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This thought began when my teacher told me to prepare some questions for the delegations of Asian African Carnaval from India. My school was chosen to be one of the homeguests of Asian African Carnaval Roadshow to School and Campus. It was such a huge euphoric for us to welcome the delegates from 10 different countries; it has always been a euphoric for everyone, hasn't it? I mean, watching the uniqueness of other's culture, seeing them dancing with traditional costume, or even just looking their different color skin and face character (like seeing how chink are Chinese's eyes, how the Americans have freckless and blonde hair not like the Asians, how the Arabians have sharp exotic noses, or how the Latino have the exotic-sunkissed-skin color) which are totally different with ours, the Indonesian. Multiculturalism and differences always make (at least for me) curious.
The delegates from 10 countries were planned to visit on April 23rd, and were planned to visit each classes. My class got India. That was why the classes were asked to prepare some questions we curioused about for the delegates. That could be any questions, but my teacher said that they would be happy if we ask about their culture. My teacher even asked me personally to read about Indian literature and prepare some good questions. So i followed her order. The thing is; i wasn't interested to ask about their culture. I mean, i could googled them. I just thought i need an unably-google-answered question. I think that was the point of asking the delegates. Ask the unanswered. So there were 2 questions i prepare to ask:
1) As we know, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, is one of the pioneers of Asian-African Conference that were be held 60 years ago. On the conference, there were discussed about human rights, rights of self-determination, also about the effort to liberate the country and people who had been colonized. Honestly, to prepare a question for you, i just did some research on Google about India. There i found an article about sati tradition, where a wife need to sacrifice herself to be burned on the top of her husband's funeral. If the wife doesn't willing to do, coercion and violence need to be carried out in order to done the tradition. My questions are 1. Is it true? 2. If yes, what's your opinion about the disconnection of sati tradition reality with the aim of Asian-African Conference? and 3. If it's not true, can you describe what sati tradition really is?
2) National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2014 said that 93 women in India become the victims of sex abuse and raping each day. One of the factors is the existence of gender discrimination that causing injustice acts on women. What do the government and the Indian (especially women) act to overcome this problem due the global feminism issue?
I thought 2 questions would be enough, since they only got 20 minutes on class. But i was wrong. Even 1 question was unably anwered, because the Indian delegates didn't visit our school at all. In fact, 7 out of 10 country delegates didn't come to my school, and the remaining 3 countries (Egypt, China and Argentina) didn't have time to visit the classes. They just did cultural performances. At one moment i felt my questions were useless and just another wasted-time. But it actually didn't. Because if i didn't do any research about India, i wouldn't know that India is the country with a high rate of crime on women. And if i didn't; i wouldn't thought any of this feminism issue.
All i knew about global feminism issue was a movement hat is demanding emancipation and justice or equality of rights with men. I personally agreed this movement, since there are lotssss of cases which related with the injustice acts on women. I bet every women in Indonesia at least once ever been whistled by a group of men, or ever been 'dicie-ciein', or even being seduced. On the street, on public places, or even public transportation such angkot.
I even happened a terrible experience when i was about 12. I was walking down the street to my home when suddenly someone poked me (a man) and all i remember was he began stalking me for days, and that was totally freaked me out until one day my father caught and told him to go away. Another bad thing happened to me and my bestfriend who was narrowed by a man who showed off his genital on public transportation. Eventhough my mother told me it was a mental-disorder, i can see he made women as his targets; his victims. And we can see the other cases such as raping, sexual abuse, violence happened on a lot of woman, or even teenagers. Some men said that raping or sexual abuse caused by the women itself. Women who wear revealing clothing invite men to rape them. I quoted this from Consented Canada:
"So whether you’re wearing a short skirt or snow pants, it doesn’t make a difference, because sexual assault is about exerting power and control over someone else."
I am half agreed with that point. Yes, it's true that women clothing doesn't make differences because rapist are still being rapist. But i believe that some of people in our country, Indonesia, are still not ready yet welcoming the westernization. Some people are even still looking that mini-skirt or hotpants are inappropiate and didn't suit the ethics and norms. That's why they judged the women and the clothes. And since rapist are still being rapist, sexist are still being sexist, and seducer are still being seducer, and since human's lust can't be controlled, it's us, women, who have to be smart to overcome this. We shouldn't let ourselves being victimized. It doesn't mean we can't no longer wear short skirts or hotpants. We just have to adapt. Knowing where we wear our typical clothes, that's the best idea to minimize the possibility of sexual harrassment. You can wear your hotpants on the mall, but please, bring a trouser on your bag, so you can do change before you take the public transportation.
Also, we have to stop calling each other 'slut' or 'whore' or 'bitch' or 'cabe' because those are what make the men called us so. Don't let us be underestimated by the men, by respecting ourselves and others. Calling someone 'bitch' or 'cabe' only make the people agreed that 'bitch' or 'cabe' are really exist, while nobody (read: no any women) wanted to be called like that, including us.
I can see that these days, being relationships are the most matter thing among the teenagers. I don't blame that, because sometimes it happened on me too (like, the whole thing in your mind are dominated by guy guy guy and guy). All of us obviously sooner or later hit puberty, being teenagers, attracted to a girl or a boy, being in first love, wondering why is it like to be hugged or to be kissed, and curious about sex. This curiousity is normal, just like my counseling teacher said. But, to control it, that's hard to do. Some of teenagers weren't well-prepared to face those curiousity and then fall into the wrong acts; such as sex before marriage (it's taboo on our country) or even worse, free sex. Lately, i've been enamored with an app called 'Secret' where people can say or post photos anonymously, and the others can reply the post or chat anonymously. It was fun actually, we can say anything what we want there, promote something, or tell our problems without being known who we really are. Sadly, you can see that in that app (which the users are dominated by teenagers), pornography isn't a rare thing to found. You can see people post 'cs? ss? ps?' which is offering for chat sex (cs), snapsex (ss) and phone sex (ps), or even post pornography. What surprised me was i found a story of a girl where she used to be forced by her own boyfriend to do sex, and she was somehow regret it because her boyfriend left her not longer after that happened. Girls, please note, that if your boyfriend loves you, he wouldn't do something bad on you, harm you, or force you to do something that you don't want to. If he loves you, he would respect you. And if he push you to do something like sex, you better leave him before he ruin your life, because it means he doesn't love you like they told you they do. Don't misuse your compassion. You have to know that you're strong enough to say 'no'. But remember; when you say 'no', you have to act 'no' too. Don't let your love to your boyfriend ruin your life, so, you have to love yourself first.