Journey to self-acceptance

I remember a conversation I had sometime ago with two friends, one an Indonesian older lady and the other, an Indonesian man. The conversation was about a woman we knew who was married but was apparently having affairs with married men in her workplace. Both said that she is to blame, not the men. I of course shook my head and said that the woman can’t be exclusively faulted, it takes two to tango and both parties were to be blamed — if you had to blame anyone at all.

The older lady proceeded to compare this situation with holding a fish over a cat. She said it is only natural that the cat will catch and eat the fish if you keep on dangling the fish in front of its nose.

So this older woman likened men to animals — without a brain and can only follow their animal instincts, while at the same time degrading women in general as if we were nothing more but a piece of meat (or fish).

I said to both that I don’t think you can compare men to animals. For one, (most) men have brains, they still operate with it and as such they have to also be held accountable for their actions.

So in this particular discussion I insisted that both parties were to blame, and that you can’t blame it on just one person (or gender)

Naturally they were not convinced. They still think that in situations like this, it is clearly the woman’s fault — which is the Indonesian way, the woman is always to blame…