Women issue was always closely related to patriarchy culture and the latter’s many manifestation. This was realistic, right? Patriarchy was so entrenched in our social life that it did not diminish with the ticking time. Knowledge expanded, thoughts became more open, technology became more modern, yet people still chose to be entrapped in patriarchy and even showed more forcefully this aspect by holding on to power to all aspects of life. It was not necessary to use modern telescope to see this fact, one just needed to open one’s eyes and see from the closest thing to them. Let us not dwell on the long list of what patriarchy did and/or its impacts, but let us concentrate on taking small steps to eliminate it so that one day it vanished from our culture.
First, we had to acknowledge the fullness of a human life that each individual had full power over one’s body. Patriarchy positioned women’s body for submission and obedience to norms and habits without giving space for a woman to make a decision, and this happened since a person was born. For example, the practice of piercing a baby girl, as if this was absolutely necessary to signal that the baby was a girl with a vagina. This was done for many reasons – i.e. to mark the sex of the baby or a perception that doing this when the baby was so young would not hurt the baby. Let us talk about this.
Was it important to know whether a baby we met was a girl or a boy? Was this just a curiosity or a way to make further comment such as "oh what a handsome boy" or "the baby girl cried louder than a baby boy" or a reference for when a person decided to bring a gift? Whatever the reason(s), there would be other ways to know – by asking without guessing based on personal observation about a baby’s ear.
The other reason was that it was better to pierce the ear when the baby was still so young, because they would not feel pain as it would be when the baby was older. Yet parents said that the baby cried when they practiced ear piercing when the baby was so young. Was this cry not enough to tell parents that it was painful? One could not make the assumption that it was not painful just because babies did not express their pain in words. Yes it was true that baby ear might have been tender, but that did not mean that babies did not feel pain as adults. One must remember that a baby’s ability to tolerate pain was not the same as an adult. Pain was there, so why not just wait until the baby was old enough to decide for itself whether it wanted ear piercing or not.
Piercing may sound so simple and should not become an object of a debate. Not performing ear piercing was a choice, just like ear piercing. It was not easy to make the choice, as parents had to be prepared for all sorts of comments. However, there should be one thing clear – recognition for the baby as a whole person with full rights for its own body. And for a baby girl, freedom and recognition were the first gifts of its life.
Second, let us start by teaching equality as early as possible. A variety of factors influenced People’s ways of thinking and acting, including the pattern of care when they were young. Since a baby was born, gender-stereotype view had been implanted through colour choices, toy choices, and so on, automatically. A number of sources, including Tempo.co suggested that colour choices showing gender labeling emerged in the 20th century in the United States and a sociologist from the University of Maryland, Philip Cohen, said that colour as a gender indication was part of the many market strategies. This showed clearly the role of businesses. Yet as time went by, people also used colour to label gender identity, i.e. a boy used pink accessories would be labelled feminine. There was no need to wait until a person became an adult, a boy would reject suggestion to wear clothes or take school bags in pink colour, because they would be ashamed and they would say “boyse do not wear pink”. Where did it come from? Obviously from parents’ choices implanted since early in a baby’s life.
The same happened to toys, boys were identified with cars or robots, while girls were identified with dolls or cooking. All toys had their own specific use. There were many research and journals that explained that dolls taught social skills and increase empathy while cars taught logics. Both were useful, but why not every child played them?
Then, what was the relations between toys and the entrenchment of patriarchy? Imagine if a child was accustomed to cooking as a girl’s play, then that same child would carry the same thought all its life that cooking was a girl’s job or a wife’s job.
Patriarchy culture formed an evil axis that necessitated courage to break as patriarchy-informed child raising was so penchant and further strengthened patriarchy itself. Changing habit was not small measure, especially when this was practiced through generations. Ye we had the choices, and a small act may not seem enough to make a dent now. But whatever we did would slowly eliminate patriarchy and lead to equality. (Dorkas Febria Krisprianugraha)
