Indonesian Women : a higher education vs. marriage

How does it feel to be a woman who wants to pursue a higher education in Indonesia?

Can be quite challenging for some.

There will be quite many text messages or comments in social media asking “When will you get married?” or “why you never post or upload something about a guy?” (like seriously you ask about these stuff?!!)

The pressure just come from all the directions, thus if you don’t explode, you are a really high quality woman. 

When I decided to continue master (and Abroad) some ‘friends’ told me. “Guys will be scared of you.” that’s the first stereotype.

The second is, “If you will end up at the kitchen, why should you spend so much time to study?”

First point, I love to cook. But I will not spend my life just for cooking.

I have this thing called ‘passion’ to learn. I can’t be categorized as smart, no! I am just very determined and passionate in getting what I want. I love to study here. The more I study, the more I realize that I still know very less. 

The more I study, the more attractive knowledge is, even though the consequences are getting really tired and lack of sleep. I will finish my master soon. I will be 24 y.o. when I finish master.

I’ve been changing a lot for these 2 years.

If at the past because everybody gets married then I want it too, now, I am more concern about repairing the quality of myself. So when somebody blames my ‘higher education’ as the reason why I am not married until now, it is totally wrong. 

Marriage is a big deal, you have to be able to wake up really early, preparing food, dealing with the baby, loosing me time, and the most important are ‘compromises’.

Spending the time for dating or being close to somebody special is nice, but spending ‘your whole time’ with that somebody, I think it would need patience in compromising things.

Those things I am practicing right now to be able to handle those stuff before I get married.

At the moment, I am really enjoying to live independently, earn money (from the scholarship :p), having my own place and learn to manage it, buy things those I want, I think it is once in a lifetime. It is nice to learn about how to be an independent woman, because being independent is necessary no matter If you are married or not. 

I like this quote from a woman. “I don’t have to wait until prince charming comes with his white horse because I already have my own horse.” –A general manager in a multinational company.

Second point, I’ve witnessed so many broken marriages in my 24 years of life. And my mom was also ‘a single parent’ for 15 years. But she was so strong besides she was also well educated. She knew how to earn money, raised two kids, fixed the electricity, repaired the broken ceiling, she cooked very nice, and she is very pretty in spite of her lacks as a single mom.

She always taught me, “don’t complain too much, and if you can handle things by yourself then do it, instead of asking for help.” 

Whereas I saw so many women were left by their husband and they were totally broken. They did not know how to earn money, they did not know how to deal with difficult situations, thus, it might affect their children mentally and physically. 

Besides that, to answer the question “guys will be scared of you”,

I am questioning why we should marry somebody that does not have that confident and eagerness to develop himself?

We shouldn’t pretend to be dumb just to make a man feel confident. 

There is a nice advice from a motivator, "Use your logic before you fall in love. Attraction can be an accident, but falling in love is a decision. Be logic before you fall in love, because once you do, it will be too difficult to be logic.”

I think a smart and a nice woman will ‘motivate’ her partner to be a better man. Besides a great man, there always be a great woman. Look at real examples, Aisyah, the wife of Rasul Muhammad SAW, she was the smartest woman in her era.

The outstanding scientist yet romantic couple Pierre Curie and Marie Curie, Johan Sebastian Bach and Anna Magdalena, Bill and Melinda gates, the ex- President of Indonesia and aviation scientist -Bacharudin Jusuf Habibie and dr. Hasri Ainun and so many other examples out of there. 

The third point is, it is the right of the person to keep her/his personal life private. Don’t complain about other people’s life unless it is related to you. You can be a caring person and give an advice, but let’s draw a line in between caring and too much curious about other’s life. 

The last point, the quality of a person is not determined by if he/she is single/taken. The quality of a person is determined by how much this person can bring a great impact for his/her surroundings.

writen by:

Zahrina- currently pursuing MSc. from Universiteit Gent, Belgium and University of Groningen The Netherlands