When Culture Promotes Justice, but Women Workers Face Challenges:A Case Study in Makassar, Indonesia

Hasanuddin, Amalia Soraya and Setyawan, Jefri (2026) When Culture Promotes Justice, but Women Workers Face Challenges:A Case Study in Makassar, Indonesia. Indigenous: Jurnal Ilmiah Psikologi, 11 (2). pp. 153-166. ISSN 0854-2880

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Abstract

This study examines how gender inequality is reproduced in workplaces in Makassar through the institutionalization of Bugis–Makassar cultural values within organizational settings. It explores how moral principles such as sipakatau (mutual respect), sipakainge (reminding one another), sipakalebbi (honoring others), and siri’ na pacce (dignity and empathy) are reinterpreted in ways that sustain gender hierarchies. Rather than functioning as equalizing forces, these values are often mobilized to encourage women’s obedience, endurance, and restraint, transforming moral virtue into a mechanism that legitimizes inequality. This research employs a multiple-case study involving thirty-eight women across sectors including education, health, administration, and services in Makassar, Indonesia. Data were collected through open-ended questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and unstructured observations, and analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Findings reveal that cultural idioms are embedded within managerial practices emphasizing compliance and symbolic recognition over substantive equality. Institutional structures such as pangngaderreng have become increasingly discretionary, where rights are reframed as personal favors, and career advancement is shaped by patron–client relations and informal “chemistry” with leaders. The study shows that inequality operates through normalized expectations of modesty, loyalty, and emotional labor, reinforced by microaggressions and moral surveillance. However, these cultural values also hold transformative potential if redefined as collective and institutional obligations. Integrating local ethical frameworks with gender equality initiatives offers a culturally grounded pathway to advancing justice, where equality is understood not as resistance to culture but as its ethical realization.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Psychology > Department of Psychology
Depositing User:	JEFRI SETYAWAN
Date Deposited:	13 Jul 2026 04:18
Last Modified:	16 Jul 2026 04:39
URI:	http://repository.ubaya.ac.id/id/eprint/50949

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