It was initiated by female factory workers, supported by labor union and feminist activists, who teamed up to struggle for the rights of women as workers. They fought for decent pay, safe working conditions, and women’s political right to have a voice in parliament. They demanded the right to vote and to run for parliament, so that the interests of female workers would be voiced and heard.

In the context of “work”, the phrase “choose to challenge” as the theme of this year’s IWD is fundamental for women. In the culture of Indonesia, if analyzed in gender terms, the phrase has different connotations for women than for men, unlike in the West. For example, for Indonesian women, “choose to challenge” suggests an attitude of rebellion or resistance, while for men it implies sportsmanship, masculinity and chivalry.

It is essential to analyze the politics of language in order to understand the meaning behind the language. This is because language is a means of human communication that contains messages. In fact, language is not neutral in terms of gender or social class. One element that is used to construct and interpret the messages behind any expression is religious views.

For women, the courage to challenge entails two different challenges. First, challenging yourself to have the courage to face things that impede you. Some of these obstacles come from within, such as fear, reluctance, lack of ambition and so on. As for the external challenges, women feel that the outside world is unfair to them, and women need to fight against this.

Because there are challenges from outside them, women need to have the courage to resist.

“Choose to challenge” is clearly an arena of contestation for women to obtain their rights as humans, as women, as daughters, as wives, as working women, and in other roles in society.

Rumah Kita Bersama recently conducted a survey on the index of acceptance of working women in four localities: Jakarta, Bandung, Bekasi and Depok. Opinions were obtained from 620 respondents through a set of questions relating to the theme.

The survey found that, in all the localities, religion was the most important consideration, according to both women and men, in determining whether women should be allowed to work or not. But the same did not apply to men.

There is a sort of “common sense” that it is obligatory for (Muslim) men to work to make a living and women to manage the household and the family. True, there is a religious basis underlying this view. For example, in Islam, religious texts stress that men are leaders; they are treated as superior, because they provide sustenance.

If no jobs are available, the normative obligation from religion for men seems to become null and void. But the same does not apply to women.

The word “obligatory” in religious matters is not simply a norm but a binding obligation. In the language of fiqh, this is called wajib ‘ain. The word “work” itself, for women, has two meanings: working to manage the household, and working to earn income.

This entails different impacts in terms of gender. The obligation to work for men as husbands depends greatly on the availability of jobs. When no jobs are available and men are unemployed, there is no social pressure for them to work in the name of a religious obligation.

In contrast, for women in their status as wives, doing housework and managing the home remains a binding obligation – as both a cultural and religious obligation.

A further impact of the pressure on women to manage the household as a religious obligation can be seen when they work for income, especially outside the home. Dilemmas arise that do not occur for men.

In all the research localities, young men aged 18 to 35 believe that women must prioritize their household chores. If there is no choice, women may take on both types of work. But if it is difficult to choose between running the household and earning an income, the majority of the young male respondents said women must prioritize the former because it is a religious obligation.

Surprisingly, most of the women of productive age believe that working for income is also obligatory for women, and only some of them believe that doing housework and running the household is an obligation for women.

When we crosschecked, families with moderate beliefs – the belief that in certain matters, religious views may change – form the group that agrees that for women, doing housework and managing the household is not a religious obligation but a social and moral one. Therefore, housework can be neglected, can be taken over by the husband, or can be done by both together.

The problem is women who believe that housework is not a religiously binding obligation typically face views that weaken them. The religious views in this survey, read as a demand for women to be pious wives – stay home and do the housework – remain prevalent as they are constantly emphasized in sermons.

The globalization of the economy has created an opportunity for women to work for income, but the strong demand for women to fulfill their religious obligation force women to shoulder a double burden.

This problem becomes even more complicated when there is no other choice for women than to work and manage household. However, when there is no family support system to deal with housework, such as the absence of housemaids or day care, women are typically forced to quit their jobs and choose to manage their households.

In this context, the phrase “choose to challenge” is not just about women challenging themselves to rethink the necessity for housework as an obligation of men (husbands) and women (wives). It also means challenging women to change their views.

It is time for religious views to change the interpretation of sharing the burden of work. And to forge such a change, society, the infrastructure of the state, and the culture need to accept the reality that the obligation to earn an income for men is relative. Likewise, housework and running the household is also relative, regardless of who does this work.

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The writer is a researcher at Rumah Kita Bersama.