Road to IDF 2019 Room E: Women, Get off the Sticky Floor and Dash Off

Room E: The Future is Us: Women Also Have Opportunities

"I want to create and develop a foundation for children with autistic disorders," Syeni said with tears in her eyes. "Because I want autistic children like my sister to be empowered, I myself don't know what my younger sibling can do," she continued. And this time, she really cried.

She was a participant in the Road to IDF 2019 focus group discussion (FGD) entitled "Room E: The Future is Us: Women Also Have Opportunities" in Jakarta on June 22, 2019. The "E" that’s referred to in "Room E" means "Elevate, Equip, Evolve, Empower" aimed at encouraging women to build careers across borders. This discussion is in line with the IDF 2019 theme "Mission Possible: Seizing the Opportunities of Future Work to Drive Inclusive Growth".

Sheni conveyed her anxiety about the future of her younger sibling, as well as children with other autistic disorders. Syeni along with several other participants wanted to hear more about Jessica Arawinda's career experience, Project Officer 1000 Days Fund.

The Thousand Day Project, aims to help prevent stunting in NTT. Jessica, who’s better known as Sisi, is a successful woman who left her corporate career and switched to social work. Syeni also wanted to start similar work through the Foundation for Autistic children, which she wanted to establish.

“You just have to persevere, and try to make progress, even if the progress is only one percent.  Don't just dream. For example you can start by contacting the autistic care community, or raising crowd funding," Sisi advised to Syeni.

After the speaker session, the Room: E event formed a group sharing session (FGD) with the Rimma.co team, speakers, and participants to dig deeper about the issues raised by the speaker. The afternoon group's FGD became a space for participants from various backgrounds who had various problems, anxiety, and experiences. They discussed and gathered input. For example, there were participants who told about their struggle as a midwife and worked on a remote island as they faced rejection from the local community who still believed in traditional healers. Sisi suggested that they should not give up easily. Midwives in remote areas play a very important role, including educating the community to prevent stunting.  

In another FGD group, there was a speaker, Amanda Farliany, a deaf model for Aneka Yess magazine and YouTuber with more than 30,000 followers, who discussed the challenges of working with Persons with Disabilities. There is also a focus group discussion speaker Hana Alfikih, visual artist and mental health activist who discussed support for workers with mental disabilities.

 

The Sticky Floor and Breaking the Glass Ceiling

In her opening, the Expert Staff for Synergy of Economic Affairs and Financing of the Ministry of National Development Planning / Bappenas, Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti, emphasized that women actually tend to have higher mathematical and language skills, because they are more diligent. The 2016 INAP data showed that women from Aceh to West Papua excelled in reading skills in the 4th grade of elementary school compared to their male counterparts.

"The strengths of women includes the fact that they are multitasking, more conscientious, and more care for the environment," Amalia added when opening the discussion.

However, the SAKERNAS data in August 2018 said that the participation rate of working men reached 83 percent, while the female participation rate was at 51 percent. Compiled from SAKERNAS data for February 2017, Amalia explained that women tended to work in sectors that are friendly to women, and this was mostly related to the service sector, especially social, health, and education services. While in the mining sector, women only filled 5 percent of this field and only less than 5 percent in the transportation sector.

In the State Owned Enterprises, there were 444 male Directors, while only 40 females were in the position of senior officials.

“This could read as restrictions for women to enter the workplace and a barrier to reach out to strategic senior positions. For example, there is a mindset that is formed by the family, culture, social environment and sometimes women themselves, that certain work is not suitable for women, only suitable for men, even though women are actually capable,“ she added.

According to Amalia, in the latest research written by Rebecca Shambaugh in the book “It's Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself From the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success”, an important factor inhibiting women's career is ‘sticky floor’. According to Amalia, the only way to free yourself of the sticky floor was to take off your feet from the glue.

“We do it by changing the mindset, and feel confident that we can," said Amalia, who is referred to by many as Winny.  

In addition, women must be creative, especially because a working woman is expected to play a dual role in life, your work role and your domestic role in the family. Creativity, said Amalia will make women dare to make important decisions.

The story of how women can cross the boundaries, break away from the sticky floor in a career, among others, was one showcased by Amanda Farliany. Born deaf, and having difficulty in communicating made Amanda subject of bullying and was ridiculed when she expressed her dream of becoming a model.

"I wrote in the yearbook of my junior high school that I wanted to be a model," she said.

Of the 14 thousand applicants at the time, Amanda managed to be selected to walk on the catwalk and pose in front of the cameras. She became one of the 40 finalists of Aneka Yess magazine model with her fellow models, Luna Maya, Masayu Anastasia, and others. There was a long process and hard work to achieve that, especially to convince others that she was capable.

"I also made video clips, appeared as model in commercials, or in Malaysian film as the main actress, and there I used sign language," said Amanda, who claimed to have been rejected by the magazines three times because of her deafness. 

Showing and using sign language means stating to the general public: "I'm Deaf". 

Now, Amanda becomes a YouTuber with 30,000 followers. Amanda spread the message "We Are All Equal".  She shares tips on how to communicate with families with sign language.

"I'm married to a deaf man and have three hearing children," Amanda said.

Amanda creates content that can help deaf people communicate daily with hearing people and vice versa.

Another struggle was also part of the life of Hana Alfikih, a person with a mental disability, i.e. bipolar disorder.

"Physical violence and sexual abuse that I experienced, shaped my mentality until this moment," said Hana opened the story.

Conflict after conflict both internal and with family experienced by Hana since her junior high school’s days.

Hana struggled to live with her condition which often resulted in anxiety, swings of emotions, hysteria, self-hurting attitude, so intense that she felt suicidal couple of times. Hana also had to work hard to deal with how people around her treated her. Even her family showed a conservative attitude and did not understand her condition.

“Once, I even got a wrong treatment that worsened my condition. Indeed, knowledge and information about mental health is barely there, “ she said.

Visual arts became the media and a path for Hana to be socially accepted. Hana's paintings managed to make it to international exhibitions in England. She was even involved in a project with the local artists in the UK. Hana's works, which are rich in colors, have also been used by big brands in the fashion industry, such as Converse, or other products such as Good Day drinks. 

"Initially, painting was an attempt to channel emotions and reduce my bipolar disorder, but now it has become a profession. In the past, people looked at me because of my mental disability, now they see me because of my works," Hana explained. 

Now, her family supports her to pursue art and take part in campaigns to support people with mental disabilities.

“I get along very well with my family now, more than what I could imagine," she said. Through paintings and various other activities, Hana now devotes herself to campaign against shackling of people with mental disability. Hana emphasized, there was nothing wrong with people with mental disabilities, the stigmatizing is wrong.

“People with mental disabilities need to feel welcome. Don’t just say they can’t do this and that. These people want to be heard, hugged, "Hana said. 

The Road to IDF 2019 discussion titled "Room E: The Future is Us: Women Also Have Opportunities” is an effort to invite the community of young workers, especially women, to discuss inclusive employment opportunities with inspiration from the potential of unique career paths for women and persons with disabilities. This discussion also led women with disabilities to realise the IDF 2019 theme, "Mission Possible: Seizing the Opportunities of Future Work to Drive Inclusive Growth".