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Regional administrations criticized for ‘embedded sexism’
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People carrying placards take part in a rally calling for gender equality and opposing gender discrimination during International Women's Day in Jakarta on March 8, 2024. (Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
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ctivists and a state-affiliated women's rights agency have spoken out against “embedded sexism” in the government and say an ongoing controversy over the website names of regional administration institutions demonstrates the prevalence of sexism in the public sector.
Regional administration institutions have been in the spotlight in the past week amid reports that they are using sexually inappropriate names for the websites of their programs. Many of the websites use slang for the female reproductive system or similar sexual innuendo for their acronyms, such as sipepek and siska ku intip.
Government-sanctioned independent body the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) has said these incidents are undeniably sexist because the names used were clearly making vulgar jokes related to women’s body parts.
“We ask for the regional government to change [the names of the websites],” Komnas Perempuan chairwoman Andy Yentriyani said, as quoted by kompas.com earlier this month.
The Cirebon regency administration in West Java, which has received among the most scrutiny for the name of its health service program website sipepek, last week changed the portmanteau to sipepeg following the controversy. The administration claimed it never intended to disrespect women and that the name used was Cirebon dialect for “all-encompassing”.
In response to the claim, Komnas Perempuan deputy chairwoman Mariana Amiruddin asked all state institutions to be sensitive in naming their websites and only “use a word in Indonesian or a regional language that contains wisdom or expresses honor”. Mariana also said that other websites such as sisemok and simontok objectified women.
Jakarta-based feminist activist and writer Olin Monteiro said these sorts of sexist jokes had long been normalized in society.
