Indonesia Minister Slammed Online for Saying, ‘Corona is Like Your Wife’

You know how the saying goes, “behind every successful man is a woman.” Ask any married man and he’ll gladly agree with you on this.

However, not everyone shares the same sentiments.

So what do they do? They come up with their own saying.

“Corona is like your wife.”

like my- What? 

Indonesia Minister Slammed Online for Saying, ‘Corona is Like Your Wife’

An Indonesian minister is slammed online after comparing the coronavirus to rebellious wives.

On Tuesday (23 May), Security minister Mohammad Mahfud MD made an online address to a local university.

He said in his statement, “Are we going to be holed up forever? We can adjust to the situation while still paying attention to our health.”

All was well until he started talking about how the virus was akin to a wife that can’t be controlled.

“The other day I got a meme from my colleague… that says: Corona is like your wife. Initially you tried to control it, then you realise that you can’t. Then you learn to live with it,” he remarked.

According to Mahfud, this was an attempt to soothe public fears about easing COVID-19 restrictions across the Southeast Asian archipelago.

What’s a better way than to soothe the public with some good’ o sexist jokes, right?

Sexist and Weak Response To Virus Outbreak

Well obviously, people ain’t accepting it at all. Women’s group and social media users were slamming the “joke”, calling it out as sexist.

Some critics even said that it underscored Jakarta’s weak response to the virus outbreak.

Follow us on Telegram for more informative & easy-to-read articles, or download the Goody Feed app for articles you can’t find on Facebook!

According to Women’s Solidarity group chief executive Dinda Nisa Yura, the statement not only reflected the superficial power of the government to solve the pandemic, but also showed the sexist and misogynistic mindset of public officials.

To add on, Mahfud’s office did not respond to a request for comment yesterday (26 May).

I guess he was taken aback by how unappreciative the people are with his jokes.

One Of The Lowest Testing Rates In The World

At the time of this article, Indonesia has confirmed around 25,216 cases of COVID-19 as well as 1,520 deaths.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most populous country, which means that the virus might hit harder for them if they do not ensure social distancing measures.

Furthermore, they have some of the lowest testing rates in the world. According to pandemic data site Worldometer, only 36 in every million people are being tested for the virus in Indonesia.

In Singapore, that number is 38,400 per million people.

This makes it the fourth-worst in testing rate among countries with a 50 million population or above.

With a low testing rate, it’s even harder to get an accurate picture of the true number of infections in the country. Hence, the number could be higher for all we know.

To cope with the outbreak, Indonesia will be deploying some 340,000 troops to control social-distancing violations.

The Government is planning to reopen shuttered businesses next week, out of fear of a collapse in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.