Gender Bias in Doing Chore Works in Bugis Culture

Gender Bias in Doing Chore Works in Bugis Culture

A. Background
A radical change of a social construction in society had emerged for years. Some new ideologies spread in the society then it directly changes and reconstructs a culture that has already existed and known as a custom of people in a specific place. The research has proved that the word “culture”, is a construction and an on going process, always changes and not as a given thing. In western country, cultural study is only a study on empirical observation of societies’ life style. Therefore a fundamental difference of Indonesian and western study of culture is on the way they observe some phenomenon appear as real evidence.

Generally every country has its own culture. It may be recognized by observing the custom as a kind of culture manifestation. Indonesia is famous with various cultures. It is caused by a number of tribes Indonesia has. These various cultures are also known as the kind of the local culture. Hundreds of cultures have been found in Indonesia. A different custom of every tribe symbolized the different characteristic they had. Bugis or Buginese is one of tribes in Indonesia. In some features Bugis has a different culture from Sunda, Java/Javanese, etc.

As a local culture, Bugis has its own community and every of them have responsibility to conserve their culture. In spite of the fact that the influence of other culture such foreign culture is unavoidable, the Community of Bugis has to maintain and conserve their original culture. In Bugis culture, there is a custom of Bugis community to treat a man better then a woman. This is a kind of gender problem and for some people from other tribes is supposed to be a gender bias. It has been a dilemma in Bugis culture where in one side Bugis has to conserve their custom that has been already existed for century as an appreciation to their ancient, but in other sides they are forced to receive and adapt some new foreign culture as of a development in their tribe. This interesting topic will be discussed in the conflict analysis.

B. Conflict Analysis
In Indonesian culture particularly Bugis culture, both men and women have their own tasks. In other words, a man has totally different task from a woman. The assumptions underpinning the differences are the matters of physical differences, psychological (emotional, logical, spiritual) differences and the nature of the task themselves.

1. Physical Differences
In terms of physical differences, basically men are believed to have stronger muscles than women. It is due to the assumption that women are created from men’s rib. Therefore, in doing their tasks women and men have a limitation where men are supposed to do heavy tasks that women cannot do, on the other hand women are only supposed to do easy tasks. Moreover when men try to do woman’s tasks, people of Bugis will directly judge them as sissy. The reason is that they do not do the tasks properly. The same case for women who do men’s tasks will be judged as tomboy. The popular word for this in Bugis culture is that we put something not in the right place. This statement will definitely be false for people who agree with emancipation.

2. Psychological Differences (emotional, logical, spiritual)
The psychological differences between men and women are unavoidable thing in the society. Men in Bugis culture are more rational than women because men are supposed to have “nine brains” while women only have one. Therefore in doing chore works, men are believed to be able to have a bigger responsibility and better consideration to make a decision. In religious affairs, men have higher position than women because men are supposed to be leaders for women. That is why in every religious ceremony men are much more needed than women. As the result of all these, women cannot do anything freely because they are restricted by some rules they have to perform.

3. The Nature of the Tasks
The nature of the tasks can be the factor that brings a gap between men and women. The nature of the tasks is classified as heavy, risky and easy tasks. In essence women cannot do heavy or risky tasks such as climbing a coconut tree, plowing the field, etc. They can only do easy tasks such us cooking rice, making cakes, etc. Most of women tasks seem like a slave job. Therefore they are likely a slave in their own house where they have to serve men as well after men do the heavy or risk tasks. In Bugis culture, women have no chance to do the heavy tasks because they themselves accustom to do only easy tasks.

C. Conflict Solution
For the solution, being a wise person in judging something is that we should not to be bias because every thing has strengths and weaknesses, so we cannot judge something without any consideration. Secondly, culture is something can be changed. Therefore, we have to be fair in accepting the change as long as it will be good for the development of our community. The last, the cultural conflict of gender can be solved by realizing what is appropriate to do and what is not for us.