Men, Women, Success

As many of you might already know, I’m an active member of the English Debating Society Universitas Indonesia. In this society we have an internal joke: it is highly believed that EDS UI should provide affirmative action for men! This joke comes from the fact that the most dominant members (meaning those that have the most achievements or are members of the Board of Executives) are generally ladies. In fact, the number of men in the society is very limited and most of them disappear through time.

We really do not know why this happens, because we definitely do not discriminate men. Neither is debating a ‘women’ activity as in other countries and other universities the condition is quite the opposite. In fact in Australia it has come to a point where there is a competition named the ‘Women’s Debate’. As the name suggests it is a special tournament where only women can compete and was formed in order to encourage more female participation in Australian debating.

So, it’s really weird that EDS UI has the opposite problem…

Now, of course both problems might not have anything to do with gender differentiation. Could just be the reason why women dominate the debating realm in EDS UI is simply because there’s more women than men in UI as a whole.

OR (looking for a more interesting theory) it could be a vicious cycle where at one point in time women did dominate EDS UI out of coincidence. This made many men feel uncomfortable and started to see EDS UI as a women’s club, leaving only those most confident with their masculinity behind. And this phenomenon has repeated year after year to a point where it has become an unbreakable cycle…

Of course this may not be true, but that’s my theory. A theory supported by a fellow female debater in EDS UI who contributed to this theory by adding: “The thing with men is they’re easily intimidated by women who can out-speak them whenever there’s an argument or achieve more than they do. That’s why many can’t stand the women domination in EDS UI.”

Ah… interesting point… God knows how many times I’ve heard guys say something like that to me… *sigh… personal problem*…

Anyways, this article wasn’t meant to beat men to the ground. In fact, I’m writing this to do the opposite because I’ve finally found a case that has restored my confidence in men. This is a story that I’ve heard from Wijay about a mutual friend of ours.

Here it is: A friend of mine from EDS UI who is quite an accomplished debater (Let’s call her ‘T’) has been in a long term relationship with her boyfriend, ‘R’ who isn’t a debater but is quite involved in the debating world.

One day, a friend of his asked R: ‘Aren’t you intimidated by the fact that your girlfriend is more successful than you?’

He answered: ‘Why should I be? What’s wrong isn’t T’s achievements. What’s wrong is your definition of success.’

HAIL T!!!!

Finally…

People are so persistent in comparing CVs and feeling inferior just because they haven’t ‘achieved’ the same ‘successes’ as others… But why should we all assume that there’s only one definition and one form of success??? The term success is so relative and yet people often only focus on financial successes or titles… I mean, all of those things are so overrated. Why can’t people define success as they want to and just be happy to achieve what THEY want to achieve in life without having to define their success by standards made by others? I’m sure this will allow people to be more confident with themselves and won’t feel like a lesser being in front of others… it would also force people to be less obnoxious just because there are people who have a less ambitious definition of success then them.

People should just remember that above the sky there’s more sky and under the sky there’s still more sky… – the translation of the Indonesian phrase: di atas langit ada langit, di bawah langit ada langit, sounds terrible in English.

Why can’t people see beyond one’s CV or one’s outer-image and see the real person within… Everything is so superficial…

*another sigh*

Dhika*Shines