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Power of 'emak-emak', 'babu-babu' or 'ibu bangsa'?
.Quite honestly, I am fed up with women being put on a pedestal, referred to as pilar bangsa.
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Sri Purwati, an Indonesian migrant worker in Taipei, Taiwan, in a beauty salon course held by the Global Workers Organization. (JP/Nezar Patria)
W
hat do you call the person who gave birth to you? “Mother” “mom”, “mommy”, “momma” or “mama”? In my own family, I call my mother “mamih”, my son calls me “mama” and my mother called her mother “emak”.
My grandmother was small in stature, and donned the traditional kebaya blouse and kain (batik cloth) daily. But in fact, she wore the pants in the house. My grandfather, a gentle man, towered over her physically, but it was clear who was the “boss”.
If Giwo Rubianti Wiyogo had met my grandmother, she might not have objected to the term emak. Giwo heads the Indonesian Women’s Congress (Kowani), a federation of 90 women’s organizations. In a video in connection with the organization’s 90th anniversary, she expressed her objection to women being referred to as “the power of emak-emak” (Read “Women’s group rejects ‘emak-emak’ reference”, The Jakarta Post, Sept. 15).
Giwo’s statement generated much controversy. Detractors criticized her for rejecting the term emak, which is a traditional and respectful way to address a mother. But what Giwo was rejecting was not emak, but emak-emak.
