BINUS UNIVERSITY’S International Women’s Day 2021 Virtual Celebration
On March 8, 2021, BINUS CDA (Community Development Academic) celebrated International Women’s Day virtually by inviting female speakers from different universities, institutions, and communities to present in a webinar event. The theme of this celebration was “Choose to Challenge”.
The moderator for this event was Dr. R.A. Aryanti Wardaya Puspokusumo, B.Sc, M.B.M – Head of Internationalization Partnership Programs of FEC (Faculty of Economic and Communication). She explained that in this session, audiences will get to hear stories from women and the challenges that they face in life and at work, in order to raise awareness regarding the gender equality.
There were five speakers in this session in total, namely Maria Battaglia – Director of Istituto Italiano di Cultura (IIC) Jakarta, Samantha Barbara – Chairwoman of non-profit organization Lovepink (Yayasan Daya Dara Indonesia), Desi Dwi Priyanti, S. Sos, M. Comn, Ph.D. from Universitas Brawijaya, Assoc. Prof. Dinna Prapto Raharja, Ph.D from BINUS University, as well as Angling R. Tilarsih from Indorunners Bali.
The first presentation about Women’s rights in Italy was delivered by Maria Battaglia. In this presentation, she gave explanation about the path of women towards gender equality, how the laws changed throughout the history, also the new waves of feminist movements. The presentation was interactive as she also showed a short movie about discrimination that women face at work.
The next speaker in the session was Angling R. Tilarsih. In her session, she shared her own personal experience throughout her career as a runner during times spent abroad, mentioning women’s lack of access to a safe space, also how society treated women through stigmatization.
Samantha Barbara then continued the session by sharing her journey and struggles surviving breast cancer throughout the years. She also shared more in depth about vision and mission of Lovepink, a non-profit organization with commitment to cancer survivors in Indonesia, especially for women.
The session was then followed by Desi Dwi Priyanti, in which she presented more on academic side about “Questioning women’s stereotypes as the second sex in postcolonial Indonesia”. She divided the topics in three parts: the common belief in society regarding gender relations, the alternative facts embedded in social reality, as well as how did it start.
The final part of the session was presented by Assoc. Prof. Dinna Prapto Raharja, Ph.D, in which she shared her reflections on combating human trafficking in Southeast Asia.
