An observer on women`s issues, Yumna Umm Nusaybah, made the remark here on Saturday in response to some efforts of the international community to achieve gender equality between women and men.
She described the struggles of the women to get an equal position with men were triggered by the secularism-capitalist system which standardizes human values with the materials obtained from the public sectors.
"The idea of equality comes from the West because until the 1940s, women did not get the same treatment. They did not have property rights, the right to vote in politics, the right to work and other public rights which belonged to men," Yumna said.
According to the doctor graduated from the University of Airlangga, East Java, Indonesia, such conditions experienced by the Western societies led to women liberation movement that demands gender equality with men in all spheres of public life.
Although the idea of gender equality has been long campaigned, the fact that women who work are paid less than men with the same load factor is still going on in the community, she added.
On the other hand women who are demanding equality treatment on material reward, are also demanding different treatment when they are getting pregnant and giving births, she said.
For example in the UK, women are demanding maternity leave and they get it for a year while the husbands just have two weeks of leave, she noted.
"Whereas it is the women themselves who wanted an equality in the beginning, but then why do they demand treatment differently?" said Yumna who currently lives in London as a physician.
This proves that indeed the natures of women and men are different. They play their respective roles that should be tailored to the abilities of their human nature. The differences do not necessarily make women inferior to men or vice versa, she said.
The role of wives and household managers can only be done by women, she said, adding that this role differentiates the natures of a woman and a man as it is very specific and special.
This role should be optimized so that women are expected to give birth to strong generation and create a better civilized society," Yumna said. (LWA/B005)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
