women in public sector

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O 2OO8 PSW-UGM;Hak penerbitan pada Penerbit Tiara WacanaWomen in Public SectorIPerempuan di Sektor Publik]Editor : Dr. Siti Hariti SastriyaniReviewer : Prof. Dr. Hafeez-ur-Rehman

Dr. Tom HunterDr. Wening UdasmoroSita T. van BemmelenJane H. Patten

Penyelia Naskah : Elisabeth SakkaTata Letak : ArismantoroPerwajahan : Aye Z. WafaCetakan Pertama, Juli 2008

Diterbitkan atas kerjasama Pusat Studi Wanita Universitas Gadjah Madadengan Penerbit Tiara Wacana

PERPUSTAKMN NASIONAL R.I., KATALOG DALAM TERBITANSastriyani, Siti Hariti (editor)

Women in Public Sector [Perempuan di Sektor Publik] /Siti Hariti Sastriyani / Yogyakarta: Tiara Wacana, 2008.vt + 778 hlm; 17 x 25 cmISBN 979-1262-20-9 (10 digit)978-979-1262-20-0 (t 3 digit)

Penerbit Tiara WacanaJalan Kaliurang Km 7,8, Kopen Utama 16 Yogyakarta 55581Telp/facs. (0274) 880683E-mail: yo [email protected] ll(APl


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Female Civil Servants in Official PositionsDra. Rita Rahmaw ati, MSi')

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led by women, meaning that only 7.5vo of regents or mayors were women. Thispercentage may decline again in 2005 when the number of regencies andmunicipalities have reached 440, while there were no addition of female regentsor mayors. (source: Muhammad Qodari, Deputy Executive Director, IndonesianSurvey Institute (ISI), the Dar.ly Kompas,May 73,2005).In official positions at rhe central Govemment, the gender composition ofcivil servants who occupy official positions is not proportionayunequal; maleemployees who occupy echelon positions hold a higher proporrion compared tothat occupied by women.For a more detailed explanation, the data of Indonesian civil servants (PNS) isspecified according to gender and position, both official and unofficial, and can be

seen in the following table:Table 1

Number of Civil Servants Based on Gender and Position(as of September 2005)

POStTtON GENDER TOTALMale FemaleNUMBER NUMBEREchelon I 590 90.4o/o 63 9.6% 653Echelon ll 10,485 93.3% 755 6.7% 11,240Echelon lll 47,587 86.5% 7.444 13.5% s5,031Echelon lV 167,099 77.9o/o 47,U8 22.1% 214,447Echelon V 10,783 77.7o/o 3,095 223% 13,878Particular Unofficial 923,453 48.7yo 972,953 51.3o/" 1.896.406General Unofficial 1,026,908 66.8% 510,305 33.2o/" 1,537,213Total 2,186,905 s8.6% 1.541.963 41.4o/o 3,728,868

Source: State Personnel Board, 2005The above condition shows that the opportunity for women to occupy officialpositions at the central govemment is still low. This is understood consideringthat the quality of female civil servants at the Central Governmenr is still lowcompared to male civil servants.At the Bogor Regency Government, women have begun to be taken intoconsideration in occupying official positions, as seen in the table below:

Table 2Number of Civil Servants Occupying Official Positions According to GenderGrade/

Rank GroupMale Female M+F Ratio

Number of Number of Number otEchelon I 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00Echelon ll 18 69.2o/o I 30.8% 26 o.2% 2.25Echelon lll 130 83.9% 25 16.10/o 155 O.9o/o 5.20Echelon lV 574 78.1o/" 161 21.9% 73s 4.3% 3.56Non-Echelon 8,934 55.9% 7,062 M.1% 15,996 94.60/" 126.00Total 9,656 57.1% 7,256 42.9o/" 16,912 100% 137.00source: Personnel Department at the Bogor Regency Government Regional secretariat, 2006

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The above data shows that the majority of decision maker positions are heldby men. At echelon lI, of 26 available positions, 8 positions are held by women orabout 30.76%. However, at echelon III, of 155 positions, 25 positions are held bywomen or about 76.12Vo, and at echelon M of 735 positions, 161 are held bywomen or about 21.90Vo. From the aspect of quantity, the access of womentowards the public policy determination and their participation in formulatingpublic policies in bureaucrary have exist but not yer oprimal.

Considering the data of the lack of women who occupy official positionsprovides evidence that women are not proportionally represented in bureaucracy.Even though to involve women in organizing every public affair, including publicdecision making, one of the ways is by assigning women in official positions. Theinvolvement is not merely to increase the number of representation, but ratherthrough active involvement in influencing various forms of public policy making.

One of the assumptions towards the low representation of women in officialpositions is the socio-culture condition. Moreover, the regional govemment circledoes not tend to support women, which is a reflection of an underestimatingattitude towards the ability of women to compete in achieving policy makingpositions. The tendency has implications towards the condition of women in theregional govemment bureaucracy structure.

r Probtem FormutationOn grounds of issues mentiond above, the fundamental issues discussed in thisresearch are:1. Employee attitude towards the role of women in development and their

willingness to be led by a woman.2. Female leadership characteristics according to the viewpoint of policyperformers.3. Constraints faced by women to occupy of;flcial positions and theirsolutions.

r Resaerch ObjectiveFemale civil servants have the following objectives to occupy these official po-sitions:

1. To give a description of dominant factors that should be taken intoconsideration by the Bogor Regency Govemment in assigning female civilseryants to occupy official positions.2. To draw up an academic draft as a policy reference for the Bogor RegencyGovernment in assigning female civil servants to occupy official positions.

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r Resedrch MethodThe method used in this research is a descriptive analysis. Research populationare officials of echelon II, III and IV at all Regional official work units (sA?D) atthe Bogor Regency Regional Govemment (consisting of 14 services, 4 Agencies, 3Assistants, 2 Hospitals and 1 Secretary of Board). Research respondenrs totaled 60Persons who were taken on quota and were differentiated based on echelon andgender which were chosen in random. The data compiling technique used wascarried out through several methods which complement each other, i.e.: literatrirestudy, focused group discussions (FGD) and questionnaire distribution.

r Resutts and AnalysisIndicators of the "female civil servant in official positions" research are as follows:1. Employee attitude towards the role of women in development and theirwillingness to be led by a woman.2. Female leadership characteristics according to the viewpoint of policyperformers.3. constraints faced by women to occupy official positions and their so-lutions.. Employee Attitude towards the Role of Women in Developmentand Their Willingness to be Led by a Woman

Women's role in development is basically influenced by two factors,external and internal.1. Internal factors are more related to the ability of women in giving theircontribution to influence public policy making,

2. Extemal factors usually tend more to be related to the social, political andcultural conditions that display gender unfairness.There are two factors that influence why the role and status of women are left

behind compared to men, which are as follows:1. First is the intemal factor which is a factor from inside the individual selle.g. women always have a perception that their status is below that ofmen; thus, they don't have the courage and confidence to advance.2. Second is the extemal factor which is a factor outside the individual self,and the most dominant matter is the existence of patriarch culture valueswhich dominares the whole aspect of life in the family and society; thusputting the role of women in second place.

Those two factors eventually have an impact on the quality of life and role ofwomen in various strategic fields overall.



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Another constraint which is said to exist in the body of the Bogdr RegencyGovemment is the willingness of the performers to be led by a female civilservant.

The attitude of the policy performers on their willingness to be led by awoman was measured based on 10 questions which required the respondents'response starting from'agree' to'disagree', which is as follows:

Table 3Respondents' Response on TheirWllingness to be Led by a Woman

No. Question ltemsAgreement

MaleRespondents FemaleRespondents1 I like to be led by a woman who is motherly. 32.4o/o 61.1o/o2 I like a woman to be a leader, provided that she pos-sesses a combination of a good "Gentleman" charac-teristic/attitude and also a good typical female charac-teristic i.e. havinq a patient nature, firm but human.

53o/"61o/o

3 I like a female leader because women possess asupple and human female leadership instincl,carefulness, sensitivity, and patience.26% 72%

4 There is no reason for me to avoid female leadershipbecause of her feminine and gentle attitude. 35o/o 50o/o5 An efiicient leader requires logic and feeling/intuition,facts and ideals, technical authority and the nature tolove, help and cause harmony between each other.Therefore, to be a good leader, it is not necessary for awoman to imitate men and behave mannish.

79.4%

72.2o/o

6 I agree to women occupying official positions, as longas she is not my superior. 23.5o/o 55.6%

7 I agree to women occupying official positions, as longas she is not my wife/family. 260/o M%

8 I agree to women occupying official positions, as longas she possesses a much higher ability than men, butif her abilig compares to a man's, it is befter for a manto be the leader.

21% 44%

o I agree to women occupying official positions if shepossesses a man's character and behavior, i.e. agentleman nature: firm, stricl, no compromise, rational,independent, etc.

29% 50%

10 I oppose to female leadership, because a woman bynature is a weak being and must obey men. 41.2o/o 66.7%

It can be understood from the table above that the respondents'opinion, bothmen and women have not fully supported women.

. Leadership Characteristics of Female CivilSeruantsTo assign female civil servants in official positions, it is necessary to

have several considerations which enables the Government (Advisory Council forOfficiai Position and System of Ranking) to select female civil servants for a

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posirion having high challenge and responsibility. One of the considerations is toput forward the nature and characteristics of female leadership.

Based on the results of the focused group discussions (FGD), it is understoodthat the opinion of both male and female respondents have not fully supportedwomen, e.g. a statement appears that women by nature are not able to occupyofEcial positions (to be a leader), because it is destined that men are leaders ofwomen, MVo of male respondents agree with the statement and so do 61% offemale respondents. This shows that female civil servant individuals considerthemselves unnecessary to be leaders, because by nature it is men who becomeleaders.

Based on the results of the focused group discussions (FGD) and thefilling out of questionnaires, there were some good leadership characteristicsshown which are femde and male characteristics. Of the many male leadershipcharacteristics (70 items) suggested and 44 female le -rdership characteristics, 10characteristics mostly appeared were proposed by male respondents, while femalerespondents proposed 24 male leadership characteristics and 21 female leadershipcharacteristics. Of the many characteristics, 10 priority characteristics were takenas follows:

Leadership CnaraaeristiE?in1"" and Female officialsProposed by Male and Female Respondents

. ldentification of Constraints of Female Civil Seruantsfor Official Positions and Their SolutionsTo clearly identify what constraints are faced by female civil sewants in

occupying offlcial positions, respondents suggested them through the focusedgroup discussion (FGD) technique. Of dl the opinions conveyed by respondents,there were 48 identified constraints that must be faced by women to become anofficial. Of the many constraints, there were 7 items suggested by respondentsthat appeared the most, which is as follows:

ACCORDING TOMALE RESPONDENTS ACCORDING TOFEMALE RESPONDENTSNo Andros Gynos Andros Gynos

1 Firm Firm Wise Firm? Wise Meticulous Firm Authoritative3 Authoritative \y'Vise Authoritative Honest4 lntelligent Patient Fair Wise5 Honest Broad-minded Honest Fairb Patient Diligent Meticulous Disciplined7 Disciplined Disciplined Human RationalI Supple Honest Supple PersuasiveI Fair Supple Rational Bold10 Broad-minded Loyal Bold lntelliqent



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Table 5Respondents' Answers on the Constraints for Womento Become Officials and Their Solutions

No Constraints Solutions1 Familv and household mafters Time management2 The nature ofwomen being pregnant,having their period and delivering children,therefore ofien taking leave

To overcome taking leave by participating inFamily Planning3 Unstable emotions (at certain times)/emotional

Must practice much and learn to be morefocused,To control emotions

4 To think and behave based on sentiment (bynature)/sensitiveLearn to think rationally

5 Lack of firmness To be outspoken/fi rm/bold6 Averagely weak physical condition Show that women have the ability to lead,

have self-confidence, have a broad horizonand rational7 Culture/religion/surroundings An occupation suitable to women's nature

Study results show that the opportunity for women to occupy officialpositions is actually quite oPened wide. Several respondents agree that womenshould be given the opportunity to compete with men to gain Position as anofficial without any discrimination in qualifications and treatment.

Nevertheless, the constraints that hinder women to advance is very great,especially from the family and the individual herself who is viewed by men ashaving the lack of giving optimal Productivity, e.8. because her working hours isoccupied by family matters, not to mention taking leave as a result of her natureas a woman. Some respondents extremely express their opinions that to overcomethese family matters, respondents are suggested not to have a family or to managetheir time in balance, whereas to overcome the problem of matemity leave, theyare suggested to participate in Family Planning in order not to often takematemity leave.Study results on employrnent regulations shows that in principal, dis-criminative rule formulation was not found normatively, so as to disturb pro-ductivity and the opportunity for female cMl servants to occupy official positions.Findings showed that the opportunity for female civil servants to occupy officialpositions have not been utilized, mainly due to the opinion that being a leader(official) is not a must for a woman and occupies much time, so that a womanmust sacrifice either her career as an official or her family. Even though being anofficial for a female civil senrant can be realized by managing time effectively andchrngng the paradigm among women themselves so that they would have moreself


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At the time of the focused group discussions (FGD), some respondents putforward that the existence of gender justice or injustice at the Bogor RegenryGovernment is not known. Some respondents don't mind if female civil servantsoccupy official positions as long as they fulfill the requirements in effect.

The situation where the respondent works is sometimes missed fromobservation, whether there is gender justice or not at the workplace. Respondentsgenerally never make a fuss about the issue in their jobs. This is an evidence ofhow the problem of gender is still considered trivid by civil servants at the BogorRegency Govemment circle. Even though to demand the involvement of womenin every aspect of development, minimally they should also be involved in everyfield of organization in the bureaucracy. The problem is that the majority offemale employees at the Bogor Regency Govemment have a lower level ofeducation than male civil servants at the same place. Besides, education andtraining on gender or gender mainstreaming are limited to Regional Official WorkUnit (SKPD) employees who are directly linked to the gender mainstreamingprogram or women empoweffnent. As a result, some female civil seryants arepassive or just accept anything that is determined by their job hierarchy.

Female civil servants are generally assigned in certain fields or departments,as if reflecting the quality of femininity. This indicates the firm pauiarchal culturethat still exists at the Bogor Regency Govemment bureaucracy. The domination ofmale employees also takes part in giving a negative image on women's ability tobe involved in development. ,With the cultural condition (linked with patriarchal culture values) which isalso structural (established by the existing socio-political system), it is necessaryto have a clear and concrete favoring action to reduce the gender gap in variousfields of development. A strong political will is also necessary in order that allpolicies and development programs consider gender equality and justice.

One of the ways to improve the condition of gender gap is by increasing thenumber and also the quality of women who occupy positions of decision makers(occupy official positions), because in that way the decision resulted can actuallyprotect women's interest and gender sensitivity.

The priority and course of development policy which must be carried out are:1. To increase the involvement of women in the process of policy makingand public positions;2. To improve the level of education and skill of female civil servants inother fields of development, to improve the quality of life and humanresource of female civil servants;3. To improve the law (Regiond Regulations), making it more compre-hensive to facilitate female civil servants in official positions;4. To strengthen institutional, coordination, and gender mainstreamingnetwork in planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation ofvarious policies, programs, and development activities in every field,

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including the fulfillment of inremational commirments, supplying dataand statistics ofgender, and increasing the participation ofsociery5. Gender socialization among various walks of life, in order not to usereligion :rs a reason to refuse the idea of emancipation, justice and welfareof gender. Therefore it is necessary to have the same interpretation, so asnot to have an implication on women.

One of the ways to overcome socio-cultural constraints is to encouragepositive socio-cultural factors, while the negative factors must be altered oreliminated for the sake of speeding up the implementation of gender main-streaming and for the sake of the realization of gender justice and equality. Socio-cultural transfomation is an effort that must be planned, structurized, intensiveand continuous, so that a change in the people's mindset may occur, both in menand women, particularly among civil servants.

Female civil servants in the Bogor Regency must be able to releaseinstitutional ego and self-interest to dissolve themselves and struggle togetherwithin the scope of empowering the role of women in order to advance.r Conctusion and Recommendation

. ConclusionThe opportunity for female civil servants to become officials is not atall hindered by discriminative institutional regulations or institutional policies.The mistaken viewpoint of female civil servants is what makes it less possible forthe individual to optimize herself through various opportunities.

Besides the attitude of the female civil servant herself, the attitude of malecivil servants also becomes one of the constraints for women to proceed tobecome of;ficials.

Normatively, no discriminative employment regulations were found, so that itgreatly influences the opportunity for female civil servants to become officials.

. RecommendationBased on the conclusion, suggestions,/recommendations may be con-

veyed as follows:L The necessity of a change in the viewpoint on the opportunity for femalecivil servants to become officials by improving competence in each oftheir fields of study, so that the opportuniry to become officials may be

achieved because of the perficrmance and competence possessed bn'female civil servants.b. The neccesity to reformulate a more egalitairre work relationship with agender viewpoint.

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The necessity of willingness from every Regional Official Work Unit(SKPD) to reformulate its organization in order to become an orga-nization with a gender viewpoint.The necessity of an affirmative action (an action supporting the numberof representation) with a quota system determining, certainly based onthe potential possessed by the woman viewed from various aspects(performance indicator). Wittr the quota system, it is hoped that in thefuture the position of women representation in occupying official po-sitions will be higher.

r BibtiographyIslami, Irfan (1994:18), Principla on the Formulation of State Policy. lakarta: Bumi Aksara.JakartaJones, Charles, O (1996:49),IntrodrctiontoPublicPolicy.Jakarta: PT. Rajagrafindo PersadaDunn, William, (1999: 24), Evalwtion of Public Policy. Jogyakarta: Gajah Mada University

Press.Wahab, Solihin Abdul, 1999 , Policy Analysis from Formalimtian to Implanentation of State Policy.

Jakarta: Bumi Aksara.Wibawa Samudra Dkk (1994: L5),Evaluationof PublicPolicy.Jakarta: PT. Rajagrafindo PersadaMussanef (1992: 18). Employment Managanmt. Jakarta: Gunung AgungMoekijat (1984:286). Employmmt Managanent. Jakarta: Mandar MajuGovernment Regulation No. 1 00, 2000Nainggolan (1993:101). Civil Servant Management. Jakarca: Department of Education andCultureGov emment Regulation No. 4 3, 1 9 9 9 on Fundamentals of Employment

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