Gender Equality

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.

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.

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”.

To know my opinion on feminism (gender equality means feminist movement), read my previous post on “Feminism: a western culture?”

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.

Because women have been imprisoned in domestic sphere, they have had limited experience in public sphere.

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.

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

1. to be single, or married.
2. to be a full housewife or have career outside home
3. to be a full mother or a part time mother because they want to have career outside home
4. to be single parent when they don’t find any man suitable with their way of life
5. not to have a baby or to be a breeder
6. to work in public as well as domestic sphere
7. to be lesbian or straight
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)

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.

PT56 19.44 070108

Media and Gender

In Indonesia, there are not many people who understand the difference between ‘sex’ (refers to male and female) and ‘gender’ (refers to man and woman). Just like what I wrote here some time ago, that there still many people who don’t know the difference between ‘feminist’ and ‘feminine’.

Claudette Baldacchino, a feminist journalist, opined that gender refers to social, cultural, and psychological factors when one wants to define someone as masculine or feminine. Furthermore, Baldacchino also sated that gender is not just an important aspect how “other people” see and perceive “us”, but it also influences “our” way to see and perceive “ourselves”.

Last Friday August 24, 2007, I discussed ‘anorexia’ and ‘bulimia’ in my Intermediate 4 class. The class consisted of 16 students, six boys, eight girls, most of them are senior high school students, and only two of them—girls—are college students. The class took place from 2pm until 4pm, the time where many people are sleepy and tired, due to the hot weather in Indonesia, especially my hometown. We discussed two quite long passages. The passages illustrated a bulimic patient named Melissa DeHart. Her suffering started from her wish to be as slim as Hollywood celebrities that looked so slim; very pretty and attractive due to their slim bodies. DeHart wanted to be as pretty and attractive as them so she started to be on a strict diet to slim down her body.

I asked my class a question, “Why do many people think that being slim is beautiful?” None gave me an interesting and critical answer, but one. One female senior high school student answered, “Because having slim body means healthy, Ma’am. Fat bodies usually refer to diseases, such as hypertension, easy to get heart attack, obesity, etc. The others just said, “I don’t have any idea Ma’am…”

To me, it showed that they didn’t realize that they had been bombarded by media on the idea of beauty. There are many advertisements promoting that beauty is slim, both in electronic media—such as television—or printed media—such as newspapers, tabloids, or magazines. If one advertisement didn’t directly promote slimming product, it would use slim models that would emphasize the idea “pretty is slim” or “slim is pretty”. Some parties that want to socialize an idea “Big is Beautiful” did not succeed yet to change the “old” paradigm.

The fact that my students were not aware of the bombarding media on the idea “slim is pretty” showed the failure of their understanding and perceiving themselves using their own belief, when we wanted to refer it to Baldacchino’s definition on ‘gender’. They did not need to always follow what media said about something, they were supposed to be confident to use their own parameter when valuing something. In Indonesia, parameter of being pretty, besides having slim body—one universal thing I suppose, being pretty also refers to having fair complexion, and having long straight hair.

What is the relationship between media and gender?

If the supporters of the status quo of patriarchal culture use media to eternalise their ‘faith’ in male chauvinism, I am of opinion that people who struggle to create a more equal society use media too; such as publishing newspapers, magazines, tabloids or journals focusing on gender equality. Unfortunately, until now, journalism field is still considered masculine sphere. Research done by the International Federation for Journalist (IFJ) published in Brussels in 2003—involving 39 countries in the whole world—stated that the number of female journalists was only 38%, 11% higher than the similar research done one decade earlier. The number 38% only referred to the number of journalists, not including the decision makers, such as editor, the chief of departments, or even the owner of media.

The National Commission of Women in Indonesia encouraged people to write in public as one way to reduce domestic violence, including to support the non gender-biased media. Write anything. And in my opinion, the easiest media to tell the world is via blog. In addition, don’t forget what Baldacchino said, when writing, use our own way of thinking to understand and perceive our own experience.

PT56 09.17 110907

MAMAH DAN AA

MAMAH DAN AA
This morning (Friday June 15, 2007) when I was ironing some clothes, my mom was watching a television program called (if I am not mistaken) MAMAH DAN AA. This is a religious program, aired at Indosiar, every Friday from 5am till 6am.
Frankly speaking, after recognizing myself as a secular and having my own interpretation about the religion I have adhered since I was born, I didn’t really like watching such programs. I realize I sound arrogant for my own interpretation. However, in my opinion I often found many ulemas in such religious programs on television very patriarchal and wise guys when interpreting Alquran. As a feminist, I often feel annoyed with what is stated by those patriarchal ulemas (both men and women). As a secular and believing that people from different religions must support religious plurality all over the world, I often feel upset when some (narrow-minded) ulemas talk bad things about other religions, only to attract people’s attention to Islam or to convince the viewers/audience that Islam is the only absolute truth.
That’s why at first I felt disturbed with the sound of the television. While ironing, I was listening to some songs from my cutie notebook. However, when one caller asked the hostess, called as MAMAH, I was intrigued by the question. A married woman asked whether it was okay for a man to have affairs. She has got married for more than twenty-five years, and has four children. Unfortunately her husband was not a loyal one because she already found out three other women in her husband’s life. She asked, “What is the regulation for a married man to have affairs out of the marriage?”
If I read the question between the lines, because the caller emphasized on “a married man”, I concluded that behind the question, it was stated that “It is not okay for a married woman to have affairs, but it is okay for a married man to do that.” I remember around a year ago I happened to find a blog belonging to a Muslim (narrow-minded, misogynist) man who wrote that polygamy can be legally carried out without the consent of the first (or earlier) wife. He wrote (sorry, I didn’t note the blogsite, so I don’t remember it now) that a man is naturally polygamous so that it must be understandable if a man wants to have more than one wife. And to understand that nature, a man doesn’t need the consent of the other wife, and doesn’t need any reason either, such as what is written in the Compilation of Islamic Law in Indonesia (e.g. the first wife is infertile so that she cannot get pregnant, she suffers from a serious disease that will hamper her to serve the husband, she leaves and ignores her husband and children).
The question that can be interpreted as what I wrote above made me turn down the volume of the cutie notebook, and I tried listening to Mamah’s answer. She said, “It is absolutely not okay for married men and married women to have affairs. Allah stated in Alquran, “Don’t get close to adultery”. Only to get close to it is prohibited, moreover to do it. So, to answer your question, of course it is a big sin for your husband to have affairs, moreover to do adultery.”
The answer was quite soothing to my ears because the hostess mentioned that the law to stay away from adultery is for both men and women. It means she wanted to tell the audience/viewers not just to question, “Is it okay for a man to have affairs?” The question must be, “Is it okay for married couple—both men and women—to have affairs?”
The following gender-biased question came from one audience in the studio. “What does the Islamic law say about a woman who opens her husband’s mobile phone to read the messages and his mailbox to read the emails secretly?”
Referring to the consensus in patriarchal culture that a wife belongs to her husband, just like any other properties the husband has, many men think that they have full rights to know anything his wife keeps. On the contrary, since he is THE BOSS, THE PROPRIETOR, the wife doesn’t have any right to know anything the husband keeps.
The same as the first case, I also read the question like this, “It is okay for a husband to check his wife’s mobile phone and mailbox because he owns her. But not on the other way around.”
Different from what other people say that I often hear, husband and wife are supposed not to keep any secret, (once they got married, they already become one, one body, one thinking, one idea, and since it is somewhat impossible to do it, mostly the husband’s way of thinking will represent both of them, and the wife must bury her idea if she happens to have different way of thinking), the hostess said, “If you don’t want your husband to know your private life, I believe that although already married, each of us sometimes still wants to have some part of our life that is private, don’t get nosy to find out what secrets your husband has. It also applies on the other way around. A husband must respect his wife’s privacy too. What is needed between a couple is trust. Don’t bother yourself with unimportant suspicion.
The last question came from a caller living somewhere in Central Java area. A woman complained about her husband’s not pious behavior. He very rarely does the ritual ceremony of the religion, such as praying five times a day. She asked whether it is okay for her to file a divorce.
The hostess said that if the woman really found a dead end to encourage her husband to be a pious Muslim, she could file a divorce.
“Will God be angry with me?” the caller asked.
The hostess said that the reason is quite strong for her to file a divorce. It is much better to live single—or marry another man who is pious—rather than to have a husband whose behavior is annoying and disturbing the peaceful life of the family.
Well, I must say that I felt quite satisfied with the answers and suggestion given by the hostess of the program. Perhaps I took this conclusion very quickly since I have never watched it before. However, I think it is really high time for us to have such religious programs that are really friendly to women. I also opine that it is high time to have religious programs where the hosts/hostesses come from various different religions in Indonesia to create peaceful religious plurality. The most important thing in hablum minannaas (relationship among human beings) is to do good to others, no matter what religion our neighbors/friends have, and not imposing someone’s faith to others. The most important thing in hablum minallah (relationship between human beings with their God) is everybody’s personal affair.
PT56 150607

Widow in Indonesia

Shattering the myth of the 'rapacious widow'Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta

Even before my first husband died in 2001, I knew widows in Indonesia got a raw deal. Isolated and discriminated against, they are regarded with pity and fear. Pity because they're on their own and have to fend for themselves; and fear because they could lure husbands away. They are regarded by others as potential marriage wreckers.

This is especially true of young, attractive jandas—the term used in Indonesia for both widows and divorcees.

Jandas are seen sexually initiated, hungry and deprived of sexual sustenance in the absense of a regular sexual partner. If you don’t believe me and want a depressing insight into the Indonesian psyche on widows try Googling janda muda.

This is of course a cruel distortion of reality. Not all jandas are on the make—on the contrary, they are often the poorest of the poor.

In Indonesia, the loss of an adult male usually means the loss of the main source of income.

For poor families, this is devastating—and invariably plunges them into poverty. Children suffer because their mothers are unable to pay for their education. They are pulled out of school and made to work, often initiating a cycle of poverty that can last for generations. Not a happy thought.

From the time I started seriously studying women in Indonesia in the mid 1980s, I often felt extremely vexed that women without husbands don’t seem to exist. Not officially, at any rate.

Government programs provide resources including capital, training, credit and income generating programs—but only to the legal head of household: a man.

This is stipulated in the 1974 Marriage Law. Women are considered legal dependents of men and the rights and needs of widows, divorcees and single women are just not recognized.

The reality is, however, there are a many households in Indonesia with a woman as its head – as high as 25 percent in some areas, due to high rates of divorce and desertion.

In conflict zones such as Aceh, the levels are higher still. Shocking.

So imagine my relief when I discovered the Program for Women Headed Households (PEKKA), a development project that works with widows. – wow a first.

On a recent work visit to Sukabumi and as part of a research project with my new husband, Tim, I met a group of PEKKA women while we were surveying their knowledge of religious courts.

These courts sit parallel to the civil courts across the archipelago and deal primarily with questions of marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Clearly these are things that matter a lot to women.

I had heard about PEKKA before and had met Nani Zulmarmini, the group’s national coordinator, but had never really had anything to do with its members. So I was delighted to meet a group of PEKKA women in a tiny village near Sukabumi. There were about 20 of them, ranging in age from 30 to 60. they were very simple women and most worked as farm or plantation laborers. Some of the oder ones were illiterate while others hardly spoke Indonesian properly.

Because I am from West java, my Sundanese enabled me to easily establish a rapport with them. In addition, I did field research in 1984 in another sub district of Sukabumi so I felt very much in my element.

I was shocked at hoe poor they were. Some earned only Rp. 200.000,00 per month and they had to support dependents. Fortunately PEKKA was on the scene, helping them establish extra income generating activities and giving out scholarship for children.

Because without PEKKA, the children of Sukabumi’s jandas would be expanding the ranks of Indonesia’s many millions of child laborers.

Since it was founded in 1999, PEKKA has reached more than 6,500 women in more than 300 villages across 38 sub districts in eight provinces: Aceh, West Java, Central Java, West Kalimantan, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Southeast Sulawesi and North Maluku.

Before PEKKA existed, no development project in Indonesia had ever worked with widows, especially in areas of large-scale conflict. In the New Order, women’s programs had to be channeled through the Family Welfare Movement (PKK), which was sponsored, and aimed at wives only – as if no other type of women existed.

In areas like Aceh – where thousands of men have been killed over decades of conflict and by recent natural disasters, and where the entire adult populations of some villages consists of widows – the notion would be laughable, if it were not so utterly tragic.

But there is some good nes today PEKKA has a special programs in Aceh. Besides income generating and microfinance activiti4s, PEKKA also offers vocational, leadership and legal training, as well as literacy, bookkeeping, and health classes. PEKKA also offers a social fund for older women and for those who can’t work – like Bu Amina, who at 104, is undoubtedly the oldest PEKKA member in Tampoek Blang village.

Sudarmi is another PEKKA member in Aceh. After her husband was gunned down she was given the chance to become a photographer through a unique program PEKKA had devised to help women bolster their confidence. While she was hesitant at first, after some training, she grew to love it, and now hopes to become a professional photographer.

Sudarmi was one of 20 women whose work was exhibited in Washington in 2004. This event was hosted by the World Bank, which, with the National Commission on violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), is the main supporter of PEKKA.

PEKKA really has transformed the lives of hundreds of widows, female heads of households and their dependents.

More importantly, in the long run, it is slowly changing social attitudes.

Thanks to PEKKA, widowed or divorced Indonesian women who are poor, uneducated, illiterate, unskilled, dependent and diffident have become empowered and in charge of their lives, and able to make a positive contribution to society.

The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. She can be contacted on jsuryakusuma@mac.com

The standard of beauty ...

One day when teaching expressions on how to give suggestion to someone else, I asked my students to create a problem. After that, I asked a student to say his/her problem, and asked another student to give suggestion/advice.
One female student said, “My hair is wavy. I don’t like it. Can you suggest me how to make it straight?”Before choosing another student to give a suggestion to that so-called problem, I asked her back, “Is that your real problem? Or just a made-up one?”
She answered, “It’s my real problem, Ma’am. You know that wavy hair is ugly. Straight hair is more beautiful.”
“Do you know why you came to such a conclusion? It is coz we are bombarded by many commercials on TV that beautiful hair is straight; that having wavy hair is not well-liked; that even your parents-in-law-to-be will refuse you only coz you have wavy hair; coz your boyfriend will leave you for another girl only for her long straight hair. The message is clear: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL IF YOUR HAIR IS STRAIGHT. Why? So that you will buy their products that promise will make your hair straight.”
“But, Ma’am, don’t you agree that straight hair is more beautiful than wavy hair?” she protested.
“Have you ever heard that in 1980s having wavy, even curly hair was more well-liked? Many people went to beauty parlor to have their hair curled. It was totally on the contrary from the present days. In that decade, people thought that wavy or curly hair was more beautiful than straight one.”
The students were speechless to hear me say so. Well, all of my students were still around one or two years old when wavy and curly hair was popular. Not only in Indonesia at that time, I suppose, coz I remember the trendsetters for hair at that time were for example the singers from Duran Duran, or Bon Jovi.

*****

Another occasion. I oral examined a female student. She has fair complexion. And she said to me, “I am lucky to have this fair complexion from both of my parents.”“Why do you think that you are lucky?”
“Well, don’t you agree with me Ma’am that having fair complexion is more beautiful?”“Yeah, but you are lucky having that fair complexion only in this era, and only in our country, coz people from other countries don’t give a damn whether someone has fair or dark complexion. People having dark complexion are also pretty. Many people in fact think that having dark complexion is exotic. By the way, have you ever heard that even in the 1980s Indonesia, having dark skin was more well-liked than having fair one coz in that decade people believed that dark meant sweet?”
She was dumbfounded to hear me say so.

*****

Since the end of 1990s when many soap operas from Taiwan boomed in Indonesia, this phenomenon—that pretty means having fair complexion and long straight hair—has started to spread in Indonesia. Many good-looking actors and actresses with oriental faces and their fair complexion and straight hair became new idols here. And the result: many of them became new icons of beauty in Indonesia. During Soeharto and his New Order regime, there was strong repression for Chinese culture in Indonesia. After his regime was over, and the following presidents were more welcome with Chinese culture, especially during Gus Dur’s short presidency, this phenomenon made people more exposed to these Oriental things.
It is different from 1980s decade where western things were more popular. Farrah Fawcett was very beautiful with her wavy hair. Although FF had white complexion, Indonesian people at that time knew that we couldn’t become like FF coz she was American. So we only paid attention to her hair. However, those Oriental actresses are Asian, like us, not far different from us.
Capitalists saw it as a very good chance to make profit for them. To make their products sold out, they always made commercials related to these oriental things—such as to make their shampoo able to make hair straight (“Commercials are always silly, Mom, don’t take them to your heart.” my daughter said when I complained to watch those sucking commercials. LOL. ), their soap can enlighten someone’s complexion. They also produce more and more whitening products for skin with those silly clips, such as I mentioned above, “Your boyfriend will leave you for another girl who has straight hair coz yours is wavy.” “Your in-laws-to-be will reject you only coz of your wavy hair.” “Boys are never attracted to girls who have dark complexion.” “Your husband will leave you only coz of your dark complexion.” And many other ridiculous and silly topics.
And many students of mine who don’t have critical way of thinking yet, become the victims of those silly commercials. Many of them become inferior coz they don’t fulfill the standard of recent beauty—having fair complexion and long straight hair. And the capitalists make more and more profit. Besides, those producers of commercial clips have made many teenagers foolish (by thinking that boys are only attracted to girls with straight hair; that having straight hair is more favorable rather than having smart and critical mind; that boys are only attracted to physical beauty rather than inner beauty.)
23.16 260406

Sexuality

Feminism ideology has come to Indonesia since the twentieth century, perhaps around the beginning of 1990s, although talking about giving suffrage to women in the general election, Indonesia has done that since the first general election in 1955 under Soekarno presidency. (For comparison, American women got their suffrage in 1920 after struggling for many decades since the first women summit in 1848. Indonesia got its independence in 1945 and had the first general election in 1955.)
The word “gender” has become quite familiar to Indonesian people, though perhaps only in big cities, and I have proven it that many of my teenaged students don’t know yet what the word “gender” means. When I talked about stereotyping of male and female was not a fair thing to do, I could see they didn’t have any idea why I opined that; why I said, “If you say a woman will not make a good mother coz she often leaves her children due to her profession, I can also say that a man will not be a good father when he also often leaves his children due to his job outside.” They still think that public sphere belongs to men and domestic sphere belongs to women; that women are created to be a housewife, so when a woman wants to have a job outside, it is just FAIR to give her double burden, to work outside but still has to be responsible for all household chores. (FYI, The New Order regime under Soeharto successfully planted this “ideology”—about double burden for women who want to work professionally outside their domestic sphere—into Indonesian people’s minds.)
Many Non Governmental Organizations dealing with women’s betterment in lives have done a lot to socialize the unfair stereotyping; that it is all only socially constructed, and not naturally created. (But, still I must say that those feminists have to struggle hard to realize the more equal chances for women in all facets in this life, e.g. chances to choose any profession to their heart’s content according to their skill, talent, and capability, chances to get equal pay for the same job as men, chances to make a name for themselves, and not just as “Mrs. X”, chances to use family name as they want, etc.)
That stereotyping in gender is socially constructed has been known in Indonesia. However, that sexual orientation is also socially constructed is not publicly known yet. Even, there are some steps people do to restrict this; that the only NORMAL sexuality is HETEROSEXUALITY and the other kinds of sexuality (read è homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, and transgender) are ABNORMAL. And as in other parts of the world, RELIGION plays a very important role in constructing that “if you are female, your sexual orientation is male, and vice versa, if you want to be considered NORMAL, NOT SINFUL, NOT DISEASED.” Society negates the existence of people who were born as gay/lesbian/ transgender. Society easily judges such people as opposing “destiny”.

Gayle Rubin, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler opined that sexuality is in fact also socially constructed, and not biological chromosomal fact. They claimed the theoretical orthodoxy on sexuality whose all principles were based on sexual essentialism; that is principle that consider sexuality is biological phenomenon, natural fact that exceeds social fact. For those three thinkers, sexuality is not something that is consistent, asocial, and trans-historical. Sexuality is strongly involved with history and social changes. It is not based on hormone, psyche, moreover God’s law.

Rubin: Logocentrist and Heteronormativism
Gayle Rubin, a feminist anthropologist, agreed with Derrida that “there is nothing out of the text.” It refers to there is no destiny or biological construction that comes before language signs. For example, male and female categories with all their attributes and stereotypes are not natural created but constitute products of history and representation. Women become the second sex is not based on biological identity, but it is caused by negative image given to them based on science and religion discourses. One meaning never comes alone without any other meaning. For example, the word “male” exists coz of its counterpart—female. Meaning doesn’t come from biology, a writer’s intention, or God’s divine revelation, but as the impact of a complex relation in language signs. Meaning comes as the impact of differance.
That is how body and sexuality come from. There is no pre-discursive body. No identity, gender or sexuality comes before a discourse. Gender and sexuality are not rooted in biology; not the extension of biological sex, but comes from language signs relation. There is no original sexuality; no sexuality precedes meaning process. Everything is constructed under logocentrist procedures. In this procedure, heterosexuality is not based on quality but based on negative label applied to other sexual practice that is non-procreative; such as homosexuality, and masturbation.
In logocentrist, heterosexuality is labeled the good, the right, higher than the other kind of sexuality. Homosexuality and masturbation are labeled negative, the bad, the wrong, the abnormal and the criminal.
In Thinking About Sex (1984), Rubin stated:
… sexuality that is good, normal, and natural should ideally be heterosexual, marital, monogamous, reproductive, and non-commercial. It should be coupled, relational, within the same generation and occur at home. It should not involve pornography, fetish objects, sex toys of any sort, or roles other than male and female. Any sex that validates this rules is bad, abnormal, or unnatural. Bad sex may be homosexual, unmarried, promiscuous, non-procreative, or commercial. It may be masturbatory or take place at orgies, may be casual, may cross generational lines, and may take place in public, or at least in the bushes or the baths. It may involve the use of pornography, fetish objects or unusual roles.

Foucault: Power-Knowledge-Pleasure and Sexuality
Sexuality is one most-discussed theme in Foucault’s books, such as Herculine Barbine; Being The Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite (1979), and his very well-known trilogy of The History of Sexuality, The History of Sexuality I; The Will to Know (1983), The History of Sexuality II; The Use of Pleasure (1985), and The History of Sexuality III; The Care of the Self (1986). In these books, Foucault asserted that femininity, masculinity, and sexuality are the results of “disciplined practice” or the result of power and knowledge relation. Foucault disclosed the univocal heterosexuality regime that has been considered as the norm, the universal and the essence of human beings.
In The History of Sexuality I, Foucault explained that sexuality is not considered as something given naturally, a secret sphere that has to be disclosed and found. Sexuality was formed historically, and not naturally fact.
Foucault stated:
Sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries gradually to uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct: not a furtive reality that is difficult to grasp, but a great surface network in which the stimulation of bodies, the intensification of pleasures, the incitement to discourse, the formation of special knowledge, the strengthening of controls and resistances, are linked to one another.
In general, Foucault identified five strategic unities to reproduce and multiply sexuality discourses. First, the psychiatrisation of perverse pleasure is an opinion that human beings are to have one only sex (true mono-sexed human being). Via medical science, law and course, everybody is to have only one true sex. As an example, Foucault illustrated what happened bo Herculine Barbine, a hermaphrodite living in the nineteenth century France. When Barbine was born, Barbine was identified as female. However, as some time, some doctors and ministers claimed that Barbine had to change Barbine’s sex to be “male” due to masculine characters Barbine had. Feeling oppressed and depressed, Barbine eventually committed suicide. This case showed how medical field, court and law held a very important role to found mono-sexed human being during Modern Western history. When a human is anatomically male, he must be masculine. When a human is anatomically female, she must be feminine. There is no in-between identity.
Second, the socialization of procreative behavior. Contradictory from Ancient Greek and Roman sexuality discourses, modern western sexuality of nineteenth century was more oriented to procreative goals, not just for pleasure. Foucault called it scientia sexual-is, while Ancient Roman sexuality oriented on pleasure or aphrodisia as ars erotica. The goal of scientia sexual-is is to maximize the strength, efficiency in marriage and sexuality. Therefore, heterosexuality is baptized as the most legal sexuality. Lust or sexual pleasure is caged in heteronormativity. The married couple is also burdened with social and medical responsibility that is to protect family from sexual pathogenic diseases.
Third, the pleasure psychiatrisation. This strategy works by pathologizing all kinds of deviation from “normally procreative sexuality” principles. Therefore, sex for pleasures is cursed. Masturbation and homosexuality that often engender erotic pleasures are considered abnormal, deviant, and need to be medicated. Different from Ancient Greek sexuality, homosexuality and masturbation were not rejected, not labeled abnormal.
Fourth, female body historization. In this strategy, feminine body is analyzed, integrated into medical practice sphere coz the inherent diseases and then placed into “organic communication with social body”. Foucault wrote:
A three fold process whereby the feminine body was analyzed—qualified and disqualified—as being thoroughly saturated with sexuality, whereby it was integrated into the sphere of medical practices, by reason of a pathology intrinsic to it; whereby, finally, it was placed in organic communication with the social body (whose regulated fecundity it was supposed to ensure), the family space (of which it had to be substantial and functional element), and the life of children (which it produced and had to guarantee, by virtue of biologico-moral responsibility lasting through the entire period of children’s education): the Mother, with her negative image of nervous women, constituted the most visible form of this hysterization.
Here, female sexuality is constituted as their central identity, women are their biology, and sexuality is the core of their biology. Sexuality is not only having sex, but also involves masturbation experience, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. This hysterization claims women to be deregulated, made into the legal object psychological and medical intervention and control.
Fifth, child sexuality pedagogy. This strategy considers practice of child sexuality as potentially dangerous coz it will engender “physical and moral ruins, individually and collectively. Masturbation and other non-procreative sexual practices are labeled dangerous and opposing nature. The natural, safe and true sex pedagogy toward children become significant instrument in legalizing heterosexuality as the norm.
These five strategies have functions to regulate and deploy aphrodiasia (lust), and encratia (self control, and self fight). The impact of this transformation is, new oppression of chresis (the use of lust) to epimeleia (attention to oneself), and practices to know oneself.

Judith Butler: Heterosexual matrix versus Performativity
Butler developed the theory of performativity in the beginning of 1990s via her monumental works Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter. Butler claimed that gender or sexuality is the imitative structure, reiteration and ‘performativity’.
Butler stated:
Imitation is at the heart of the heterosexual project and its gender bynarisms, that drag is not a secondary imitation that presupposes a prior and original gender, but that hegemonic heterosexuality is itself a constant and repeated effort to imitate its own idealization. That it must repeat this imitation, that it sets up pathologizing practices and normalizing sciences in order to produce and consecrate its own claim on originality and propriety, suggest that heterosexual performativity is beset by an anxiety that it can never fully overcome, that its effort to become its own idealization can never be fully achieved, and that it is consistently haunted by that domain of sexual possibility that must be excluded for heterosexualized gender to produce itself.
Butler believed that there is no gender identity behind gender expression. Identity is shaped performatively, reiteratively until it reaches the original identity. For Butler, gender or sexuality is like drag, beauty contest followed by male-to-female transgender to show that they are “perfect women”. Those contestants that have anatomically male bodies have become “women”—slim bodies, smooth skin, spotless complexion, beautiful faces, etc. Realness on gender, identity, and sexuality is produced and reproduced under a series of actions, gestures, and ambition that are articulated and done so that it creates the illusion of an interior and organizing gender core.
Gestures, action and body movement are not only expressive but also constitutive. Therefore we can identify that what we have considered as the essence is in fact only the result of body movement and other discourses.
Butler identified several structural integrities used to eternalize heterosexuality naturally. One of them is “sex materialism”. To explain this concept, Butler deconstructed gender and sexuality definition proposed by feminism. In feminist discourses, it is stated that gender is socially constructed while sex is a biological phenomenon that cannot be changed. This way of thinking assumed sexual materialism, that is an idea that sex is a construct outside history and language. For Butler, sex is also a biology constructed ideally or materialized forcefully through time. Butler wrote:
Sex is not simple fact or static condition of a body, but a process whereby regulatory norms materialize “sex” and achieve this materialization through a forcible reiteration of those norms. That this reiteration is necessary is a sign that materialization is never quite complete, that body never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled.
Via deconstruction toward “sex” and demonstrating the discourse limit, Butler proposed concept of the materialization of the body that exceeded Foucault’s concept on the construction of sexuality. Bodies are not just plate that then are shaped into a certain gender and sex, but that gender and sex are two elements materialized to be bodies themselves.
Butler then attacked a must coherence between gender and sexual identity. In the primary discourse, everybody is to have only clear mono-sexed, without friction that needs a must coherence between genitals (the inside) and gender (clothes, roles, and identity—the outside). This coherence has been used as basic to decide the normal and abnormal situation of someone; that penis has no other choice but masculinity, and on the contrary, vagina has no other choice but femininity.
Here, Butler insists that gender and sexuality overlap each other seriously. Gender and sexuality simultaneously interact to decide the content and limit of masculinity and femininity and shape gender relation.

I remember some time ago when proposing this idea (that sexuality is socially constructed; that homosexuality is also given naturally), I got a very strange look from a classmate, and she said, “Aha … you belong to post modern thinkers, eh?” When talking in a classroom some time ago that “It is just okay for boys to wear pink clothes, and that the wearer is not necessarily a gay”, my students complained to me simultaneously. I laughed a little.
Well, I know, it still needs a long time for Indonesian culture to understand this. The conviction that heterosexuality is the only normal sexuality has been planted in Indonesian people’s minds for ages, and they don’t welcome the new thing.
It reminds me of my favorite motto from Emerson, “The foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Well …I am just a human being who wants everybody to live peacefully in this world, not considered as the criminal, abnormal, the sinful, the diseased, the weird, while in fact they don’t really harm other people’s lives. Nobody has right to interfere other people’s lives by calling them as the wrong, and generously wants other people to follow their way of thinking that they consider the best one only coz it follows the majority.
Anybody has right to live to what they think right for their way of life, as long as they don’t harm or ruin other people’s lives.
Let us live peacefully.

Reference:
Alimi, Yasir, M. “Tidak Hanya Gender, Seks Juga Konstruksi Sosial…” (“Not only Gender, Sex is also socially constructed”) Jurnal Perempuan (Women’s Journal) no. 41, 2005
Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble, London: Routledge, 1999
Butler, Judith, Bodies that Matter, London: Routledge, 1993
Butler, Judith, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination in Fuss”, Diana (ed.) Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, London: Routledge, 1991
Butler, Judith and Joan W. Scott (eds), Feminists Theorize the Political, New York: Routledge, 1992
Foucault, Michel, Herculine Barbine: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1980
Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1997
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality I, Middlesex: Penguin, 1988
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality II, Middlesex: Penguin, 1986
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality III, Middlesex: Penguin, 1986
McHoul, Alec and Wendy Grace, A Foucault Primer: Discourse, Power and the Subject, Melbourne: Melbourne University, 1993
Weedon, Chris, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Monash: Monash University Press, 1998

Family Name

Some weeks ago when substituting a friend to teach her class, I interviewed the students how many children their parents have. Two students attracted me coz they said that their parents have five children. In this era, after the success of family planning program, to have children more than three is considered a big family. The funny thing is one student said that the four children were boys and the youngest was a girl; while the other student was contradictory, the four children were girls, and the youngest was a boy.

Well, one proof of the success of family planning program in Indonesia, besides that people now have a big tendency to have only two and maximally three children in one family, regardless the sex, people do not really mind whether they only have daughters or sons. This is especially in Java island, the most populated island in Indonesia. :) FYI, Javanese people do not use family name behind their name. Although, well in the case I wrote in the above paragraph, it is not really so. Jokingly, I talked to the students that their parents wouldn’t stop “producing” babies before they got the baby they wanted, a boy or a girl. :) To some “old-fashioned” people, I assume that people still want to have children with the two sexes, male and female. :)
However, I still remember some years ago, I interviewed a student who is from Batak, an ethnic group in
Indonesia where the people use family names behind their names. To Batak people, having a baby boy is important, to continue the family name coz after getting married, a woman no longer uses her own family name from her father, but uses the family name from her husband. This absolutely creates a lot of gender-biased problems. For example, a woman is not treated well only coz she cannot give the husband a baby boy; or a man feels that he deserves to have another wife only to have a baby boy; a baby girl is not treated as well as a baby boy coz this baby girl later on cannot pass on the family name to the grandchildren.

I told this student that nowadays women could keep their family name when they want it after they get married. They do not always have to leave their family name behind and use the family name from their husbands instead. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 16:1g stated that women have equal right with men to choose a family name, be it the family name they got from their parents (either the father or the mother), or from their husband.

This convention guarantees a family name will not disappear although a family doesn’t have a son. With this, a woman will not be forced to “produce” a lot of babies before she can “give” a baby son to her husband only to pass on the family name to his offspring.
NOTE:

Indonesia is one of many countries that has ratified this convention. (Source: Rights of Women: A Guide to the Most Important United Nations Treaties on Women’s Human Rights, translated into Bahasa Indonesia in 2001 published by Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan).