!) (Un)luckily, in the first serial, Meg Cabot didn’t illustrate Mia as a feminist, only her mother: as a feminist who often did weird things with her weird feminist friends. It was similar to Angie and me: Angie didn’t know much about feminism, and perhaps she also saw me as weirdo: a feminist who was much different from her friends’ mothers, or our female neighbors who seemed to enjoy being full housewives. Unfortunately, in the first series of Princess Diaries, the relationship between Mia and her mother was not as open as my relationship with Angie since Mia seemed not to like her mother’s “weird” things many feminists (probably) do: such as not marrying Mia’s father, although she already got a baby from the man: Mia. One thing I remember (though I don’t remember in which serial Cabot wrote about it): when Mia’s mother offered her to talk about sexuality openly by coming to Mia’s room and encouraging her to talk about it heart to heart: instead of having a lively and comfortable talk with her feminist mother, Mia rejected it, saying to herself: “Sex? Oh no, my mom must be insane thinking that I am already interested in sex.” Well, I don’t remember how old Mia was when Cabot narrated that part. (FYI, I have the complete serials of Princess Diaries, only Angie doesn’t collect them in one bookshelf. Perhaps some books are borrowed by her friends. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="middle" border="0"><br>Realizing that as a teenager, Angie is still undergoing unstable mental progress, frankly speaking I often feel worried that Angie will blatantly follow her “role models” in some teen-lit novels she reads, including Princess Diaries. (The era when I bought her some religious collection short stories has been over! It is because in those stories the narration is clearly only between black and white, good and bad, no character is in grey area. In the reality, life is not just black and white like that, oftentimes we are surrounded by “grey things”, moreover I raise Angie as a secular, which in my opinion is often related to grey area.) Mostly after reading some teen-lit novels or watching movies/soap operas on television about teenagers, I wait for Angie to ask me about what she has read/watched, and discuss it together. She seldom does that, though.<br>In the last serial of Princess Diaries (the title is “Princess in the Brink” if I am not mistaken), Mia was narrated to be thinking of doing lovemaking for the first time with Michael. I assumed, no matter what, Cabot wouldn’t let it happen. (Honestly, as a feminist living in Indonesia, an area called “the Eastern” part of the globe, thinking of Angie will do it before getting married—moreover in a very young age, just like Mia who was still sixteen years old, the same age as Angie at the moment—really scared me, although I DO REALIZE that doing sex is everybody’s right.)<br>I must admit that there was a relief feeling in me when coming to the part that Mia didn’t do that with Michael. (silly of me! LOL.) Surprisingly, Cabot then wrote the “intimate scene” between Mia and her mother, because Mia needed to confide in someone, and she chose her mother as the first person to release her disappointment knowing that in fact Michael was no longer virgin. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="middle" border="0"><br>After reading that, I noticed that recently, Angie loved to be intimate with me on the bed before both of us fell asleep: one thing she used to love doing as a kid, but she seldom did that after she reached teenage.<br>Two nights ago, while lying on the bed in the dark, Angie was very close to me, kissing my right ears, and whispered, “You smell nice Mama. Will I still smell good like you after I become a mother?” LOL.<br>As what always happens to anybody else, kids will always be kid, won’t they? Anyway, I still love when Angie does things like what she used to do to me when she was a small kid. <img src="/img/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="middle" border="0"> A mother will always be a mother? LOL. LOL.<br>PT56 15.30 151207</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/angie_versus_mia~3551157/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2008-01-09:/2008/01/09/ayu_utami~3551128/Ayu Utaminan292008-01-09T14:13:58+01:002008-01-09T14:13:58+01:00 <p><img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_Eq2V6MQyo5E/R2zWeI3rqFI/AAAAAAAAAmI/di5B57_IHyQ/s320/ayu1.jpg" border="0" alt=""><br>Ayu Utami, one feminist writer in Indonesia, is not a supporter of Roland Barthes’ theory of “the death of the author”. She said that when she was invited by the committee of KAMPOENG WEDANGAN, one event to encourage business people in Semarang to improve entrepeneurship. The same occasion was also made use to promote local cultures to public. <br>What made Ayu Utami negate Barthe’s theory? She said that when her first novel SAMAN was translated to a foreign language—let’s say French—she was usually invited to come to that country, to explain the public there what SAMAN was all about. It clearly showed that Ayu was not considered dead after she had her novel published. Proudly, Ayu said that her novel SAMAN had been translated to six foreign languages. Besides French, SAMAN has been translated into English, Dutch, Czech, French, Russian, and I forgot the other one. <br>Referring to the literary polemic that happened some time ago in the internet, I asked her opinion that for some critics in Indonesia—especially those who come from opposite group of Komnitas Utan Kayu—her novel SAMAN was just rubbish, because it contained many vulgar sexual words. Instead of understanding what Ayu wanted to convey to public, they “killed” Ayu. Even when the polemic was very “hot” in the internet, Ayu did not comment anything. She said that she did not mean to close her mind from any criticism. She also welcomed any criticism when she considered the criticism was “on the right path”. When I mentioned name Katrin Bandel who had a book published to criticize Ayu’s ideas on women’s rights to be not virgin (Ayu said it was the main idea of SAMAN), Ayu did not comment anything. Instead she said:</p>
<p><span>“So far, there have been two criticisms on SAMAN that I consider eligible to pay attention. One of them is from a feminist from Australia. She said that no matter what, SAMAN still talked about men’s superiority on women. Among some leading characters in SAMAN, the most conspicuous one is SAMAN, a male character. Saman is the hero for the villagers in one plantation in Sumatra; he belongs to public creature. On the contrary, the female characters (Laila, Yasmin, Cok, and Sakuntala) are just decorations in the story.” </span></p>
<p>By the way, the main reason why the committee of KAMPOENG WEDANGAN invited Ayu Utami was to share her experience in writing novels; how to be an entrepeneur by being a writer. She said that one step someone must undergo before being an author is being a writer. <br>LL 15.35 221207</p>
<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2008/01/09/ayu_utami~3551128/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:afemaleguest.blog.co.uk,2007-12-15:/2007/12/15/religious_saved~3446628/Religious = Saved?nan292007-12-15T12:24:56+01:002007-12-15T12:24:56+01:00 <p>When reading one article in Jurnal Perempuan number 54, I remember one friction I had with a very good friend of mine. It was not about gender equality though; it was more on religious pluralism. <br>I was born in a very strict religious Muslim family, raised by religious parents who happen to have conventional beliefs (such as only Muslim will go to heaven, believe strongly that heaven was created by God only for Muslim, and hell was created for human beings who don’t get ‘enlightenment’ by adhering in Islam.), parents who undergo different spiritual journey from me, either because they intentionally let themselves “closed” from any other possibility (let’s say that God is not a SEVERE CREATOR THAT WILL BLOODY PUNISH GOD’S CREATURES IN A PLACE CALLED HELL AFTER THE JUDGMENT DAY, or God did plan that human beings live adhering different religions/beliefs, God indeed LETS it happen), or because my parents live in a “limited sphere” so that they never come to the ‘enlightenment’ I got.<br>My spiritual journey eventually made me “convert” to be a secular Muslim. However, my background—used to be in those rigidly conventional Muslim’s shoes—made me easy to understand why those people think that way. I also understand if those people need to do something “important” (according to their way of thinking) in order to “save” me from secularism. And since I am the minority in my family, my struggle is really not easy, is it? (To convince them that I don’t need to be ‘saved’ in their way.)<br>My good friend said that he would never understand those people—that he said like “frogs in a coconut shell”—who are strongly convinced that only Islam is their ticket to enter heaven. “They let themselves blinded by their strong belief in their religion that they worship as they worship God.” He argued. It is just like he did not understand why I relented to an “imbecile” (quoting one term used by Laksmi in her article “Addicted to Religion” somewhere at <a href="http://www.superkoran.info">www.superkoran.info</a> to call a religion addict) that happens to be my very own sister. <br>My good friend does not have the same background as me. Is that why he would never understand why I relented? <br>Oh, how I often feel painful and broken hearted when talking about religiosity versus secularism.<br>PT56 22.05 091207
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<p> <small> <a href="http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/2007/12/15/religious_saved~3446628/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>