Peran dan Fungsi ataukah Kesetaraan dalam Kampanye Kesetaraan Gender di Melanesia

Dalam masyarakat Melanesian, peran dan fungsi gender tradisional telah secara historis cukup kaku, dengan wanita terutama bertanggung jawab untuk tugas-tugas seperti perawatan, mengumpulkan makanan, dan mempertahankan rumah tangga, sementara pria ditugaskan dengan memancing berburu, dan menyediakan untuk keluarga mereka. Peran ini sering didelineasi oleh norma-norma budaya dan nilai-nilai yang menekankan pentingnya menjaga ketertiban sosial dan kohesi masyarakat.

Namun, dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, telah ada dorongan yang berkembang untuk kesetaraan gender di masyarakat Melanesia, bahan bakar oleh gerakan global dan meningkatkan kesadaran hak wanita. Meskipun dorongan ini untuk perubahan, banyak komunitas Melanesian terus berminyak dengan keyakinan berdaun dalam tentang peran gender dan perilaku pria dan wanita yang tepat.

Salah satu tantangan utama dalam mempromosikan kesetaraan gender di masyarakat Melanesian terletak di mencolok keseimbangan antara menghormati bea cukai tradisional dan nilai-nilai sementara advokasi untuk ekuitas gender. Upaya untuk mengatasi kekerasan berbasis gender telah berusaha untuk menavigasi keseimbangan halus ini dengan mengintegrasikan praktik adat Melanesian ke dalam intervensi yang bertujuan untuk mempromosikan kesetaraan gender.

Sebagai contoh, di Papua New Guinea, Kup Women untuk gerakan Perdamaian telah memobilisasi wanita untuk melayani sebagai perdamaian di komunitas mereka, menggambar peran tradisional sebagai pembuat perdamaian dan mediator. Dengan mengetuk norma-norma budaya yang ada ini, gerakan telah dapat secara efektif mengatasi konflik dan meningkatkan kesetaraan gender dalam masyarakat.

Demikian pula, di Vanuatu, Perlindungan Keluarga Undang-Undang menggabungkan metode penyelesaian konflik tradisional Melanesian, seperti mediasi oleh kepala dan pemimpin masyarakat, ke dalam kerangka hukum untuk mengatasi kekerasan dalam negeri. Dengan mengintegrasikan praktik-praktik khusus ini ke dalam mekanisme hukum formal, Undang-Undang telah dapat secara efektif mengatasi kekerasan berbasis gender sambil juga menghormati nilai-nilai dan kepercayaan tradisional.

Menjelajahi lanskap yang kompleks dari kesetaraan gender di masyarakat Melanesian membutuhkan pemahaman damai norma dan nilai-nilai, serta komitmen untuk mempromosikan perubahan positif dalam masyarakat. Strategi untuk efektif menumbuhkan kesetaraan gender dalam konteks ini termasuk terlibat dengan pemimpin lokal dan orang tua untuk dukungan garner untuk inisiatif ekuitas gender, memberikan pendidikan dan pelatihan pada masalah gender, dan memberdayakan wanita untuk menegaskan hak dan advokat mereka untuk perubahan.

Secara keseluruhan, sementara tantangan mempromosikan kesetaraan gender di masyarakat Melanesian signifikan, peluang untuk perubahan positif juga luas. Dengan hati-hati menavigasi persimpangan bea cukai tradisional dan nilai-nilai dengan dorongan ekuitas gender, ada potensi besar untuk menciptakan masyarakat yang lebih sama dan hanya untuk semua anggota masyarakat.

Baca Artikel lain

1. The Complexity of Gender Equality Endeavours in Melanesian Countries
2. For Melanesian Peoples: Is It About Roles and Functions or Equality in Male-Female Relations ?

Steven Winduo, on rivers as metaphors

 “Rivers stand as a text for me, and it is up to me to read what is inscribed on the surface, beneath it, and along it.”

- Steven Winduo, on rivers as metaphors

Papua New Guinean poet, writer, and scholar Steven Edmund Winduo is a professor at the University of Papua New Guinea. An author of multiple poetry and short story collections, Winduo proposed new conceptual frameworks and writing strategies in Pacific literature and expanded representations of Oceanians, especially in Melanesia. This work is so important because, as Dr. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka has written:

“While negative representations of Melanesia linger in the shadows of scholarly and popular discourses, Melanesians are proactively trying to shed the ‘ignoble savage’ image and aspire for ‘a place in the sun.’”

- Dr. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka (2015)

To continue challenging representations of Pacific Islanders in literature and other forms, we invite submissions for proposals for our upcoming CPIS Student Conference on April 11, 2022.

Please submit proposals at: http://go.hawaii.edu/nuV (link is case sensitive) before next week on March 15, 2022 at 10pm HST.

Photo: Steven Winduo in our Teaching Oceania Series Vol. 7, Pacific Studies: A Transformational Movement. (Enomoto et al. 2021, 19).

Teaching Oceania Series Vol. 7, Pacific Studies: A Transformational Movement is available to download on Scholarspace: https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/81452.

Kabutaulaka, T. (2015). Re­Presenting Melanesia: Ignoble Savages and Melanesian Alter­Natives. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/38767.

There is No "Me" in Melanesian Culture, There is Always "Us": This is Melanesian Socialism

So many times, in so many occasions, so many people asked me this very question, "What do YOU think about....?" I put the word "YOU" in capital in order to emphasize the tone the person asking the question use. The tone goes up then pronouncing "YOU", which means they want "me" to know that they are particularly focusing on the Individual "me", not the "plural" me, that is us.

Well, I never tempted by them. I in fact I never changed my choice of word from "We" to "I". They tried many times, and I normally keep answering with the word "We".

For example. Question: "What do YOU think about the Freeport Mining McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. operations in West Papua since April 1967?" 
Answer: "As I said before, Freeport came to our place as a party that is uninvited and unwanted. Our lives destroyed. Our livelihood turned upside down. We have been suffering since their arrival. No single party in West Papua will declare they are happy with the presence and operations of the giant mining company.

Question: "Do YOU personally as a person agree with the Freeport Mining Operations?"

Answer: We are all unhappy and we all refuse Freeport Operations. No one is happy about it. It brings nightmare to us, not blessing. No one is enjoying anything that Freeport brings.

Question: I repeat again, please I am asking your personal experience, not for the whole group, but you as an educated man, you understand some benefits of the Freeport Mining operations, for example, you have been full sponsored by Freeport Indonesia during your study at the university until your graduation. So you should give your personal opinion on this.

Answer: The word "I" is absent in this life and in this mindset. Therefore, there is no reply for the word "I". The person answering your questions now is not a singular individual, it is a plural one. This person represents the "whole", not the One
This person that you are asking to is not an individual. This is a plural individual talking to you, so there is no choice to reply with “I” and “me”, but the answer will always use “We” and “us”.

Question: You have talked about “democracy” or a system of governance that is appropriate for Melanesian tribes. You call it “Melanesian Socialism”. Democracy advocates the votes of majority individual “I” that determines who rules. What about Democracy in Melanesian Socialism?

Answer: This is a very good question. Do you know in Christianity, as it is in Democracy, you emphasize “individuals” to repent, confess, and be baptized. Every single person should repent and make confessions before being baptized. I am talking about evangelical and Pentecostal concept  of “born again” doctrine. Do you know this? This never happened in the whole New Guinea Highlands. This is recorded in a book called “Torches of Joy” by John Dekker, an American Missionary to West Papua many years ago.

Now, we talk about democracy. Today in West Papua, there is a term in Malay called “Noken System” democracy. Noken is the traditional hand-made “string bag” of New Guinea. What happens is Only the Tribal Elders gather together, in front of their people, bringing the votes of their men, women and children, and put those votes into the “noken”, thus there is no need for individuals to go in and out into the ballot boxes.

This Noken System of democracy is more accepted than the “modern” ballot box system where people go in and out individually.

What is happening here?

Well, this is Melanesia in display. Bernard Narakobi, the only Melanesian philosophy we got so far calls this display as “The Melanesian Way”.

Question: I am taken away by your answer now. What is the connection between what Father Walter Lini, the founder of the Republic of Vanuatu said about “Melansian Socialism” and what you just mentioned about Narakobi’s “The Melanesian Way”.

Answer: The Late Father Walkter Lini is talking about the democracy system that is appropriate for Melanesians, which is one of the topics that Narakobi addresses in his “The Melanesian Way” papers. So, the “The Melanesian Way” contains more than just system of governance. What Narakobi is saying includes what is being said right now, “The concept of individual I is inclusive in the word WE, and therefore, when I use ‘WE’, I am actually talking about all of us, including myself.

Question: Do you understand what we in the West mean by “I” ?

Answer: Yes, we know it very well, indeed. But I hope you also understand what we mean by “us”, not “me”. This is because we are human beings, but at the same time, we are in two different worlds in the way we understand, accept and explain the world we have come to know so far.

Question: Yes, thank you very much. It is my privilege to realize that we are speaking across the world in our mind while we are physically in one this place.

Answer: We are starting this interchange. You will know better when we put this idea into papers or books.