Women's Struggle in Pursuing Higher Education
Feminist Society - Questions and statements such as “Why do women go to college” and “Women don’t need to go to college, because men will feel inferior” are common things heard by Ika Lailatun Nikmah (familiarly called Ela) who grew up in a neighborhood that still views women as only having 3 tasks, namely masak, macak, and manak (cooking, dressing up, and giving birth to children). These views are a challenge for her in achieving higher education.
Ela is the first daughter born into
a simple Javanese family, where getting an education up to college is the most
expensive dream. Since she was a teenager, Ela has often seen how women in her
area are considered less equal and do not have the same opportunities to access
higher education as men. Ela sees a misconception in society that seems to
place the right to education only for men. This is certainly contrary to the
mandate of the constitution, where every citizen has the right to receive an
education as mandated by Article 31 paragraph (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of
Indonesia.
In her area, women are also often
considered troublesome if they intend to continue their studies to college
because the family must pay for their studies. Even worse, women in her area
are often objectified as if they are used as a tool to improve the family's
economy by being married to rich people.
This view is what strengthens Ela’s
determination to continue her education to college in order to break the
stereotype. Although at the beginning of the struggle to go to college, Ela
faced many difficulties, such as parental blessing and also tuition fees. At
first, her parents did not give her permission to continue college, where they
thought that college was only for the upper middle class. So if she chose to go
to college, her parents were worried that they would not be able to pay for her
college until she finished, which would make the costs that had been spent also
be in vain.
Based on these challenges, although
in 2018 Ela had passed SPANPTKIN at one of the religious universities in
Central Java, due to the very expensive tuition fees, she had to give up the
campus and was willing to take a gap year to work in order to be able to
finance her studies later.
At that time, Ela worked at a
photocopy shop near her house for about 1 year. From that job she was able to
save money to prepare for college fees and could meet other needs such as
buying equipment needed in the college process later. In the second year, she
decided to resign from her job and enroll in one of the religious colleges in
Central Java. From that process, Ela was finally accepted at the campus with a
KIP Kuliah scholarship that could fully finance her education and living
expenses for 8 semesters of college.
Ela proved her efforts that women
cannot be underestimated, even in her educational journey, she gave a very good
record. She completed her studies in 3.5 years with Cum Laude predicate GPA
3.80 out of 4.00. In the process of her studies, Ela was a student who was
active in organizations and participated in various competitions at the local,
national, and international levels. She was able to balance her academic and
non-academic affairs during her studies.
In fact, she once made an
extraordinary achievement when she and her team participated in the Student
Creativity Program (PKM) in Entrepreneurship in 2021. Where they made an
innovation in transferring carved media onto fabric in the form of a hijab with
a typical Jepara carved motif decorated with a quote from R.A Kartini's letter
in the book "Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang". This innovation
succeeded in getting them a grant and was successfully registered as
Intellectual Property Rights by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights of the
Republic of Indonesia.
Currently, Ela is doing an
internship at one of the institutions on her campus, while continuing to hone
her skills in writing. In 2024, Ela successfully published a journal on the
perspective of gender equality published in the Journal of Gender and Social
Inclusion Studies. Apart from scientific works, she is also active in writing
short stories and poems which she often publishes on Wattpad and Blog.
From this incredible journey, it finally led Ela to become the first graduate in her family. Ela managed to prove to her parents that education is important and with knowledge we can change the situation. As the hadith narrated by Abu Dawud and At-Tirmidzi:
"Indeed, the
Prophets did not pass on dinars and dirhams, in fact, they only passed on
knowledge, whoever has taken it, has taken a large portion".
You can also read: ARN’s Journey Goes Beyond the Comfort Zone: From A Teenage Who Received Verbal and Physical Bullying to Becoming A Career Woman Who Is the Backbone of the Family
Ela always advises women out there
who are trying to achieve their dreams to never give up easily in achieving
their dreams and continuing their education. "Dreams will never fail,
they just look for the right time and wait for us to be ready" — said Ela.
Ela’s extraordinary journey in
proving herself, in breaking the stigma of women is a movement for women's
emancipation that must continue to be voiced and continue to be an example for
all women out there. That education is everyone's right regardless of whether
they are male or female. Women must have equal access to education. Hopefully, Ela’s
struggle in continuing her studies to college will continue to echo in every
corner of the inner eyes of other women.
In our section with Ela, we finally
agreed on several crucial things, where Feminist Society will always support
her and we also agreed to collaborate in the future in advocating and voicing
the right to education for women.
If you have any case related to
gender equality or feminist issues and you need either advocacy assistance,
counseling, support for campaign media, or some kind of that, feel free to
contact us by this section. All of those things are free, you do not need to
pay anything, it is our commitment to promote progress in gender equality and
women’s rights activism through education and advocacy.
You can also contact us on:
Instagram : @feministsociety.id
Email : fem.official7@gmail.com
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