Women Perception of Domestic Violence in Central
Sulawesi and Central Java
WAHYUNI KRISTINAWATI Satya Wacana Christian University
Culture is defined as a constellation of norms, values and beliefs shared by the members of society (Zulueta, 2005). Must violence be seen as socially and culturally phenomenon? Domestic violence in this report focuses on violence by parents to children. Healthy family relationship has been associated with fewer acts of violence (Rodney, Tachia, & Rodney in Broum & Verhaagen, 2006) and women in the family have important roles in promoting gender equality and preventing violence against women.
The aim of this study is to describe woman perception about domestic violence in two different places with different cultures: Bada, Poso, Central Sulawesi; Tuntang and Kopeng, Central Java. Data was collected by doing focused group discussion and interviews. Women in Sulawesi conclude that violence is an act of someone to another one aggressively until he/she is injured and bleeding. Most all of them agree that violence is still needed to disciple kids at home. Woman perception in Central Java about domestic violence is different from those in Sulawesi because of more „modern‟ lifestyle and more open access of information. Women who had been abused (especially physical abused) tended to give physical punishment to their children. However, women who are mothers of their children do not have awareness that they may be models for their children especially when they use violence in parenting.
Keywords: domestic violence, women perception, culture.
High levels of domestic violence cases are not too surprising. Not only in Indonesia, US National Family survey reported that most violence incidence get more serious from year to year (Nicolson and Wilson, 2004). Living together in close and interdependent relation will create so much love, but it also has high potentiality to bind to disappointment to each other and may come into conflict. Many definition of violence emerge, and Berkowitz (1993) suggest not making social disapproval a necessary part of definition of aggression or violence. Domestic abuse, or domestic violence, involves the emotional, physical, sexual and/or economic abuse of one or more members of a family by another within the domestic
sphere (Nicolson and Wilson, 2004) divided into three types: violence between husband and
how women understand domestic violence and perceive its impact, it is impossible to create effective programs and intervention strategies that fully address this critical problem. Two locations are chosen to describe how two different cultures may have impact on perception formation. Bada is a small village in Poso, Central Sulawesi. The closest village is Tentena, about 60 km away from Bada (sometimes called Bada valley). There is a road that connect the village with other parts of Poso since 2008. Before, this is a quite isolated village since the access to this village needs much time with specific type of cars (car with big tire such as Land Rover).
Tuntang and Kopeng are two villages in Central Java. Kopeng is a small village 14 km away from Salatiga, Central Java. It can be reached easily by motorbike or bus. The road from Salatiga to Kopeng leads to other town, Magelang. It has 9 parts called „dusun‟. It is well-known as a tourist site with beautiful view, strawberry farms and plants cultivation. Tuntang lays in the middle of the main road of two big cities: Semarang and Solo. All three villages defend oral culture as the main information trading. For example, if you visit Kopeng and stay there for some times, you might hear an announcement from the head of the village who speakes through a loud speaker to make sure the villagers hear him. Geographically
Bada is much different from Tuntang and Kopeng. In Bada, there are the elders of the community who will ensure that people obey with their custom. While Bada has strong Poso
tradition, Kopeng and Tuntang have more liberal way of life and not strict with Javanese values.
Finding women perceptions of domestic violence in those location will hopefully reveal culturally competent methods of addressing the inaccessibility of domestic violence services and conduct more research on the connection between domestic violence and child welfare in plural community of Indonesia.
METHODS
Participants. Participants of this research are 12 women who live in Bada, Poso, Central
Sulawesi and 21 Javanese women from Tuntang and Kopeng, Central Java. Those women are married, have a child or children, have no more than high school education, and stay on each location (or nearby) for years.
worlds of respondents in holistic manner (Padget, 1998). The basic modes of data collections are focused group discussion (FGD) and interviews.
Procedures. Subjects in Bada, Central Sulawesi were grouped in 3-6 persons, but women in
Kopeng has larger group (18 persons), and three women in Tuntang are interviewed personally. Each focus group and interview lasted one to two hours; some was tape-recorded as long as participants gave permission.
Data Analyses. The data was conducted by storing and organizing for maximal efficiency in
retrieval and analysis. Furthermore the data was classified in order to find concepts and themes and their correlations in the spirit of inductive inquiry (Padget, 1998; Poerwandari, 2005).
RESULTS
Women perceptions of domestic violence. Basically, all participants (in Central Sulawesi
and Central Java) agree that violence is an act of someone to another one aggressively until he/she is injured and bleeding. Although they did not want to do any kind of violence act, they do believe that sometimes they need to do it to children. Every woman in Sulawesi has a rod at home and they will use it to threat their children when they think their children are
naughty. They live with motto “di ujung lidi ada emas” (there is gold on the point of rib of palm leaf). It is an open statement that hit, beat, and similar responds are sometimes needed
to discipline children.
Women in Javanese culture have more various perceptions about what is called
„violence”. Although Javanese subjects also agree that blood and injury are some of
prerequirement of violence, some of them realize that yelling and giving label to a child may hurt psychologically. Three of them reported that they asked apologize to children for making inconvenience although they keep yelling afterwards.
Egeland et all. (Zulueta, 2006) found that the mothers they studied who had been abused, 70% maltreated their children. The same thing found in this study. Most of subjects from Central Sulawesi had similar experience from their parents when they were children. Physical punishment was used in all homes. Later on they keep doing the same way in parenting since they have no alternate strategic to disciple their children since responsibility
of domestic affairs (include children‟s development) are on mothers‟ hands, while husbands
Accessibility of domestic violence services. For women in Bada, Sulawesi, a new system was formed by community under facilitation of a NGO to make child protection system well known. This is a trial system that enable people to report violent case step by step. The elders of community have a strong influence so that a meeting with the elders (also priest and village leader) is an important step of a conflict resolution. However, this procedure gives opportunities for people commit violence to be free from the law. In Tuntang and Kopeng, most subjects do not know the name of law that protects children and women from violence, but they know (but not understand well) that they are protected from violence under the law. In a domestic violence case in Tuntang, community leader can call the police but a neighbor will not do it personally.
The child welfare connection. Women in Bada Village in this research did not realize that
they may be models for their children if they use violence in parenting. They also have no idea that there is violence cycle which they as parents could be a part of it. In Kopeng and Tuntang, some women aware that adults, especially parents, are best models for child.
However, this awareness still stay on cognitive level; they behave in spontaneous manner, free from those knowledge.
DISCUSSION
We would consider children using knives or guns at school a very serious problem, but since
„small‟ inappropriate behavior happens at home, it gets far less concern. Women of this
study did not have awareness that consequences of their own behavior are potentially cause violent behavior in children. However evidence shows that parents (include mother) who believe in physical punishment not only hit more, they also tend to assault their children, and the children will have bigger tendency to do the same with sibling or engage street crime (Zulueta, 2006). It is concluded that as long as women perception of domestic violence is limited to blood and injury, physical punishment will be maintained as strategy to make their children more socially conforming (not deviant). Although culture is not single factor that forms personal values, but it has important role in development of perception. In Bada, a
motto “there is gold on the point of rib” might be used as cultural approval to punish
parents give power to make children feel to be loved while being disciple. This fact shows that there is great need to increase public education on domestic violence especially for women in small villages. Providing the woman with more information so that she can make an appropriate choice is critical. Not only it will enhance parenting skill, but also it will increase awareness of services available in community. Once connection among community works, this connecting will enable better communication between woman, man, adults, and children, to speak up, to listen, and to know each other.
Bada in one step forward than Kopeng and Tuntang by preparing child protection system in community. Limited awareness of woman in Bada shows that the system is not yet successfully works. But it is an important step to go further. Without transportation problem and more open resource, Kopeng, Tuntang, and other villages in Java can establish preventive mechanisms of domestic violence. Level of woman education and geographic position may source of obstacles, but exploration of cultural nuances of each location is needed in order to have holistic description of domestic violence.
REFERENCES
Berkowtiz, L. (2003). Aggression: Its causes, consequences, and control. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc.
Nicolson, P. & Wilson, R. (2004). Is domestic violences a gender issue? Views from British City. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 14: 266–283 published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
Padgett, D.K. (1998). Qualitative methods in social work research. London: Sage Publication Ltd.
Poerwandari, K. E. (2005). Pendekatan Kualitatif untuk Penelitian Perilaku Manusia. Depok: LPSP3 Fakultas Psikologi Universitas Indonesia.
Zulueta, F. (2006). From pain to violence. West Sussex: John Willey & Sons Ltd.
WAHYUNI KRISTINAWATI, born at December, 1st, 1972. Interest in study about
