For four consecutive Monday nights, beginning January 29th, I'll be snuggled up at home watching Lifetime Television which will air four movies based on my books. Mandalay and Stephanie Germain Productions have pulled out all the stops in bringing these books to life. I've already screened the first three, and can tell you I'm completely delighted.Nora Roberts "quote"
Angels Fall, starring Heather Locklear and Jonathan Schaech premieres on Monday, January 29, followed on February 5 by Montana Sky, with John Corbett, Ashley Williams, Charlotte Ross and Diane Ladd. On February 12, don't miss Blue Smoke with Alicia Witt, Matthew Settle, Scott Bakula and Talia Shire. To round up the productions, Carolina Moon with Claire Forlani, Oliver Hudson and Jacqueline Bisset airs on February 19. The shows air at 9 PM ET/PT.
I've been thrilled with every step of the process of seeing my books translated to the screen, and feel everyone involved did amazing work, producing stories that held true to the heart and the characters of my books. And for a little bonus, I have a cameo in each film. See if you can spot me! I hope when you flip on your TV and tune to Lifetime on those four Monday nights, you're as entertained and pleased as I am.
Lifetime: http://www.lifetimetv.com/movies/noraroberts/index.php
The Compilation of Islamic Law chapters 79-84 states that in a marriage the husband has a role as the breadwinner and the wife as the housewife who is responsible for all kinds of domestic affairs. This law then justified the gender-biased view that has existed for ages, about dichotomy of public and private spheres. There are two main consequences of this law.
First, when a woman works outside the house, she will have double roles—as the breadwinner and as the homemaker. When she unluckily has a gender-biased husband, she will have to do all of the household chores without the husband’s help, merely because doing household chores is considered as the woman’s destiny. A woman is born and destined to be the homemaker and not as the breadwinner. The selfish man will (make) use of the unfair law for his egotism.
The second consequence is because a woman is not considered as being born as the breadwinner, she will be considered as single in the workplace. Consequently, she will not get any allowance a married man gets although she is already married. When the workplace is generous enough to give her the allowance, she has to pay tax as the single woman, which is higher than a married man does.
Some years ago, there was a dispute about this in my ex workplace. A female workmate of mine complained to the company why she was considered as single while in fact she was married and she had four children. Consequently, her tax was higher than the male workmate who was married and had four children too. Sadly, I explained to her that it was not the policy of the workplace where we worked together, however it was the policy of the Indonesian government.
This is just one example that
PT56 22.05 160107
The Compilation of Islamic Law produced by the New Regime Era under Soeharto is proven biased gender by Kelompok Kerja Pengarusutamaan Gender (The Teamwork on Gender Mainstream) coordinated by Siti Musdah Mulia. This article of mine will focus on two things:
The answer of these gender-biased chapters is simply that women are considered as the weaker sex. Women are considered as the weaker sex not only physically but also intellectually. And in this case, women are considered intellectually weaker than men so that they are not capable to represent themselves in the wedding ceremony. Marriage is one big decision to make in someone’s life and a woman as less intelligent creature is viewed as not able to make a good decision for it.
Many centuries ago when women were not allowed to pursue education to be knowledgeable, it was perhaps logical. At that time women were imprisoned in their homes, didn’t get chance to know life beyond their confines. Therefore, the fiqh writers made gender-biased Islamic Law. To protect (or to imprison?) women, the fiqh writers from the middle centuries interpreted Alquran using their point of view belittling women’s existence.
In this era where many women—especially in Indonesia, because I am talking about law in Indonesia—have good chances to pursue their education, to be knowledgeable in all disciplines, they are supposed to be able to make their own decision, to represent themselves so that they no longer need a male relative to represent them on their own wedding ceremony. Women are not less intelligent than men anymore now.
How about mixed marriage? I remember when I was little, my teacher gave a reason why a Muslim woman is not allowed by marry a non Muslim man is because men are considered superior to women. It is okay then if in one marriage the husband is a Muslim while the wife is a non Muslim. The husband is expected to be able to show the superiority by trying to make the wife convert to Muslim. If not, this superior man will not easily convert to the wife’s religion. NOTE: it is simply because hr is considered superior than the wife. On the contrary, people are worried if a Muslim wife will be forced by her (superior) non Muslim husband to convert.
Again in this era where women can pursue their education as high as possible, and become knowledgeable, women are supposed to be considered as equal to men, no longer inferior. The knowledgeable women will not easily give in to the (superior) non Muslim husband to convert religion.
Besides, in a marriage, men and women are supposed to have the same rights and position. They must respect each other, including respect the respective religion. No one is supposed to try intimidating the other party to convert the religion.
In conclusion, the Islamic Law stating that a woman needs a male relative to be responsible for her on her wedding ceremony and that a Muslim woman cannot marry a non Muslim man is no longer valid.
PT56 21.18 160107
This term is the first time I get EC (Elementary School Children) class level 1 that consists of the first grade of elementary school students. There are six boys and seven girls. I find one new characteristic which is different from the FSC (First Step to Communication) class that contains junior high school students: the boys and girls in EC class get along better than those of FSC class. It seems that the first grade of elementary school students in my class don’t recognize any barrier yet between the two different sexes. It is okay for them to sit together. On the contrary, the FSC students always group themselves, boys sit with boys, while girls with girls. When I ask them to work in groups, they will strongly oppose me if I ask one group/pair consists of the two sexes. They just want to work with the same sex, one groups must consist only boys, or only girls. When I give them an assignment that will make them compete to each other, they will show big satisfaction when they beat the other group that consists of the opposite sex; showing like boys and girls are created to beat each other, to be the winner. LOL.
Adult classes that consist of senior high school students, college students or employees no longer show this special characteristic. They work well with anybody, no matter what sex their partner is.
I want to relate this to my review of “Little Manhattan” movie where boys and girls get along well when they are in kindergarten/nursery school, but they start to feel like a big and strong wall separate them when they come to the first grade of elementary school. Gabe starts to be attracted to a girl—or falls in love—when he is ten years old, perhaps in the fourth/fifth/sixth grade.
In
PT56 23.15 150107
Last Sunday
The launching of law to eliminate the domestic violence in 2004 seems not to have impact to reduce the violence done to women. It is shown by the increase of the violence done to women as noted by one Non Governmental Organization in
Does it mean that the law to eliminate the domestic violence doesn’t really work well to reduce the violence done to women? No. The law has opened people’s eyes that domestic violence is no longer a domestic case only so that the family—especially women that become more victims rather than men—has more courage to report to the police. Before 2004, people tended to hide the violence that happened in the family because people used to view it as personal/familial problem.
Going back to the news I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the news stated one rape case that happened to a nine-year-old girl (raped by one neighbor.). The mother of the girl herself decided to report to the police although her husband said no need to do that. I am of opinion that the mother is familiar with the elimination of domestic violence law while the husband still thinks that it is a familial problem. In
PT56 13.00 150107
In the fitness club I have joined for about one year, there are two women attract my attention recently. One has a daughter, fifteen years old; her husband passed away around two years ago; she is unemployed, surviving by using the money her late husband left. She said that sometimes she gets some financial aid from her own family members, but not from her late husband’s family members. The other one has a son, ten years old, her husband passed away around a year ago. She works as an aerobics instructor, and she said that she monthly gets some financial aid from her family members, especially from the late husband’s family.
If I relate these two cases with the gender perspective, I think that people still think that sons/boys always deserve to get better treatment than daughters/girls. Among low-income family, when they have financial constraint for education, they always have tendency to send their sons to go to school more than the daughters. They still believe that sons later will be the breadwinner so that they need the education better than the daughters. When talking about the nutrition, parents tend to give more nutritious food to sons rather than to girls. The fact
PT56 13.30 150107
