Solidarity and Participation: Women’s Experiences in Village Decision Making Exclusion

Abstract

. Women's interests should be accommodated in government decision-making practices, including at the village level. However, various studies have shown that the accommodation of women's interests in decision-making experiences various obstacles, both due to government actors and government mechanisms. This research focuses on looking at actors and government mechanisms based on politics and gender prespectives in Sidomulyo village, Batu city. Regarding to those focuses, they are elaborate into three objectives. First, identifying issues about women in Sidomulyo village. Second, identifying political actors in Sidomulyo village and observing the women’s position. Third, analyzing women’s accommodation and their interests in practices of decision making in Sidomulyo village. The process of collecting, identifying, and analyzing data was carried out using qualitative methods. The field research lasted for two months with three main techniques including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and document studies. As a result, this research shows that Sidomulyo village is unique regarding gender issues which are proven by initiative and solidarity strengths of the women in the village in dealing with local social problems. However, active participation of women in the grassroots level is not linear with their involvement in practices of formal decision making in the village level. Women are generally excluded due to lack of access to participate, so that they do not have control over development priorities and budgets in the village. Political dynamics and decision making in Sidomulyo shows that the governance actors involved are CSOs and the village government, but both contribute to an asymmetrical relationship. From gender aspect, quantitatively women in government are categorized into underrepresented with descriptive representation in which policies and budgets are discussed in a gender-neutral way. in the process of formulating public policies in the village. Meanwhile, through a gender perspective, this study aims to look at the disparity between men and women both in the decision-making process and in the substance of village policies.