Gender Bias in Village Consultative Body (BPD) (Case Study: BPD in West Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara Province)
Purnami Safitri (a*) Selva (b)
Departemen Hubungan Internasional
Universitas Mataram, Jalan Majapahit No. 62 Mataram
*nami.chomsky[at]gmail.com
Selva
Departemen Administrasi Bisnis
Universitas Muhammadiyah Mataram, Jl. K.H. Ahmad Dahlan No. 1 Mataram
Abstract
Women- participation in Village Consultative Body (BPD) is considered very low. As a matter of fact, women involvement in decision making process would enforce democratization and strengthen an inclusive development in village. Women- low participation and representativeness are caused by several factors, and one of them is institutional sexism, which then made the institution (BPD) gender bias in many ways. The research aims to describe and to analyze the form of gender bias practices in BPD. This is a descriptive-qualitative research, and utilizes Miles and Huberman-s technique analysis. The result show that institutionalized gender bias can be seen in adopted preference values in the body, which are mostly male-perspective. The divisions of job in BPD are based on traditional gender role which dismisses women from strategic position associated with decision making process. Second, the gender biased structure can be found in policy priority of the body which tends to focus on male-stream projects. As the consequence, women are getting excluded in decision making process and contribute less or peripheral, and at last, women in BPD are still experiencing harsh sexism such as negligence or being undervalued.
Keywords: BPD, Women- participation, gender bias, gender role.
Topic: Political Studies