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| Being a Woman Yovita Amalia, 2019 |
The song Sabda Alam, Created by Ismail Marzuki, has a strong picture of women at that time. The description of women living under the auspices of men. This is reinforced by the law of creation in which women are created from the ribs of men, which makes women always the second figure of creation. As a second figure, women are considered to have no right to participate in advancing life at that time. Patriarchal culture still plays an active role in determining everything. The position, thoughts and opinions of women have not gained a place in society, women have not been able to move as individuals who are free to obtain rights and carry out their obligations as human beings at that time. Gender inequality is a major problem faced by women.
Dad Murniah, a linguist wrote in his journal that women or women have been fenced in with the cultural norms that shape them. For example in Javanese culture, the word "wanita" has its own meaning, "wani" means brave and "tata" means to set. The figure of a woman in Javanese culture is defined as a person who dares to be governed by men. Women will be considered noble if they do everything what men want, in other words women must submit to men. This is commensurate with what was written by Zoetmulder (1982) in the "Old Javanese English Dictionary" which describes women as "something men want". Women are only considered as objects of men.
Before modernity hit life today, as an object of men women must have a lot of expertise, especially in terms of managing the household. As a male companion in domestic life, women have many roles such as looking after the house, taking care of their husbands, giving birth, and raising children. Javanese philosophy says that women's duties are make up, give birth, and cooking. Women in the family must be able to make themselves up so that they always look beautiful, attractive, and charming. This is related to the appearance of women who must always look attractive so they can hold their men happy at home. In addition, women must be able to produce offspring and maintain and look after their offspring. Women also have to be able to cook or take care of everything in the kitchen. Women must be able to meet men's tastes in eating and drinking. This is supported by the statement of Warto (1997) in his book Sangkan Paran Gender which says that women of ancient times must be able to do make up, give birth and cook. If women cannot do these three aspects, the woman is considered a family disgrace. This clearly illustrates that the position of ancient women in the patriarchal system was regarded as backward.
The strong role of patriarchy in the past made women always have to submit to men. But if seen in the present, do men actually feel that they are making women as objects? What if the concept of women's philosophy is taken from the perspective of men? Too naive to discuss women in terms of their own perspective. Therefore 10 men of various ages and occupations are trapped in conceptualizing complicated women's philosophies. If seen before, in the past men seemed to play a role as suspects in the lives of women who felt victimized as the object of their satisfaction. But how do men conceptualize women today? New questions arise with different times and different stories. Do men still regard modern women as objects for men? For men, modern women must still look beautiful and attractive to satisfy their desires? Do men see that modern women still have to be busy with their stomach and kitchen? Do men demand that modern women still have to take care of the household and look after children? Can the views of men on modern women be more than the rules of make up, cook, and give birth?
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| Being a Woman Yovita Amalia, 2019 |
The media form women as beautiful, white, long-haired, and slim. Media syringe mass communication theory works effectively in this regard. According to Nurudin (2014) this theory says that media have the idea that audiences can be formed according to the wishes of the media. The image formation of women in the eyes of the media has had a big impact on some women. This makes many women do or shape themselves like a female figure from the formation of the media. The media seems to have their own beauty standards that make women feel "perfect" if they have successfully met these standards. But the actual standard of beauty possessed by this media forms a stigma and stereotype for the audience, especially women.
Women who cannot meet the media's beauty standards are considered not "perfect". Slowly comes the term body shaming or a criticism of one's body shape. Not infrequently those affected by body shaming experience mental health disorders due to fostered criticism about their body shape. As reported in bullyingstatistics.org body shaming has a big and worrying impact, as many as 94 percent of women have been affected by body shaming. In fact, if beauty standards are not measured by the media, women can live more comfortably and safely.
If you look at it from the point of view of men, 8 out of 10 men state that the essence of women is to make themselves self-fulfilled. They are more of the opinion that men feel they have high prestige when they get beautiful women, have ideal body shapes and are good at dressing themselves up. For them, make up is a powerful weapon for women to melt men's hearts. They believe that beautiful women are women who fit the criteria of women in general, namely white, straight hair, slim body and sharp nose. Whereas 2 out of 10 men feel make up is not as a means of capturing men's hearts. They feel that make up is a double-edged sword that can hide the authenticity of a woman's face. They have no problem with body shape or their ability to make up. This is because they believe that the selection of ideal female criteria is one form of body shaming itself. 2 out of 10 men believe that women are considered beautiful not only from the beautiful body shape and beautiful face makeup, but that beauty is seen from several supporting aspects such as education and character.
Turning from the concept of self-decoration, the second concept of women's philosophy is to have offspring. When compared with the old-fashioned thinking that regards women as a family disgrace if they do not have children, today's women are more open in responding to this cliché problem. Having children / descendants is a big responsibility and must be ready to be faced by both women and men after marriage. There are women who are ready for these responsibilities, but there are also those who choose to live independently without children even without a companion. The notion of women as objects of men that can always be fertilized to produce the next generation has begun to fade with the flow of time. If a woman cannot produce offspring due to several factors, technology can help her produce offspring with an IVF program. However, not having children at this time is not a big thing. Not a few women who decide to live independently, without men, without children.
Besides producing offspring, the last concept is cooking. Women in the past were required to be able to cook to meet their male tastes. Women in the past believed that one way to captivate men's hearts was to provide stomach satisfaction through cooking. Slightly different from today, women do not have to be able to cook. Cooking is not an obligation, but cooking becomes an additional point for women. Cooking skills can be grown slowly without being forced and questioned about her womanhood. The kitchen is not the main field of work for women today.
7 out of 10 men agree that women should not be able to cook. They argue that cooking is part of a hobby not an obligation. They believe that it doesn't matter if women can't cook. The division of roles between men and women is not only limited to men working and women taking care of the house. However, 7 out of 10 men agree that men are a household father who also has an obligation to take care of the household along with stomach and kitchen matters. The kitchen is no longer a place for women to work. Technological developments make it easier for men and women to satisfy smokeless stomach odors and smells of taste.
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| Being a Woman Yovita Amalia, 2019 |
The three concepts about women in the past have started to fade with time. Today's women are more independent and more courageous in expressing their expressions about what they feel without having to hit various cultures. Apart from the concept of macak, manak, and cooking, male respondents see that women today are not much different from the past which said that women must be able to do everything (multitasking). However, this multitasking concept is different in that men ask women to be able to do everything without having to depend on men, for example work. 7 out of 10 men agree that women must work and have a career. Women must be able to support family life. Career women are an added value for men, because they are considered as women who are independent and have a clear vision in life. In addition to a career, 7 out of 10 men agreed that women should receive a higher education. This is because women are the first educational channel for the next generation. Therefore the term emerges of an intelligent child born from an intelligent mother.
Being a modern woman in the eyes of men turned out to be more complicated than in the past. It's complicated because women are required to be able to do everything regularly, such as attractive appearance to work, higher education, being smart and independent mothers in doing things without relying on men. However, modern women are no longer just objects for men, but have equality in various ways. Adam was no longer created for Eve but Eve was created for Adam, which meant that women were tasked with supporting the lives of their men and making today's women more independent and able to solve their own problems without depending on men.
