Many who think that the world is already in favor of women, claiming that women already have the same opportunity as men now, need to know this fact: many existing laws across the world still highly discriminate against women.
Equality Now, a platform that aims to advance women’s rights and promote gender equality, provides information on regulations that up to this day still discriminate on the basis of sex, including the issue of marital status (poligamy, wife obedience, divorce). personal status (citizenship, travel, prostitution), economic status (inheritance, property, employment) and in the urgent situation of violence against women (rape, domestic violence, honor killings).
Some women are still deprived of the right to drive (in Saudi Arabia); some are imprisoned for not wearing Islamic dress properly (in Iran). Even in developed countries like the United States and Britain, problematic sexist laws still persist and women are being treated unfair in the face of justice.
Indonesia, of course, is included in the list of countries with discriminative laws, particularly on the poligamy issue (though we are not short on other discriminative laws, such as the law that allows underage girls to marry, regulations on virginity tests and so on).
The wide-ranging discriminatory laws, as explained in Equality Now’s website, strongly underlines “the clear disrespect of governments for the fundamental rights of women and girls,” which made an “official endorsement of women and girls as people of lesser worth”.
Equality Now is also calling for action by facilitating our aspiration to make a pledge to revoke the laws that we object.
So the next time you hear people say, “we no longer need feminism because we arleady have gender equality”, slap them with this wonderful infographic preview by Vagabomb on some examples of the discriminatory laws.
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Laws that discriminate against women are still prevalent across the globe, even in developed countries like the United States or Britain.
Ayunda is interested in the intersection of pop culture, media, and gender issues. She earned her master's degree at Cultural Studies department, University of Indonesia. She is into Lana Del Rey, speculative fiction, and BoJack Horseman. Her own social media sites, however, are quite uneventful, but feel free to say hi: facebook, twitter.
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