Are Indonesian men spoilt?
Keith Loveard | February 02, 2012

Ardent feminists might argue that the question of whether Indonesian men are spoilt is the wrong subject to address. Instead, they would likely argue that all men are spoilt, but that is a different issue.

In Asia, and particularly Indonesia, there appears to be a tendency for mothers to coddle their male children to a degree that influences their development as adults. In turn, spoilt men exist in a culture of indulgence that is unlikely to be the best breeding ground for creativity and risk-taking.

I am not familiar with any generals and therefore can’t ask their opinion on this hypothesis. Were they spoilt as children? Did that make them any less tough as soldiers?

Obviously, this is all a matter of degree. I did once have the pleasure of staring into the steel-clad eyes of the late LB ‘Benny’ Murdani and can’t imagine him ever playing with dolls.

On the other hand, the nation’s current president has a penchant for writing romantic songs and tends to shed tears easily. While that certainly doesn’t make him any less of a man, it may indicate that his upbringing was a relatively soft one. Rumor has it that Ibu Ani has a strong influence on him.

A lot of the problem comes down to maids. They obviously live in fear of being found lacking by their employers and therefore seek the safest way out. Hence cries of takut jatu (don’t fall) abound as toddlers are scrambling out of the play pen and up and down the local park’s climbing frame.

So much fuss is made of the slightest scrape that it is amazing that Indonesia could ever have produced any boxers of note, let alone a champion like Chris John. Did his mother (or his maid) constantly tell him takut jatu? If so, neither mother nor maid could do much to counteract the influence of his father, who was keen to teach him and his younger brother the finer points of fighting.

Perhaps, in fact, a tough upbringing is a much more successful recipe for becoming a champion than being coddled by your mum or maid.

Maybe the fear of falling is a middle class thing. Do kampong kids get spoilt by their mothers and their maids? Since many don’t have maids and many of their mothers are too busy to worry too much about them, it’s more likely that they will experience the scrapes and scratches of childhood that are an integral part of growing up.

Yet even so, boy children appear to get a much easier deal than their sisters, who are often ordered to do the childcare – and the spoiling – of their siblings. Girls get absorbed into the normal daily workload in the kitchen and beyond. Boys can cop out on much of a role in the daily chores.

Obviously, this is a generalization. No individual – male or female – is raised in exactly the same way, yet certain characteristics are shared, representing cultural norms.

Work ethic

The concern must be that the tendency for Indonesian guys to be spoilt is a negative factor in the world of work. In the company where I work, middle management is composed totally of women in three main divisions.

Admittedly, this is a new development. Until mid-last year, one of those divisions was headed by a guy, but when he left to gain more experience, the only logical choice to take his place was a woman. Our experience has been that women are, on the whole, better workers.

If it is true that Indonesian men are to some degree hobbled by being spoilt as children, this seems to be in contrast to another aspect of Asian societies, the expectation that father knows best and that the man is the head of the household.

It would be interesting to conduct some research to establish how true this is. Is it a myth that the man is really the head of the family? Certainly male chauvinism is alive and well in Indonesia, as in many other Asian nations, but does this reflect real power or is it merely an extension of being spoilt? 

How many “heads of the family” run for cover when mother is running amok? Most of us, if truth be told, and it would be a rare husband these days who would be prepared to lay down the law to his wife and insist that she had to behave in a certain fashion.

This reminds me of a story I was told by an Aboriginal Australian. In the distant past, women ruled the world, and men were merely their playthings. One day the men got together and went to the women to ask for a new toy – the law. In giving their men this new toy, women became enslaved.

Yet when the chips are down, it is often the women who hold societies together. Aboriginal Australia provides plenty of examples where men drink, gamble and fight their way into dereliction only to have their womenfolk pick up the pieces once again.

The Utopia community 300 km northeast of Alice Springs in central Australia is one case in point. The women have developed remarkable talents in the creation of batik, and have been to Indonesia on a number of occasions to learn new skills from Indonesian artists. Yet when I visited the community in the late 1980s, I was told that the women were tired of making money from selling their batik only to have their men gamble the money away.

The men would take the cars that were essential for their survival and go off to play cards. When the money ran out, the cars were the last thing they had to gamble on another hand of cards. They would crawl forlornly home to admit they’d lost everything one more time.

Gender balance

Relationships between the genders are a sensitive issue. Having been brought up as a SNAG (sensitive New Age guy) in the West, I now have to admit to a sense that men have been hoodwinked.

An old friend of mine, a psychologist, used to run counseling sessions for men who were abused by their partners. Yet the last time I talked to him, he was complaining that so many of his male acquaintances had “done the wrong thing” by their women. Was this a statement on the reality of relationships and on the possibility that men are morally ‘weaker’ than their female mates, or had he given in to female political correctness?

The question is ideally one of balance. Feminism, I would argue, represents an attempt to right the balance that had swung too far in favor of men but which tends to push it too far in the other direction, in favor of women.

That will not work, unless of course men have turned into submissive creatures who at all times submit to the will of their wives. Perhaps that’s what is happening in Indonesia. Men are allowed to think they are the leaders and actors in society, with women looking after the home front. They are allowed to have their special privileges, in other words to be spoilt.

In reality, Indonesian women may be the puppet masters who are pulling the strings. When men rebel, mind you, the consequences can be dramatic and extremely damaging to the family unit.

Achieving a sense of balance in the long term creates better relationships based on shared responsibilities. To reach that goal, it may just be that changes have to start in the home, with male children getting less of the ‘little raja’ treatment. Giving up those special perks might create a sense of loss in some, but it could produce better gender equality and make Indonesian men more effective in the workforce.





 

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