chance for women to own the property since their culture has condemn them to do so.
The last is household inequality. Household inequality is the inequality that exists in the family life. In almost society, it is common to perceive that
men work outside and women do the domestic jobs like children rearing and housekeeping. However, it is actually not a matter if women also work and
men do domestic jobs. Sen says that it is called as ‘division of labor’. Because it is very common in society, society perceives it as something normal.
However, it is actually still an inequality since it limits women to go beyond domestic jobs that they are able too.
Gender inequality exists in every part of the society from the private until the public sphere which is ironically conducted by the government. However, it
remains dilemmatic because to eliminate gender inequality society, it has to lose their culture and their tradition. Therefore, until now gender inequality still
exists due to the fact the society does not want to lose the culture. The worst part is that even culture allows the society to do gender inequality.
2. Struggle against Gender Inequality
The word “struggle” has become a common perceived term in feminism. Struggle against gender inequality is an agenda which is generally accepted
and run by feminism Gambel, 1998: viii. Struggle is an attempt that needs some difficult efforts in achieving the goal. In related to gender inequality, the
biggest obstacle fought is male-dominated system in a society.
Women’s struggle started in the 18th century when some writers voice their aspiration on women’s freedom in their works. It was the time when the
beginning of feminism, liberal feminism, emerged. According to Tong 2009: 11, liberal feminism is the political view that places human rationality in the
highest position. Liberals believe that people’s rights must be more prominent than the goodness. In other words, in liberals point of view people are allowed
to choose and do anything based on their willingness and other people cannot intervene. For example people have full right to choose their own religion, to
speak up and to own property. No one can intervene them to take the decision, including the state. In conclusion, everyone is given equal chance and equal
rights to act and posses something. It was Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in
1792 which became the original work of women’s struggle to fight for gender equality. In this work, married noble women did not have the access to take
their own decision. Wollstonecraft criticized the limitation that women got. “.......she denied that women are, by nature, more pleasure seeking and pleasure
giving than men” Tong, 2009: 14. From this statement, Wollstonecraft believed that women were not only toys for men to get pleasure and women
were not making men as the toys to cause them happy. Furthermore, if women kept being trapped in this inferiority, it would make men becoming more
superior and narcissistic. This work motivated all women to be more independent, confident and brave to take decision based on their own concern.
Other figures who contributed to inspire women to struggle against gender inequality are John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. Mill and Taylor were a
couple that was bounded not only emotionally but also intellectually. Tong 2009: 16 explains that they believed that both men and women should get
equal chance to exercise their rights in politic, economy as well as education. For Mill and Taylor, men were equally intellectual to men. Therefore, there
should be no intellectual gaps between men and women. Furthermore, they believed that every person, regardless their sex, had to be given maximum
chance to pursue their desire. P eople’s desire was important because it can lead
to their happiness. Tong 2009: 21 further says that to achieve the equality, Wollstonecraft,
Mill and Taylor believed that there should be systematically change in the politic, economy, education and other sectors. To create this change, women’s
suffrage was needed. Therefore, in the nineteenth century, there was a real action to create women’s suffrage. There was a movement to fight for women’s
right to vote in political agenda. In 1848, three hundred men and women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York and created Declaration of Sentiments and
twelve resolutions. Declaration of Sentiments tried to cover the issue that Mill and Taylor brought. The issues were alleviating marriage, divorce and property
problems. The twelve resolutions focused on the women’s right to speak out in public sphere.
Women’s struggles in the early feminism focus more to the basic equality that women should achieve in every sphere of life. In education, women
struggled to be able to attend schools just like men. In economy, women attempted to gain the opportunity to work and become productive to get
economy resources. In social life, women wanted to be given the same chances to pursue any desire they have. In family, women demanded for the equality of
having property and fair treatment of marriage and divorce. In politics, women strongly wanted to be given chances to speak out their opinion in front of
public. Until now, women still struggle to be heard that their existence are entirely significant to create a change and development in life.
To understand women’s struggles against gender inequality, it is better to scrutinize the forms of struggles which women can do. The first one is
pursuing education. Hook 2000: 19 explains that education is an important factor for women to know how the biased perspective to women exists in male-
dominated society. By this knowledge, women will be able to criticize the sexist thinking and do some actions to change the condition which is unfair for
women. The second form of struggles is bounding a sisterhood. Sisterhood is a
relationship between women who have the same fate, experience, feeling and goal. Hook 2000: 3 believes that women who have the same suffering can
share their understanding and support. Women’s power and idea are integrated to challenge gender inequality. As a result, it can be a powerful platform in
gaining equality between men and women. The third form of struggles is working. Inability to work has made women
inferior to men. It is due to the fact that women can only depend on men in
term of financial resources. Hence, women become more powerless and dependent. Working is one of the ways to achieve a fair acceptance between
men and women because by working, women can show their capability to men. According to Hook 2000: 50, women who work can boost their self-esteem
and increase better acceptance on women in a society. It will give different impact to women who stay inside of the house. They easily get stress because
they cannot do as many work as if they work. Moreover, they cannot interact will a lot of people.
Those struggles are important to do in the patriarchal system which hampers women’s freedom. It is not the time for women to be silent. Yet, it is a
time for women to take a real action and challenge the difficult situation in order to change people perception to them. Hence, women’s struggles can be
the forms of women’s empowerment in order to be equal to men
3. Feminist Literary Criticism
