Blog si Feminis

when I fall in love

it will be forever

or I’ll never fall in love

"How many true loves will we have in our life?" that’s what Carrie Bradshaw asked her three good friends in Sex and the City. She apparently was doubtful whether true love ever exists. What is true love anyway?

love is when I loved you

one true time I hold to

in my life will always go on

That’s the part of Celine Dion’s "My heart will go on", depicting love of Rose to Jack in the legendary movie Titanic. Though Jack died, and she herself married someone else, Rose always kept her love for Jack, eventhough they spent only some days together in that luxurious ship before it was wrecked and killed Jack. No one knew about that until she reached the age of more than eighty.

What is true love anyway? Does it exist? Sensual and sexual love between man and woman, for heterosexuals, or between man and man or woman and woman, for homosexuals.

The same as Carrie Bradshaw who seemed doubtful of love, I often ask myself whether there is really true love between a couple.

I believe in true parental love between parents and children though I have found many cases around me that the parents ignore or desert their children. There must be a very strong reason behind if that happens, and I suppose societal pressures often engender it.

How do you define love?

Some months ago, a friend of mine said to me, “Nana, last weekend I had a wonderful sex with my hubby. Do you know what he said while we were doing it? He said, “Don’t you know my darling wife that your pussy is the most “delicious” one?” She went on saying, “ Men are always good in flirting, aren’t they?”

I smiled to hear that. I thought, when someone used “superlative” here, he must have tried more than one thing, right? However, I was being nice not to say to her, “Don’t you realize that by saying that, your hubby has done with many other women? That he has tried many other pussies?” LOL.

Some weeks ago, another friend told me about her spending New Year’s Eve in  Singapore  with her hubby. Orchard Road was full of sexy and pretty girls with minimalist clothes. LOL. My friend said to her hubby, “Honey, look at those girls. Don’t you think that they are very sexy?” Her hubby’s comment was curt, “They taste the same as yours, darling.”

Jokingly, I commented, “Well, if your hubby said so, it means that he has tried theirs so that he could say that theirs is just the same as yours.” LOL.

My friend got dumbfounded to hear that. But then she laughed and said, “Well, mbak, later, I will talk to my hubby about that. Mbak Nana said, “if you know that theirs tastes the same as mine, it means that you have tasted them.” LOL.

I was in Yogya at that time, and she lived in the same boarding house with mine. She is from  Sumatra. Now I am back to my hometown, Semarang. I don’t keep in touch with her any longer coz her mobile phone was just stolen before I moved back to Semarang. I don’t know whether she has “reported” to her hubby about my comment. LOL.

The following short conversation happened between an old friend, a guy, and me some years ago. We used to be very close during two and a half years at high school.

W: Some time ago, I visited a sick friend in a hospital. Two sick people in the same room with my friend attracted my attention. One patient was surrounded by his children. He looked so happy although he was sick coz his children were there, to give him full attention. The other patient was lying on his bed all alone. No children visited him. Poor him. It made me imagine if I don’t have any kid, I will end up lonely in my old age. I don’t want such a sad thing to happen to me. That’s my main reason why I adopted a child. Although he is only my adopted child, I believe if I raise him well, take care of him well, he will pay me back later.

N (with my cynical nature, but honest): Don’t you realize how selfish you sounded to me? You adopted that kid, not mainly to help a poor family that cannot raise him well, give him good food, clothes, and education, but mostly to satisfy your own egotism, to make people admire your good-hearted character, and then, to make that kid feel indebted to you so that later he will pay you back all the money you give him, by taking care of you in your old age? Maybe also by giving you some pension money after you retire or you don’t feel strong anymore to make your ends meet? What if later on he doesn’t grow up just like what you expect? Will you regret it? And then you will feel hurt consequently?

My friend was speechless to hear me saying something he didn’t expect to come out of my mouth. Not meeting each other for some years obviously has made us view things from different, or even, contradictory point of view.

In our culture in Indonesia, one most asked question to newly wedded couple was, “Have you conceived?” or “When will you have a baby?” Many people take it for granted that it seems the main reason for people to get married is for breeding. People then believe that without a baby a family is not happy, not “normal”. Neighbors, friends, relatives keep asking the couple about the coming of a baby without realizing that such a question really bothers some people who unfortunately are “destined” by God difficult to “produce” a baby.

To conform to the norm constructed by society about the “happiness” of a family (read à to have a baby), many couples do the best they can to have a baby. Some have to spend much money for that.

Don’t we then realize that having a baby is for our own egotism? For our selfish nature to make people consider us as “normal” and “happy” people? (Why do people not feel confident with themselves that they are just “normal” and “happy” so that they need other people’s recognition that they are really normal and happy? Don’t we realize that feeling happy comes from our deep heart, and not from other people’s judgment? Why should we care for what other people talk about us?)

When we realize that having a baby is for our egotism, we are supposed to give the best for our children, right? Our responsibility as parents is to give them the best, without expecting that one day our children must pay back what we have given them. We have “made use of” our children to make people around us call us as happy and normal couple. I think it is too much then if we ask our children to give us what we ask them as “tribute”. It can be in the form of obedience, admiration, respect, until money after our children grow up and work.

One good friend of mine comes from a family with seven children. Her parents are not lucky to have big income for the seven children. Therefore, since in her undergraduate study, she has worked to help her parents’ finance. I see her as a very responsible child for her parents, though I still say that it is not supposed to be her responsibility to take care of everything only coz she is the only one from the seven children who continued her study to college.

If we all can choose, I believe we want to be born in a family without any financial problem, or any other problem. We have come to this world, not coz we want to be in this mortal world, but coz our parents want to have children, to make them considered “happy” and “normal” by their friends, relatives, etc. Then, we are indoctrinated to be obedient to our parents, respect our parents, and in many cases also to be submissive to them to do what they want us to do, sometimes without any other choice, as if we don’t have our own way of thinking as a free person, if we want to go to heaven in later life. Consequently, we will do the same thing to our children. It means, this unfavorable condition will happen again and again? When will we be fair to our children so that later on they will be fair to their children?

Any comment, friends?

Wise men say that life is full of mystery. Three main things that people say as mysterious: who will be our spouse, what kind of occupation we will get (Indonesian people call it as rejeki, and the last one is how old someone will drift away from this mortal world.

This morning, I got a chance to interview my students again about getting married. Two students came up with two new responses. The first student, a boy, aged in his early twenties, said, “I am not really concerned about getting married or not, Ma’am. My religion teacher at school said that if we do not get married in this world, God has provided us a ‘match’ or ‘partner’ in heaven later.”

Jokingly I asked him, “How sure are you that you will go to heaven? How about if you go to hell?”

Convincingly, he replied, “I will go to heaven, Ma’am. I am sure of it.”

I responded, “Wow … that’s good. To be confident that you will go to heaven is good. It means that you will take care of your attitude and behavior in this life.”

The second student, a girl, also in her early twenties, said, “Getting married is our destination in this life, Ma’am.”

Being not clear what she meant with ‘destination’, I asked her to elaborate it. She said, “In Al-Quran, God stated that we were all created in pairs. So was I. I have my own pair, I believe.”

I asked her back, “Are you sure about that? Don’t you see many people around us still live single until they get old? And many of them have passed away before getting married? Frankly speaking, I’d prefer your classmate’s response that, if we don’t have our pair in this world, believe in yourself that we will have one in later life. It will not make you feel uncomfortable or restless if you will not find one until “dangerous” age.”

What I meant with “dangerous age” is above thirty—especially for women (in Indonesia!). Many women who do not feel confident that there is nothing wrong to be single will grab any guy to marry, only coz they feel restless, inferior, and uncomfortable when people around them besiege them with questions, “When will you get married? Now that you are successful with your career, don’t you think about getting settled by having a family?” Living in a marriage-oriented society like in Indonesia makes people—especially women, coz they get much more pressure from their parents, relatives, neighbors, friends than men—feel something wrong with them if they keep being single. Consequently, it can engender women to choose to be the second wife, let’s say. It is supported by selfish men who believe that they were created to be polygamous, while in fact, they are just greedy and cannot control their egotism.

If only those women were not besieged with such questions, if only they didn’t feel restless to live single, this grabbing any guy wouldn’t happen. They would feel more confident to go on living single.

The answer of that second student reminded me of a friend, a guy, divorced, and his only daughter lives with his ex wife. A year ago, he said, “Nana, living in this world, we have to struggle to get what we want. I am sure one day I will find someone again. I got very hurt with my divorce, yes, but it doesn’t mean that I have to stop trying to find someone. I believe that God created all human beings in pairs.”

I commented, “You know, Prophet Isa left this world in his very young age, only about thirty three years, and he was still single at that time.”

He went on, “Nana, the most important thing is that we have to struggle. And who said that our pair can only be found in this mortal world? If we don’t get one in this world, well, God has created one in later life for us.”

If only all people think that way—if we don’t have pair in this world, we will have one in later life–, I am quite certain that this world will be a bit more peaceful. No one will get forced to get married soon, at least. No one will complain that someone has “stolen” his/her spouse. LOL.

The following question I asked my student was “How old is an ideal age to get married?”

One student, a boy, straightly said, “29. It is related to the fact that men as the breadwinner, he must prepare everything before getting married.”

I commented, “Well, you know, nowadays, many people complain about the soaring prices for everything. Don’t you think that you will let your wife work to help you?”

He answered, “Well, I still want to be the main breadwinner. If my wife wants to work, it is okay as long as she doesn’t forget her main responsibility as a wife.”

I asked back, “What do you mean with wife’s responsibilities?”

He replied, “Well, such as taking care of our children.”

“Will you get rid of yourself from taking care of your children? Don’t you think that raising children is the responsibility of both parents? Well, it reminds me of the movie The Stepford Wives where in one scene a man refused to help his wife to cook by saying, “I have a penis. I am not supposed to do kitchen chores.” A woman doesn’t need her breasts nor her vagina nor womb in doing household chores. How could a man say such a thing to refuse to do household chores?

By the way, that conversation with my student reminded me of two cases of two ex male workmates of mine. Around 10 years ago, a male workmate of mine—with initial B–married his fiancée after he graduated from his college. As a new English teacher, of course, he didn’t earn much to support a life of a wife; moreover with a baby that would come. This was what another male workmate of mine—with initial H—thought, so he criticized B. Wisely, B said, “If you always wait for the time when you feel “ready”, how sure are you that you will feel ready financially? People tend to have greedy character, never feel enough.

A year after getting married, B got another job which was more suitable with his educational background. Now he lives prosperously with his wife and two children.

Some years ago, H became a furniture businessman. He married a beautiful girl who happened to be a daughter of a rich man. He quit from the workplace. Unfortunately, with the changing business world atmosphere in Indonesia, he couldn’t go on with his business. He had to live together with his wife’s family. And the last info I got was they already got divorced.

Life is really mystery, isn’t it?

                         When I really have nothing to do, and doing my favorite things (reading, writing, or listening to music) cannot comfort me anymore, I start to wonder what else I can do to make my day challenging, also entertaining.

I think I need something new to lighten up my days … but I still have no idea yet what kind of thing it is …  Daydreaming all day is not the answer, rite? and at the time being, I have no one to miss but my only daughter, now that I live together with her, I dont need to miss her very much coz we are together everyday.

Probably I miss Yogya, the city where I pursued my master’s degree.

Probably I miss to have someone special to miss …

The following short conversation is taken from SULA (1973:124-125) written by Toni Morrison

Nel: “But what about me? What about me? Why didn’t you think about me? Didn’t I count? I never hurt you. What did you take him for if you didn’t love him and why didn’t you think about me? I was good to you, Sula, why don’t that matter?”

Sula: “It matters, Nel, but only to you. Not to anybody else. Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don’t get nothing for it.”

Nel and Sula are two main characters in the novel. They had been good friends since they were kids coz both of them were neighbors. After graduating from high school, Nel married her prince charming, while Sula went out of town to continue her study. 10 years later, Sula went back to her hometown. Nel was happily married and Sula kept single coz she thought that all men would leave their wives for another woman or for any other reason.

Nel found Sula extraordinary with that kind of thinking. She tried to turn all kinds of opinions upside down. When black people thought that they got jealous toward white people coz of privileges they got only by being born as white (in America, the traces of slavery done by the white toward their fellow black citizens were still hanging over strongly during the twentieth century despite the fact that Lincoln abolished the practice of slavery in 1863.) Sula turned it upside down. She said that even those white people got jealous of the black coz the black male were popularly known as to have bigger and longer penises than the white male. Therefore, the white spread belief that “White is more beautiful than black.”

It is not something astonishing, then, if that statement said by Sula attracted Jude, to fuck her. One day it did happen. Nel saw it. Consequently, Jude left Nel and their only daughter without saying anything, or explaining anything why that happened. Sula proved to Nel that “men were created to leave women.” Meanwhile, the friendship between Nel and Sula was broken.

The conversation between Nel and Sula above happened one day after many years passed, whe Sula was seriously ill.

My contemplation is …

Why should people always expect something in return when they do something (they think) good to others? It means that they do that not wholeheartedly, coz they secretly wish something back. Is it that difficult nowadays to find people who are willing to do “good” things to other people without expecting something back?

What is “good” anyway? What is “bad”? Who has right to say that something is good or bad? Why must there be values like that? In reality, something “good” if viewed from one perspective, it can be “bad” if viewed from another perspective. Pangeran Diponegoro is a hero, for Indonesian people (we learned like that in our historical book/lesson, didn’t we?); while for Dutch, Diponegoro was just a rebel.

Why should we feel hurt when we think we have done something good to someone (let’s say a good friend), and then in the future we only find him/her do something on the contrary to what we expect and then it even hurts us?

Why should I feel hurt when one good friend of mine did something which I think that she was not supposed to do to me? It is my own mistake, right, to expect that she will always understand me coz one time she told me that I am her soul mate?

I felt like I was in Nel’s position that expected Sula to understand her. While before this, I always thought that Sula’s opinion—though difficult to be understood—was the best thing to prevent ourselves from heartache, from feeling disappointed.

Well, just like what wise people say, “it’s easier to say, and it is difficult to do.”

Cheer up, Nana. J

What do you think of having an affair with another man/woman outside marriage?

Some weeks ago, I got an email from a friend who had to live far away from his wife due to his study. He is from a small city in

Sumatra

and he took his Master’s Degree in

Yogyakarta

. (For Information: He has graduated now.) He told me about having an affair at office with his workmates could give him more spirit to go to work. He also said that “menurut aq, klo suami atau cowok udah ngelirik wanita lain itu bkn sj kesalahan dr pihak cowok, tp bs sj ada permasalahan yg terjadi di RT nya, kepribadian, gaya hidup, perawatan diri sebelum menikah kadang2 tidk lg sm stlh menikah, aplg stlh mempunyai anak perempuan klo sdh menikah punya anak, mereka sdh kurang memperhatikan perawatan diri mereka, itu yg prnh aq rasakan, dan apabila kita terus terang mengatakannya kpd pasangan, malah dia yg tersinggung dan marah, jdi binun deh hehehehe” .

Well, friends, you can say that this is not something new. It has happened since a long time ago, right?

He sounded trying to understand his wife but we still can ‘smell’ egotism, do you agree? Will you say egotism is one character of men? Women don’t have right to be selfish? Or, after getting married, a woman is not supposed to be selfish? And if a woman wants to be considered as  “an ideal wife, a true woman”, she has to be submissive, repress her egotism? While the man, coz he is the superior, he can do anything?

My comment on his question is as follows:

mengenai hubungan dengan orang lain yang bukan suami/istri/pacar kita, well … kita harus cari tahu lagi, apa dasar hubungan tersebut. Kalo hanya for fun, ato seperti apa yang kamu tulis, agar tidak membosankan ketika kita berada di lingkungan kerja, kita harus cari tahu lagi mengapa bekerja itu bisa menjadi membosankan? Mengapa ketika kita punya hubungan khusus dengan orang lain itu bisa meningkatkan gairah kerja kita. Masak iya? Hahaha … aku sih, asal, fair ya, it’s ok. Maksudku fair di sini adalah, kebosanan itu datang tidak hanya menimpa pada diri kita, bisa juga datang ke pasangan kita (suami/istri/pacar). Nah, ketika pasangan kita pun mengalami hal yang sama, dan dia melakukan hal yang sama dengan yang kita lakukan, yakni menjalin hubungan dengan pihak lain, seberapa besar hati kita untuk menerimanya? Rela nggak? Kalo kita pun menjalin hubungan dengan orang lain, ya, kita juga harus mau ngertiin dong kalo kemudian pasangan kita pun melakukan hal yang sama. Kalo nggak bisa, karena cemburu, misalnya, ya … harusnya kita juga ngerti kalo pasangan kita pun akan cemburu kalo kita dengan seenak udel kita menjalin hubungan dengan pihak lain. J hehehe … ya kan? Fair kan?

How about having sex with another person? Kembali lagi ke pernyataan ku di atas, mengapa kita melakukan itu? Apa kurang puas kita melakukannya dengan pasangan kita? Kalo iya, mengapa kurang puas? Kan seharusnya dengan komunikasi terbuka, kita diharapkan bisa saling memuaskan sau sama lain? Kalo sudah komunikasi terbuka, permasalah masih ada, ya go ahead lah. Tapi, ya itu tadi, harus fair. Kalo ternyata pasangan kita pun tidak puas dengan kita, ya resiko, pasangan kita pun tentu akan melakukannya dengan orang lain. Ini bukan masalah membalas dendam, tapi masalah hak, masalah bahwa tubuh kita ini adalah milik kita.

Kalo alasan having sex dengan orang lain karena kebetulan kita tinggal berjauhan dengan pasangan kita, misalnya aja kamu. Hehehe … well, kupikir itu masuk akal. Dengan catatan, kalo istrimu melakukan hal yang sama, dengan alasan yang sama, ya kamu harus legowo menerimanya. Gitu kan? Hehehehe …

Well, as a (radical) feminist who believes that women have equal right with men, I always try to view things from equal/fair perspective. For example, if we agree with polygamy, a woman must have right to do polyandry, if a man has an affair with another woman, his wife must have the same right, the husband is not supposed to feel jealous if he finds out that the wife has an affair too; if a husband has sex with another woman coz he thinks that his wife cannot satisfy him, he must understand if his wife also has sex with another man, maybe not merely coz of satisfaction, but can be based on any other reason. If the husband cannot accept it, well, he must realize that a woman cannot accept it either.

Some weeks later, a male chat friend asked my opinion about ‘swinger’. One of his female friend complained to him coz her husband feels bored with their routine sexual activity, so that he proposed an idea of having swinger. Well, in one case, this husband sounds ‘wise’, coz he told his wife the truth and gave an idea. In ‘swinger’, both husband and wife will see their spouse have sex with another partner. It is fair, isn’t it? However, still communication must be bridged it. When the woman cannot do it, either coz she cannot do it with another man due to the strict ‘indoctrination’ taught to her (e.g. that a woman must be loyal to her husband, it means she must not have sex with another, or having sex with another man means committing adultery, a very big sin), or coz she cannot see her beloved husband fuck another woman before her very own eyes due to jealousy, the husband must understand that. People say that jealousy is a part of love. Do you agree?

Any comment?

Women’s financial dependency on men can lead to misery.

When doing research for my thesis, I found out that we all were shaped by our past experience. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), a feminist American writer whose book entitled Women and Economics has been translated to many languages and used by many universities in the world after its publication in 1898, became strict about her principle that women could make themselves equal to men not by merely getting suffrage, but more than that, women must get opportunities to get a job, to make themselves financially independent and secure because of her bitter childhood. While her feminist contemporaries were busy struggling to get vote for women to make themselves equal with men, Gilman didn’t really agree with that. only getting suffrage was not enough to make women equal with men. Gilman’s principle in life is women must be financially independent.

Gilman’s mother, Mary Ann Fitch Wescott, belonging to middle-class social group believed that to be a true woman, she must be submissive and domestic. “To be a housewife is the most coveted profession for middle and upper-class women” was her idea of an ideal life. This indoctrination was very strongly stuck to her mind so that she didn’t do anything to support her own life and children when her husband deserted her. She believed she was not to work outside. Consequently, she and her two children survived based on her relatives’ pity. Three of them had to move nineteen times in eighteen years in order to go on living, from one relative’s house to another, from one city to another. Gilman remembered her mother as someone who denied the children all expression of affection as far as possible, so that the children should not be used to it or long for it. (Ceplair, ed. 1991:11).

Gilman’s mother’s financial dependency on her husband led her own life and children’s to misery.

Living in such a hard life shaped Gilman’s character to be hardworking and strict. She believed if women were not indoctrinated to be domestic and submissive, she wouldn’t have suffered—having a loveless relationship with her mother and living under her relatives’ pity. If only her mother had not been financially dependent on men, she wouldn’t have grown up with her strict principle—women must get a job to make them financially independent. Therefore, Gilman wrote a lot of books (novels e.g. Herland, short stories e.g. “The Yellow Wallpaper”—her most well-known and anthologized one, The Forerunner, scientific journal she wrote, edited, and published by herself monthly for seven years, and many others) and gave lectures to all over America and some countries in Europe during her life time to express her ideas—women are as good as men in earning money.

Now going back to what happens in

Indonesia

. I want to take a case written in “Suara APIK” edition number 25 in 2005 published by LBH APIK. A housewife who has got married for 15 years got a lot of sexual, physical and psychological abuse from her husband. At the time being she doesn’t have any other choice but continuing her hellish marriage coz she is economically dependent on her husband. She is also in dilemma. When LBH APIK suggested her to report to the police for what her husband has done to her, with UU PKDRT (Regulations on the abolishment of marriage violence), women can get protection from many kinds of abuses done by their husbands, this woman is not quite sure to do it coz she doesn’t want her husband to be jailed with the reason that her husband provides her financial support, and that their only son needs parental love from both his father and mother.

If that woman were economically independent, it would be easier for her to take a further step to save her own life and happiness, e.g. to file divorce, and then live more peacefully with her only son. If she went on with her bitter marriage, there would be a possibility that her only son “learned” something from his parents’ case, especially his father, e.g. that a man can do anything he wants toward his wife coz he provides money for the family so that he is superior. It will engender more victims on women’s part in the future.

Therefore, although I always say to my female students that they have full right to choose whether they want to work and have career outside home or to be a full housewife and let her husband feel as “a true man” as the solely breadwinner, I still try to remind my female students that there is possibility that one day they have to be economically independent for their own sake and happiness.