The practices of adat (custom) inequality in Pakpak destitute women at Pegagan Julu VIII Village, Dairi, Indonesia

Abstract

The aim of this study: This writing analyzed the incidence of practices of adat (custom) inequality in poor women at the social institution of Pakpak community at Pegagan Julu VIII Village. The research used the qualitative-feminism method which emphasized on the process of research focusing on women as the research subjects. It digs up their life experience. The data were gathered by using FGD and conducting an in-depth interview and observation on women as the research subjects. The gathered data were analyzed by using the perspective of the Social Feminism theory. The result of the research showed that Pakpak women were the important conservers and the doers of adat in their community. This reality was not straightly proportional to their authority to make any decisions in any adat activities or work due to patriarchal culture which prioritizes men, so that it makes women weak in a bargaining position. Consequently, most of the adat values and practices do not take the side of women at the family level and in the community so that they were marginalized in their access and control. Poverty, undergone by women, will be severer by the adat burden, which has to be born by women. This situation will potentially cause them to be in double poverty and alienation from their own adat.