Living in Venus

(Karena merupakan 'penerimaan spiritual' yang tak terjelaskan-lah, maka tulisan berikut ini saya tuangkan dalam bahasa Inggris. Bukan untuk sok nginggris, tetapi memang merupakan hasil dari 'tuntunan rasa diri' yang maunya berbahasa Inggris. Entah kenapa...)

Hermawan Kertajaya's Marketing in Venus (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2004) gives insight to its readers that today's consumers have been affected as such by the spirit of feminity. Women are generally perceived as human beings who emphasize their feelings and emotions, rather than logic. Reversely, I like the idea that the feminine kind is otherwise clever, tough, creative as well as impulsive. The first consideration implicitly advertise that women are unintelligent beings, for they seldomly utilize logic. I don't agree, because my experience of co-working many times with female art directors proves that these men's opposite sexes are in fact resilient, prudent, and able to produce soulful work. Physically as well as psychologically, they are actually also stronger than men -- who are called 'big babies' by certain feminist-oriented magazines. But, more or less, Kertajaya's opinion affects me somewhat.

Turning away from John Gray's theory that men are from Mars and women from Venus, Hermawan Kertajaya speculates that men and women will eventually come back to Venus. According to him, Earth has turned into Venus as sophisticated men also possess feminine characteristics, meaning they, too, reveal their emotional side. Regarding that Earth's inhabitants have revealed their emotional side, the most appropriate means of selling is to exploit consumers' emotions in order to succeed. Purchases are mostly emotion-driven. The existing reasons are no longer functional, but rather irrational and sometimes illogical. People are buying goods and services more on esteem and fashion, instead of taking their functional values into consideration.

Today's Indonesian consumers are going to that direction. Marketing magazine's special issue of 2007 reports the results of a market survey conducted by Frontier marketing consultancy, wherein it states that Indonesian consumers are generally unfamiliar with technological features. Most respondents who own a Nokia Communicator solely benefit the cell-phone's short message and call features, while other menus are left unemployed, since they do not comprehend the manners of using them. So, why do they buy Communicators at all? The largest number of respondents spells out esteem; they buy Communicators for its large profile, so as to having a suitable reason of not putting them in their pockets as they won't fit. And thus they can show them off to other people, who, in turn, won't realize that they are doing it on purpose.

The decision to buy products propped up more by preferences for brands and aesthetics before product benefits also justifies the feminine tendency in today's market characteristics. Women pay attention to details and are easily susceptible to product design. An appealing design is likely to secure more buyers than a repulsive one.

Kertajaya's view towards the Venutian traits of today's consumers, which is predominantly affected by female-specific predispositions, could somehow be wrong, as representations of women known this far does not reflect their primordial behaviors, but resulting from culture, instead. The media plays a leading role in creating these representations, which are devised as such that they are thought of being the unmovable reality.

As unveiled by Sita Aripurnami through her article on the portrayal of women in Indonesian movies, in Mayling Oey-Gardiner et al. (eds.), Perempuan Indonesia Dulu dan Kini (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1996), film as one form of media is capable of constructing public opinion. Time and again, the content solely offers the same portrayal of women and men without looking upon real situations, where women and men are unlike the ones appearing in motion pictures. Women are on one hand distinguished as merely wives and mothers, who are then rendered as 'stay-at-homes', so if they ever worked for earnings they would simply be deemed as 'contributors of the family's additional income'.

Furthermore, women are recognized as brainless beings who can do nothing but shedding tears and being garrulous. Men are, on the other hand, picked out as being the head of the family and bread winner and decision-maker. Therefore, men are always seen as intelligent beings who are steady in the face of trouble, unbending, and never able to cry. The illustration of women and men in Indonesian movies seems to be far from alteration considering the way Indonesia's film industry develops today.

Hermawan Kertajaya embarks from the latest marketing trends to verify the fact that we are undeniably living in Venus, since most part of the market are possessed by feminine spirits characterized by the tenderness of feelings, emotions, and a rather irrational way of thinking. On the contrary, Sita Aripurnami denies that these are female-specific characteristics. Yet my personal experiences nowadays urged me to think abound with Kertajaya. For all these times, women are more often than not indistinguisable to the terrible Metro Mini drivers for their frivolous way of driving motor vehicles, ignorant of other road users.

You may averse to my judgment one way or another. Yet, realities on the street speak for itself. I had been bumped into by cars thrice in one day, which fortunately had caused me no injury. Those cars were driven by women, who just drove away as if nothing happened. Since then, when a car waved all traffic rules aside, I would customarily sped up my motor-cycle just to find out who is behind the wheel. Surprisingly, mostly were women!

In my observation, female drivers in most cases do not look to side mirrors; they do not sweat over sending out the right lamp-signs when turning; U-turning at maximum velocity; putting off other vehicles by pulling over at oblique angles; and giving the gas promptly which stutters the car along the road. Female drivers also tend to act as if they have power over roads. Rather than being stoical themselves, women merely tries to control their vehicles. I was again 'almost victimized' recently by the attitude of women behind the steering wheel. More to my wish of letting it go at that, the following words hurtled across my mind: "To realize that we are indeed living in Venus, just note how reckless drivers are today." []