Respect for women
I feel sad and outraged upon witnessing many kinds of discrimination, harrasment, violence, and judgement that women experience throughout their daily lives. Although I do not completely agree with the idea of feminism, I believe that women should have the right to stand up for themselves.
In developing countries, where the patriarchy system is still dominating in most sectors, I find this hard to achieve, as women often become an object of the aforementioned. People, especially men, who are less educated in developing countries have a tendency to disrespect women in many ways, mostly caused by their lack of understanding of women's rights to protect themselves. But I intend to not view this from a gender perspective, since women are mostly judged in society by the same sex. It's easy for women to feel jealousy towards other women. Men are the ones who face less judgement, while women have to endure being judged, often by both sexes. Behaving or dressing differently can easily be judged inappropriate by a certain society, especially conservative ones.
In religious countries, such as Indonesia, where religion plays a fundamental role in everyday lives, many people criticize women on how they should behave and dress appropriately from a religious perspective. Before I explain a bit further, I must explain that in Islam particularly, women are considered to be special as a diamond, therefore they should protect themselves and gain respect from men. Those are one of the many reasons why we are told (and have chosen) to wear a headscarf.
Personally, I wear a headscarf and cover my entire body, with only uncovering my face and hands is because I realize how precious I am as a woman and I do not intend to be disrespected by the opposite sex. Even so, I respect women who to choose to not wear a headscarf because I believe that it's their own personal matters between them and God.
But some people, I believe, have gone a bit too far by interfering on a woman's most personal matters, such as judging a woman is 'bad' because she does not wear a headscarf, or she does not wear it appropriately, or she wears it with jeans, and so on. I feel disgusted by the 'so-called religious' judgement from our 'so-called religious' society. On what account should women be judged on the way they dress? Well if it's bothering you, than certainly you're the one who's having a problem, not them. Stop putting your noses into other people's personal matters.
Also, the amount of rape cases is much higher in developing countries. I never cease to feel angry and disgusted every time I read or see a news report about 'yet another raping incident' in India, where raping happens every now and then because men are just too imbecile to learn the definition of 'respect'. In Indonesia, even though raping cases is probably not as bad as India, but it still happens quite often. Mostly, when a raping incident occurs, it is the victim who gets the blame, not the rapist. The rapist only has to be sentenced a few years (even months!) in prison, while the victim is often blamed by society for 'dressing unappropriately', 'doing gestures that invite men', and many other stereotypes that is fictionly-made by society. She also has to suffer from a long-term trauma and the possibility of her future being at risk.
Probably my statements and arguments that I uphold here are not quite as strong, but my point is, in the digital age we now live in, women have the right to speak out their opinions and be heard. The government should also make regulations that protect women and minimize any form of criminal act intended upon women. Society also needs to be educated by stop judging and disrespecting women in many ways. These examples are not much compared to the many amount of other cases in reality. But I hope from now on we can learn to be a better citizen, and a better person through respect.
In developing countries, where the patriarchy system is still dominating in most sectors, I find this hard to achieve, as women often become an object of the aforementioned. People, especially men, who are less educated in developing countries have a tendency to disrespect women in many ways, mostly caused by their lack of understanding of women's rights to protect themselves. But I intend to not view this from a gender perspective, since women are mostly judged in society by the same sex. It's easy for women to feel jealousy towards other women. Men are the ones who face less judgement, while women have to endure being judged, often by both sexes. Behaving or dressing differently can easily be judged inappropriate by a certain society, especially conservative ones.
In religious countries, such as Indonesia, where religion plays a fundamental role in everyday lives, many people criticize women on how they should behave and dress appropriately from a religious perspective. Before I explain a bit further, I must explain that in Islam particularly, women are considered to be special as a diamond, therefore they should protect themselves and gain respect from men. Those are one of the many reasons why we are told (and have chosen) to wear a headscarf.
Personally, I wear a headscarf and cover my entire body, with only uncovering my face and hands is because I realize how precious I am as a woman and I do not intend to be disrespected by the opposite sex. Even so, I respect women who to choose to not wear a headscarf because I believe that it's their own personal matters between them and God.
But some people, I believe, have gone a bit too far by interfering on a woman's most personal matters, such as judging a woman is 'bad' because she does not wear a headscarf, or she does not wear it appropriately, or she wears it with jeans, and so on. I feel disgusted by the 'so-called religious' judgement from our 'so-called religious' society. On what account should women be judged on the way they dress? Well if it's bothering you, than certainly you're the one who's having a problem, not them. Stop putting your noses into other people's personal matters.
Also, the amount of rape cases is much higher in developing countries. I never cease to feel angry and disgusted every time I read or see a news report about 'yet another raping incident' in India, where raping happens every now and then because men are just too imbecile to learn the definition of 'respect'. In Indonesia, even though raping cases is probably not as bad as India, but it still happens quite often. Mostly, when a raping incident occurs, it is the victim who gets the blame, not the rapist. The rapist only has to be sentenced a few years (even months!) in prison, while the victim is often blamed by society for 'dressing unappropriately', 'doing gestures that invite men', and many other stereotypes that is fictionly-made by society. She also has to suffer from a long-term trauma and the possibility of her future being at risk.
Probably my statements and arguments that I uphold here are not quite as strong, but my point is, in the digital age we now live in, women have the right to speak out their opinions and be heard. The government should also make regulations that protect women and minimize any form of criminal act intended upon women. Society also needs to be educated by stop judging and disrespecting women in many ways. These examples are not much compared to the many amount of other cases in reality. But I hope from now on we can learn to be a better citizen, and a better person through respect.
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