A Problem Hidden Right in Sight: Gender Bias and Women Misrepresentation in Indonesian School Textbooks
“Tempat perempuan adalah sumur, dapur, dan kasur.”
“Women belong in wells, kitchens, and bedrooms.”
As much as we would like to admit that the lifelong dream of gender equality in education has been achieved in Indonesia — quantitatively indicated, among others, through the average number of female students in each province in Indonesia that reached around 12 millions compared to the 13 million of their counterpart according to 2018/2019’s Indonesia Educational Statistics in Brief by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the percentage of female students participation in elementary education, at 99,35%, that was slightly higher than male students, at 99,12%, according to Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik) in 2019 (Amalia, 2021) — we must face the fact that we have yet to perform qualitatively well enough to make meanings and real senses of achievement out of such data. In stark contrast, Indonesia was ranked 85 out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Gender Gap Index as our women still lagged behind in terms of, among others, labour force participation (Asadullah, 2020). Not to mention, the rate of child marriage in Indonesia is still one of the highest in Southeast Asia and that millions of Indonesian women and young girls have reportedly faced various forms of sexual or physical violence throughout their lives (Asadullah, 2020). As we’ve discussed previously in our published reflection of Omnibus Law last year, such grim realities only add to the growing list of concerns over gender inequality in Indonesia which have put women and young girls at disadvantages.
In the discourse of gender representation in education, Indonesia is still haunted by the many ghosts of biased gender depiction, gender stereotype, gender marginalization, gender discrimination, and gender subordination attempting to systematically simplify and normalize the different roles between male (boys) and female (girls) according to the commonly accepted norms and society’s expectations over each gender performances. Some of those ghosts are manifested through the depictions and descriptions of male domination in certain occupations that are commonly accepted as more prestigious,“professional”, and masculinity-laden, such as doctors, politicians, firefighters, and soldiers, while female occupations are mostly traditional and less prestigious (Islam & Asadullah, 2018). Moreover, women are universally expected to be the manager of the household who are in charge of domestic chores — from cooking to cleaning — and children-rearing and bearing yet no matter how autonomous they might be in performing such domestic roles, their husbands, as the breadwinners, would still be the main decision-maker of the family (Utomo et al., 2009). In addition to being incoherent with the realities of existing job opportunities for both men and women, said stereotypes, according to Mills & Mills (1996), would most likely keep both sexes in their traditional professions (Ena, 20143) and, on the longer term, would hinder female participation in Indonesia’s labour force (Asadullah, 2020). On the other hand, men are often portrayed as having control over their emotions — or even emotionless — while women are often seen crying, showing emotions and compassion, or seeking help and depending on other agents (Blackstone, 2003, in Amalia, 2021). Men are also often stereotyped as being more assertive and showing greater power and control compared to women — a sign of subordination of the latter gender.
Although gender representation in Indonesian school textbooks are, in general, quantitatively equal and proportional, the quality of such representation still falls short in portraying female identity. Amalia (2021) found some of the instances in Buku Tematik Terpadu: Hidup Rukun for 2nd grade elementary students where the cover illustrates the harmonious environment of a neighbourhood where two adult women are shaking hands, a mother is sending her son to school, and no adult men is to be found. On the first page of the book, an all-male communal work (gotong royong) to clean the environment is illustrated with no woman present. In Pendidikan Agama Islam dan Budi Pekerti for 3rd graders, Amalia found more pictorial illustrations representing men than women, where 322 pictures depicting the former and only 172 pictures depicting the latter. On page 8 of the book, two pictures portraying different roles of boys and girls are juxtaposed where one picture illustrates a boy getting ready for schools while the other picture illustrates girls washing the dishes — a stark emphasis of women’s gender roles in the domestic sphere. In the same book, Amalia also found an illustration where a boy is seen comforting a weeping girl which gives the impression of girls characterized as being more emotional. Another textbook, Buku Tematik Terpadu Kurikulum 2013: Panas dan Perpindahannya for 5th graders, exhibits an illustration on page 135 where two females, a mother and a daughter, are cooking in the kitchen whilst a male — the father — is watching television. In Buku Tematik Terpadu Kurikulum 2013: Persatuan dalam Perbedaan for 6th graders, gender stereotypes is again being accentuated by an illustration-accompanying-a-text of traditional dance called Indang performed by girls while another illustration accompanying portrays a boy instructing how to run — a vivid example of men (boys)’ display of strength, agility, and assertiveness and women (girls)’ display of delicacy, subtlety, passiveness, and modesty.
Bias in gender portrayals and misleading representation of women is also evident in the 2013 National Curriculum’s English textbooks for 7th and 8th graders entitled When English Rings a Bell — a book still used by middle schoolers to this date — of which Lestariyana, Widodo, and Sulistiyo (2020) studied for their research on female representation in government-mandated textbook. The quantitative study found that the proportion of male characters, at 62,8%, was higher than that of female characters, at 37,2%, and, qualitatively, female characters are still stereotyped as being a housewife despite being socially assigned in one of a professional job (a surgeon); performing very well in school in relative comparison to male (boys) counterparts; having talent and passion for music and singing, and favoring socially-relaxing and non-sport activities, such as going to the park with family, which might be considered as socially-feminine (Lestariyana, Widodo, & Sulistiyo, 2020). Although one of the female characters mentioned in a dialogue was assigned a job as a surgeon (professional work), it’s not to be put aside that, socio-culturally, working women in general bear the dual responsibility of carrying out domestic chores and earning money. This also holds true — and more evident — to families of middle to lower economic classes where the women must support family earnings capacity by working outside of the house and still perform their housewives obligations which then results in the dual identities of married women (Lestariyana, Widodo, & Sulistiyo, 2020). However, when the family experiences difficulties or the children are having educational and social problems, women, who are already responsible for these dual roles, simultaneously, are still usually at fault (Utomo et al., 2009).
These instances of textbooks containing biased gender stereotypes are still the tip of the iceberg. The problem is, according to the two theories of gender stereotypes within an educational institution, namely Social Cognitive theory and Hidden Curriculum theory, the women/young girls disempowerment shown in the biases and misrepresentation in textbooks — and other supporting instruments within the education system, such as environmental settings, teachers, and systems of rewards — will lower their self-esteem and undermine their aspirations, further creating imaginative boundaries and limits to fit the ideals of women/men into the mould of their respective portrayed gender roles (Islam & Asadullah, 2018). According to the Social Cognitive theory, the ‘imposed’ environmental setting will force children to develop gender perceptions and conceptions through what they learn from teachers, learning resources, and other mechanisms at school and the gender stereotypes will only be reproduced through the curriculum and textbooks at school. It is indeed, for lack of a better term, unfortunate that in Asian countries textbooks play such an important role in the education system and that the common perception rules that whatever is printed in the textbooks are ought to be observed and followed with less critical attitudes (Islam & Asadullah, 2018).
The more frequent women and young girls being portrayed managing domestic work — as housewives or “second-grade professions” considered socially-feminine and relatively passive or riskless — rather than carrying out professional jobs — the ones that are often assigned to men; doctors, politician, firefighters, president, engineers, astronauts — in textbooks, the more convinced students will be of the perception that women and girls belong to those particular works and places, thereby restraining them in certain corridors of occupations they’d think are exclusively reserved for them. Same thing goes with the opposite — that the more frequent men and boys being depicted as strong, masculinity-laden, emotionless, or even capable of violence in textbooks, the easier for them to develop such perception within and to outwardly practice it. But who are we to create such made-out-of-thin-ice bubbles that these children are forced to live in and pay the consequences for when they’re grown?
Hence, even if people have come to admit that the saying of “women belong in wells, kitchens, and bedrooms” is obsolete enough by now, for some women and young girls in Indonesia, the fear of it becoming realities is still apparent. As apparent, and as near, as when men — or even women — around us utter the maxim as a joke or anecdote and, without realizing, conveniently undermine decades-long of painstaking efforts to eliminate the gender stereotypes in Indonesia, especially within the education system that will inexhaustibly raise generations ahead. At last, let’s hope that this is not the way we’re going to celebrate and commemorate R.A. Kartini’s lifelong struggle for gender equality, especially in terms of education in Indonesia, for the 57th time on the upcoming 21st April.
REFERENCE
Amalia, C. (2021, February 16). Stereotip Gender dalam Buku Sekolah Indonesia. PMB LIPI. https://pmb.lipi.go.id/stereotip-gender-dalam-buku-sekolah-indonesia/.
Asadullah, M. N. Research finds gender bias in textbooks of Indonesia and other Muslim majority countries. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/research-finds-gender-bias-in-textbooks-of-indonesia-and-other-muslim-majority-countries-132676.
Ena, O. T. (2014). Gender Roles Representation in Indonesian School Textbooks: A visual Content Analysis. South Carolina: Createspace.
Islam, K. M. M., & Asadullah, M. N. (2018). Gender stereotypes and education: A comparative content analysis of Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi school textbooks. PloS one, 13(1), e0190807.
Lestariyana, R. P. D., Widodo, H. P., & Sulistiyo, U. (2020). Female representation in government-mandated English Language textbooks used in Indonesian Junior High Schools. Sexuality & Culture, 24, 1150–1166.
Perasso, V. (2017, October 12). 100 Perempuan: Buku-buku pelajaran sekolah melecehkan peran perempuan. BBC News Indonesia. https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/dunia-41563918.
Utomo, I. D., McDonald, P., Hull, T., Rosyidah, I., Hattimah, T., Idrus, N. I., … & Makruf, J. (2007, September). Gender depiction in Indonesian school textbooks: progress or deterioration. In XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference.