“Should Gender be Equal?”: Gender Inequality in Family Form
Story By: Maulita Shinta Maharani (English Department 2020)
Gender equality is one of the requirements of a sustainable world, which means that women and men should be equal so that we will live in a peaceful society. In fact, we know that women around the world do not really experience equal rights and this has been a great issue up to this day. One of my friends said that his future wife had to be a housewife, doing all the domestic stuff while he can be free both inside and outside the house. Coming from a family which holds the strong patriarchy system makes me realize that gender inequality still exists in any field in our modern society. But I believe that this issue does not suddenly appear, there must be some reason behind it; culture and social construction.
Talking about social construction, which is a norm, we often see that certain societies seem to limit women’s space. Take the patriarchy concept in which men hold the authority over the family group, for example, people with this kind of concept often think that men are so much more than women and obeying all things offered by men is a must. They often control women’s bodies, minds and sexuality by relating these three things to the important aspects in our society, the culture, the law and the religion.
Certain societies with certain cultures and beliefs believe that women must stay at home, be the housewives, take care of their husband and their children, and that is it, they cannot be anything else. Every decision women make must be based on men’s approval. They tend to control anything women do and they will not let them choose freely of their own will . If their men say no, then it is forever no. This only shows that women’s space is restricted by this patriarchal society.
Another concrete example of this concept is when women have to have the ability to do all the domestic chores such as cooking and cleaning because society considers these things as the definition of femininity. If they cannot do one of these things, they cannot escape from the scorn thrown by society. They consider cooking and cleaning as women’s duty, a woman will not be a complete woman if she cannot do these things. In fact, cleaning and cooking are the basic life skills everyone should have and these have nothing to do with gender recognized by these two recognizable sexes. When women start to move away from this social construction, they are often seen as ones that transgress traditional constructions of femininity.
Living in multicultural societies makes me realize that there are so many different perspectives. Patriarchal society still exists, but we cannot deny that there are some other societies which no longer hold this way of life. These societies are more open to any new things that come up as the time goes by with its intellectual growth. We can see that there are so many educated people who start to realize and understand that equality is important. A lot of families these days understand that the responsibility of a household becomes the responsibility of each one who lives in it, cooking and cleaning can be done by anyone in a family.
Some people understand the importance of equality and some other people still do not. But we have to accept that gender inequality still exists in a family form and it is our duty to fix it so that we will live in a peaceful and fair environment. We can start doing this by encouraging our closest ones; family, friends, colleagues etc. Let them know that gender equality is a foundation of a sustainable world, it is the base form of fundamental human rights.
References
Facio, A. (2013). What is Patriarchy?, 1–5. http://www.learnwhr.org/wp-content/uploads/D-Facio-What-is-Patriarchy.pdf.
Mahardhika, G. R. (2020). Belenggu Budaya Patriarki terhadap Kesetaraan Gender di Indonesia. https://www.its.ac.id/news/2020/04/22/belenggu-budaya-patriarki-terhadap-kesetaraan-gender-di-indonesia/.
