One last decade, Gender
is a familiar term that always talked by women activist. Women violence,
trafficking and other discrimination are the examples of Bias Gender. In Indonesia, Gender still
unfamiliar term for the people. Many cases refer to the Gender inequality. It
fact that the understanding Indonesian about gender still taboo in every field.
So, in this article we will talk about gender and for the beginning case, we
will discuss about sex and gender.
Actually, the gender
term not only use for women sub-ordination, but also for man. Basically, human
created in equality and their faith and the pious that make them different.
“O
mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples
and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the
sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and
Acquainted.” (QS 49:13)
If
we talk between sex and gender, we would represent both of them are similar but
that’s the different case. As Siti Muslikhati said in her book Feminisme dan Pemberdayaan Perempuan dalam
Timbangan Islam,
“Selama ini masyarakat menganggap kedua
istilah itu sama saja, yaitu sebagai sesuatu yang harus diterima taken for
granted (menganggap sudah semestinya
begitu). Padahal berbicara tentang perubahan sosial (proses-proses konstruksi,
dekonstruksi ddan rekonstruksi) membutuhkan pemahaman yang baik tentang mana
wilayah yang bisa diubah dan mana yang harus diterima begitu saja. dengan kata
lain, kita perlu memahami bahwa didalam kehidupan ini adalah wilayah nature dan wilayah culture” (Muslikhati:19)
Nature and culture that’s the points we
got. Sex remains in the nature area and gender in the cultural area.
Sex
in Oxford Dictionary means that each of the main groups (male and female) into
which living things are categorized on the basis of their reproductive
functions. Sex divides human into two classification: man and women
biologically in the reproductive functions. For example a man have a penis,
adam’s apple and produces sperma. In the other hand, women have an uterus,
produces ovum and gives a birth. That’s naturally human’s. It can’t be changed
because the God has created it for us. As Dr. Mansour Fakih said in his book, “It’s
unchanged and it’s biologically rules or the God’s omnipotence.” (Fakih: 8)
Meanwhile gender means
that classification roughly corresponding to the two sexes and sexlessness or
class of noun according to this classification (masculine, feminine, neuter). This
is the grouping of human character in social and cultural. For example the
women should classy, gently, emotional and motherhood. Beside that a man,
should strong, logic, powerful and masculine. Sometimes, the Javaness have a
conservative idea if a women just work at home, cooking, doing the housework,
feeding the babies and serving her husband. It’s can be changed from time to
time and the different place, will have different paradigm.
So, that’s the
differentiation from sex and gender that have a different concept naturally and
culturally. I hope this article makes the reader more understanding about this
issue and will discuss continuously.
