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here is nothing more dramatic and yet heartbreaking than TV footage of women being arraigned at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) along with their husbands, as has happened frequently in recent months.

We have seen high-profile couples embroiled in graft cases, such as Musi Banyuasin regent Pahri Azhari and his wife Lucianti, North Sumatra Governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho and Evi Susanti, Empat Lawang regent Budi Antoni Aljufri and Suzanna, Palembang mayor Romi Herton and Masyito, and Karawang regent Ade Swara and Nurlatifah.

The housewives are alleged to have conspired with their public official husbands to steal public funds. In other cases, the women are accused of abusing their power as politicians or heads of local governments to enrich themselves, with former Banten governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah being a classic example.

Every time I watch live broadcasts of graft suspects paraded at the KPK, I can'€™t help but wonder how their kids feel back home.

Wearing the distinctive KPK orange vest, they are whisked to a waiting detainee van under blinding camera flashes and past an army of reporters hurling impertinent questions.

Being in the spotlight witnessed by millions of viewers who watch it as infotainment must be a real punishment for the caught crooks.

The subsequent hearings, conviction and imprisonment are not as exciting because proceedings are typically laden with elements of predictability: shorter prison terms, powerful individuals remain untouchable, generous remissions, etc.

Of course, it doesn'€™t mean that some crooks who steal public funds deserve preferential treatment simply because they are women who have kids at home.

It'€™s just disheartening to know that women leaving aside their traditional roles as guardian angels for their families are unable to withstand material temptation and willingly help their husbands to amass ill-gotten wealth.

But of course it'€™s debatable whether corruption among women in the government and state officials'€™ wives is a recent phenomenon or whether it was commonplace in the past in the absence of aggressive anti-corruption campaigns.

Shaken is the old perception that women in the government are less likely to engage in corruption because they may have higher standards of ethical behavior and are more concerned about the public good than men, as some international studies have suggested.

The ongoing '€œtrend'€ could be the result of a reinterpretation of the role of a housewife in the Indonesian, especially the predominantly Javanese, family.

In the paternalistic Javanese tradition, the housewife is famously called konco wingking, which literally means '€œfriend at the back'€, implying that women play a secondary role in everyday life behind men. The housewife'€™s tasks were confined mainly to household chores and raising children.

In the old Javanese stereotyping, the women'€™s role in the family was defined by three '€œm'€s: masak (cooking), macak (putting on makeup) and manak (childbirth).

They were supposed to play adviser to their husbands and not to assume a public position higher than that of their spouses.

But over the course of time, when the sophisticated Javanese accepted modernity and believed in sending their children '€” boys and girls '€” to school, all the stereotyping went into the trash bin of history.

Today'€™s Javanese reinterpret the konco wingking role as all the vital jobs the woman should do '€œbehind the scenes'€, just like a film director: Although she may not appear on screen and may not be as popular as the actors, she is still the one who dictates the whole scenario.

Perhaps, the women who have been incarcerated for helping their husbands steal from the state coffers are the new breed of Indonesian women who play the real-life role as director in the family but they just cannot resist the pull of greed and become partners in crime.

It seems that there has been a paradigm shift in the way people see the role of women. Now Indonesians prefer to believe in a more egalitarian, universal familial status of women as garwo, which means '€œthe other half of one'€™s soul'€. They no longer make an issue of gender when it comes to social status.

Anyway, this is Indonesia '€” where corruption is so pervasive that anyone regardless of their sex can drown in it and it'€™s extremely difficult to swim against the flow.

Aside from disappointment, I truly admire the courage that the women show in their difficult time as graft suspects, or even convicts, as they still occasionally flash smiles and V signs at the camera.

'€” Pandaya