Hardheaded Women

Balinese women don't have it easy.

They are responsible for childcare, for cooking, for preparing all the ceremonial offerings, and for fulfilling the obligations to go to the temple to pray.  Many also hold full-time jobs outside of the home.  As Ibu Made says, "Balinese women always working."

Women with Nyepi offerings at the temple

Our neighbor at Sanctuary with some of her daily offerings

When a woman marries, she almost always leaves her family to go live with her husband and her in-laws (and often her husband's brothers and their families, and everyone's dogs) in his family compound.

Women in Bali do not have the same legal rights as men. According to tradition, land is only inherited by the sons. The undeveloped land next to our villa to the west is owned by a family with six children- five daughters and then the youngest is a boy.  But that boy, Dewa Made Putra, is in good shape because he will get all the family's land.  His sisters will get nothing.

Sons are highly prized in Bali.  A major reason is that daughters leave and become part of their husband's family.  Sons stay with their parents, so the son's family will take care of the parents when the parents get older.  The family home and lands are also passed on through the sons.

Sons are so important that fathers of daughters will keep having more children in the hopes that eventually they will have a boy.  Our driver Dewa's eldest brother had three daughters aged 15, 10, and 5, but he decided to try his luck again and is overjoyed that their new baby is a boy.  Lynn has remarked that Dewa often mentions his son's daily activities and concerns about his character and well-being.  He rarely brings up his daughter in conversation.  Lynn of course asks about her regularly.  Dewa is aware that Balinese culture differs from other cultures in this respect.  Lynn said that Dewa occasionally notes that things are "different for women in Java ... and maybe different in your country."

Dewa Made, the businessman and property manager for our villa, is among the most prosperous Balinese we know, but is considered unlucky by some since he has four daughters, aged 15, 10, 5, and 2, but no sons.  Dewa Made says four children is enough, so there will be no son in his future.

One can speculate that the family of Dewa Made Putra, mentioned above, had exactly six children because they kept trying to have a son and when after five daughters the sixth was finally a boy, they were finally able to stop having more children.

Women perform much of the hardest manual labor.  It is a common sight to see groups of women, some of them quite elderly and frail-looking, carrying heavy loads of cinder blocks and other construction material on their heads.

It is unusual to see men performing this work.  Putu says that women do this work because they have the skill of carrying things on their head, which they do routinely when carrying food back from the market on their heads and when carrying offerings on their heads.  This seems to beg the question of why the men can't carry these heavy loads some other way than on their heads.

Not infrequently as we watch the roadside scenes unfold as we drive along, we'll pass a group of women carry stones on their head, and then a short while later see the contrasting sight of a man squatting by the side of the road, gently massaging the chest muscles of his rooster, in preparation for an upcoming cockfight.