Continuing talking about ‘househusband’, I realize that in many cases ‘househusband’ can generate financial oppression to women, instead of making women’s position equal or higher than man in one family. I found many cases from people living in my area where the woman is the breadwinner and the man stays at home. At first, both of them worked. Then, monetary crisis that has struck Indonesia since 1997 has made many men lose their jobs. This made many women become the breadwinner in the family. However, the culture that women do the household chores still goes on. Therefore, women even have more burden, to be the breadwinner and also do the household chores. What do those unemployed men do? Nothing. They just gamble, or worse still, even spend his wife’s money on alcohol since they think that they need to leave their depression as unemployed men for a while by making themselves drunk.
Worse again, in one ethnic group in Indonesia called SASAK living in Lombok Island. The culture there believes that it will be a prestigious thing when a woman becomes the nth wife of a man (not the only wife of the man). Although at the very beginning their ancestors decided that only rich and capable men could have more than one wife, in the process nowadays, many poor men also practice polygamy, and they even survive from their wives’ money. Those men do not need to bother themselves how to support the lives of their wives and children because even the wives work to ear money to survive by themselves and feed the husband. The promise that those women who are willing to ‘share’ their husband to go to heaven after life is so strong that those women do not complain with that. (Jurnal Perempuan number 43 published in July 2005).
It shows that the patriarchal society is very strong and that the financial independence of those women does not help much to make their position equal with men. Many Marxist feminists believe that by having financial independence will make women equal with men. However, it is not suitable to be applied in one culture where the point of view of the people is still strongly patriarchal: no matter what happens men will always have higher position than women. In the practice, the women who have role as the breadwinner even get double oppression, although oftentimes they themselves do not realize it, because they take it for granted, without questioning their destiny.
PT56 23.45 060407
Showing posts with label househusband. Show all posts
Showing posts with label househusband. Show all posts
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Househusband (2)
Talking about househusbands, (you can refer to my previous post entitled “Househusbands”), I remember one classmate of mine when I pursued my study at American Studies Graduate Program of Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In the beginning of my study, I got to know her, and she told me (also my classmates) that she moved to Yogya together with her son and husband. They rented a house for three of them, bringing with them some furniture they needed in their daily life. My first personal questions were: “What does her husband do? Unemployed? So that he could follow where his wife is going—to pursue her Master’s Degree? How could that classmate of mine be confident to face her new community having an unemployed husband?” (NOTE: Many women I know personally will feel embarrassed/shy if they have unemployed husbands so that they tend to hide it.)
(Un)luckily I was not a kind of nosy person so I didn’t try looking for answers of those questions of mine. In the middle of that first semester, my friend got sick—very exhausted doing abundant of assignments, and apparently she didn’t have strong body—so that she needed to be hospitalized. At that time, I tried answering my own questions: “This friend of mine happened not to have strong body, she easily got sick. For this, her husband joined her to come to this city, to take care of her.
Gradually, I knew her quite better because we often did assignments together. From our chats, I knew that it was their decision together—that my friend kept pursuing her career as one lecturer in one private college in Indonesia, and her husband became a househusband. This was quite a difficult decision to make because they got criticism from their own family/relatives. The ‘belief’ that in the family men are the primary breadwinners and if a woman works she will just be a secondary one is still very strong in Indonesia. When a man has a lower income than his wife, it can be already considered as an easy excuse to have familial conflict, READ men will lose their dignity for that, it will hurt their pride. Therefore, they will feel inferior. A man who feels inferior then tend to abuse his wife to show that no matter what he is still the superior in the family. Moreover a husband who doesn’t have his own income?
I had to give my two thumbs up to this classmate and her husband because it even didn’t bother them at all. Before taking that decision—to quit from his job—the husband already thought about it seriously, including to face the ‘mockery’ from society as ‘an irresponsible husband’ because he didn’t support his wife and son financially. Many people who didn’t know the situation of the family easily appointed the husband as an irresponsible person by not having a steady job.
As an outsider, I could see that their relationship was equal. My classmate never showed bossy personality because she was the breadwinner. Her husband didn’t show any inferiority. One time I went to their dwelling to do an assignment. My friend and I were busy discussing, preparing paper and presentation, while her husband was tending their kid (who was four years old at that time), and then preparing lunch for all of us.
When my classmate graduated with flying colors, another classmate of mine—who happened to have a not supportive husband—commented, “She is successful in her career and study not because her own capabilities, but also because the strong support from her husband.”
That classmate of mine said that although she was the breadwinner, her husband was the ministry of Finance in the family. LOL.
PT56 13.45 040407
(Un)luckily I was not a kind of nosy person so I didn’t try looking for answers of those questions of mine. In the middle of that first semester, my friend got sick—very exhausted doing abundant of assignments, and apparently she didn’t have strong body—so that she needed to be hospitalized. At that time, I tried answering my own questions: “This friend of mine happened not to have strong body, she easily got sick. For this, her husband joined her to come to this city, to take care of her.
Gradually, I knew her quite better because we often did assignments together. From our chats, I knew that it was their decision together—that my friend kept pursuing her career as one lecturer in one private college in Indonesia, and her husband became a househusband. This was quite a difficult decision to make because they got criticism from their own family/relatives. The ‘belief’ that in the family men are the primary breadwinners and if a woman works she will just be a secondary one is still very strong in Indonesia. When a man has a lower income than his wife, it can be already considered as an easy excuse to have familial conflict, READ men will lose their dignity for that, it will hurt their pride. Therefore, they will feel inferior. A man who feels inferior then tend to abuse his wife to show that no matter what he is still the superior in the family. Moreover a husband who doesn’t have his own income?
I had to give my two thumbs up to this classmate and her husband because it even didn’t bother them at all. Before taking that decision—to quit from his job—the husband already thought about it seriously, including to face the ‘mockery’ from society as ‘an irresponsible husband’ because he didn’t support his wife and son financially. Many people who didn’t know the situation of the family easily appointed the husband as an irresponsible person by not having a steady job.
As an outsider, I could see that their relationship was equal. My classmate never showed bossy personality because she was the breadwinner. Her husband didn’t show any inferiority. One time I went to their dwelling to do an assignment. My friend and I were busy discussing, preparing paper and presentation, while her husband was tending their kid (who was four years old at that time), and then preparing lunch for all of us.
When my classmate graduated with flying colors, another classmate of mine—who happened to have a not supportive husband—commented, “She is successful in her career and study not because her own capabilities, but also because the strong support from her husband.”
That classmate of mine said that although she was the breadwinner, her husband was the ministry of Finance in the family. LOL.
PT56 13.45 040407
Monday, April 02, 2007
Househusbands
Househusbands of the world, unite!
Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta
Dina and Eddy are in their mid 30s, with two young children. They're an ordinary educated, middle-class Indonesian couple ... except that Dina is completing a PhD in anthropology overseas. That means Eddy, who has degrees in religious studies and strategic studies and used to be a journalist for a national newspaper, is now a househusband, and will be until 2010.
A typical day starts with Eddy dropping the children off at school and Dina at the university. At 8 a.m. he makes his way to the warehouse where he works part-time as a forklift operator. At 4 p.m., he picks up the children from school and Dina from university and they return home together. In the evening they cook and do household chores together but Eddy does most of it while Dina studies -- and right now he looks after everything, because Dina is away in Aceh for a few months doing field work.
Eddy sees their domestic arrangements as perfectly natural. "Family members," he says, "should take turns supporting each other, especially husbands and wives." Now it's Dina's turn to be supported, because she has the opportunity to further her studies and career.
A good Muslim, Eddy says everybody has the right to advance themselves. In fact, according to Islam, to advance yourself in the field of knowledge and education is more than a right. It is a sacred duty, and an obligation for both men and women.
The first word revealed of the Koran was "Iqra": READ! Seek knowledge! Be educated! Al-Zumr, paragraph 9, reveals: "Are they equal, those who know and those who do not know?" Al-Baqarah, paragraph 269, reveals: "Allah grants wisdom to whom He pleases and to whom wisdom is granted indeed he receives an overflowing benefit."
You may think, well, Eddy certainly comes from a progressive, modern background! You'd be wrong. Eddy's parents are just ordinary farmers, working paddy fields in Padang, West Sumatra. But in his family it was always common for the boys to cook, wash and clean up, as part of their training to become independent and self-sufficient adults.
This probably has something to do with the matrilineal traditions of his ethnic group, the Minangkabau, but Eddy sees it more in terms of his own personal family values: if you're part of a family, you put the interests of the family first. So, if an opportunity opens up for any family member, male or female, they should be supported, to advance the family as a whole.
I asked if his arrangements with Dina were unique. "No, no," he said. "We've got many friends who do what we do." He's right, of course. The househusband phenomenon is increasingly common, although it's still far from being recognized socially. In Indonesia, as elsewhere in the world, family structures are changing, as education and work opportunities increase for women, but also because of economic necessity. In the Philippines, for example, the number of children in the care of their fathers has hugely increased since the 1980s, as more and more women leave to become overseas workers.
For these women, their role as nurturer is changing to that of provider. There is a growing number of men who are, conversely, claiming their right to nurture. These are often not professed feminists, but simply ordinary guys who want to be fathers and husbands and support their children and partners at home. It's a humanizing phenomenon, the other side of the coin from women claiming their right to a role besides wife and mother.
This is the case with Timbo, a classmate of my son Aditya at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. Timbo used his degree in industrial design to work for a few years, but now his wife Jodi has a more lucrative job as a medical doctor. For the last two years he's been a full-time househusband.
"It's a challenge," he admits: with two infant children, he had to learn the art of childrearing on the spot, while handling all the demands of running a household and supporting Jodi. He says he needs to feel valued as a supporter, but he gets that, together with much personal satisfaction, in his role as a care-giver.
Parents and extended family members are supportive, but socially he feels it's assumed that men are the providers in all households. He told me of an incident when Jodi's credit card statements were sent to him, when in fact he was only a supplementary card holder -- just because he's a Mr. and not a Mrs.
Whatever gains feminism may have made, most men still think of themselves as meant to work -- outside the house. The stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that even Nena, an ardent feminist friend of mine, has mixed feelings on the matter. She told me that her journalist husband's dream is to stay home and write, look after the garden, and not worry about bringing money home, leaving all that to his wife. Nena admitted she wasn't sure she'd be happy to shoulder all the responsibility for keeping the family finances afloat.
Reconfiguring gender roles isn't always easy. Just imagine: if Hillary Clinton becomes President, then Bill, once the world's most powerful man, will become its most prominent househusband. How will he adjust to supervising the White House menu? I hope he's been watching the TV series Commander in Chief (Sunday nights on Metro TV in Indonesia) to pick up a few tips from Rod Callaway, the screen husband of Mackenzie Allen, "first Female president of the U.S."
Well, whether he likes it or not, Bill Clinton as househusband would probably make it a bit easier for Eddy and Timbo and all the other househusbands of the world, adored in private but overlooked in public. Who would have thought Bill would turn out be a feminist after all?
The writer is the author of Sex, Power and nation. She can be contacted at
jsuryakusuma@mac.com or jskusuma@dnet.net.id.
Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta
Dina and Eddy are in their mid 30s, with two young children. They're an ordinary educated, middle-class Indonesian couple ... except that Dina is completing a PhD in anthropology overseas. That means Eddy, who has degrees in religious studies and strategic studies and used to be a journalist for a national newspaper, is now a househusband, and will be until 2010.
A typical day starts with Eddy dropping the children off at school and Dina at the university. At 8 a.m. he makes his way to the warehouse where he works part-time as a forklift operator. At 4 p.m., he picks up the children from school and Dina from university and they return home together. In the evening they cook and do household chores together but Eddy does most of it while Dina studies -- and right now he looks after everything, because Dina is away in Aceh for a few months doing field work.
Eddy sees their domestic arrangements as perfectly natural. "Family members," he says, "should take turns supporting each other, especially husbands and wives." Now it's Dina's turn to be supported, because she has the opportunity to further her studies and career.
A good Muslim, Eddy says everybody has the right to advance themselves. In fact, according to Islam, to advance yourself in the field of knowledge and education is more than a right. It is a sacred duty, and an obligation for both men and women.
The first word revealed of the Koran was "Iqra": READ! Seek knowledge! Be educated! Al-Zumr, paragraph 9, reveals: "Are they equal, those who know and those who do not know?" Al-Baqarah, paragraph 269, reveals: "Allah grants wisdom to whom He pleases and to whom wisdom is granted indeed he receives an overflowing benefit."
You may think, well, Eddy certainly comes from a progressive, modern background! You'd be wrong. Eddy's parents are just ordinary farmers, working paddy fields in Padang, West Sumatra. But in his family it was always common for the boys to cook, wash and clean up, as part of their training to become independent and self-sufficient adults.
This probably has something to do with the matrilineal traditions of his ethnic group, the Minangkabau, but Eddy sees it more in terms of his own personal family values: if you're part of a family, you put the interests of the family first. So, if an opportunity opens up for any family member, male or female, they should be supported, to advance the family as a whole.
I asked if his arrangements with Dina were unique. "No, no," he said. "We've got many friends who do what we do." He's right, of course. The househusband phenomenon is increasingly common, although it's still far from being recognized socially. In Indonesia, as elsewhere in the world, family structures are changing, as education and work opportunities increase for women, but also because of economic necessity. In the Philippines, for example, the number of children in the care of their fathers has hugely increased since the 1980s, as more and more women leave to become overseas workers.
For these women, their role as nurturer is changing to that of provider. There is a growing number of men who are, conversely, claiming their right to nurture. These are often not professed feminists, but simply ordinary guys who want to be fathers and husbands and support their children and partners at home. It's a humanizing phenomenon, the other side of the coin from women claiming their right to a role besides wife and mother.
This is the case with Timbo, a classmate of my son Aditya at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. Timbo used his degree in industrial design to work for a few years, but now his wife Jodi has a more lucrative job as a medical doctor. For the last two years he's been a full-time househusband.
"It's a challenge," he admits: with two infant children, he had to learn the art of childrearing on the spot, while handling all the demands of running a household and supporting Jodi. He says he needs to feel valued as a supporter, but he gets that, together with much personal satisfaction, in his role as a care-giver.
Parents and extended family members are supportive, but socially he feels it's assumed that men are the providers in all households. He told me of an incident when Jodi's credit card statements were sent to him, when in fact he was only a supplementary card holder -- just because he's a Mr. and not a Mrs.
Whatever gains feminism may have made, most men still think of themselves as meant to work -- outside the house. The stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that even Nena, an ardent feminist friend of mine, has mixed feelings on the matter. She told me that her journalist husband's dream is to stay home and write, look after the garden, and not worry about bringing money home, leaving all that to his wife. Nena admitted she wasn't sure she'd be happy to shoulder all the responsibility for keeping the family finances afloat.
Reconfiguring gender roles isn't always easy. Just imagine: if Hillary Clinton becomes President, then Bill, once the world's most powerful man, will become its most prominent househusband. How will he adjust to supervising the White House menu? I hope he's been watching the TV series Commander in Chief (Sunday nights on Metro TV in Indonesia) to pick up a few tips from Rod Callaway, the screen husband of Mackenzie Allen, "first Female president of the U.S."
Well, whether he likes it or not, Bill Clinton as househusband would probably make it a bit easier for Eddy and Timbo and all the other househusbands of the world, adored in private but overlooked in public. Who would have thought Bill would turn out be a feminist after all?
The writer is the author of Sex, Power and nation. She can be contacted at
jsuryakusuma@mac.com or jskusuma@dnet.net.id.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)