One of the most memorable
reminiscences of our childhood is the festivities of Kartini Day. Perhaps until
elementary school, we celebrated it by wearing traditional clothes,
participating in various competitions such as fashion show, and marching down
the streets around our neighborhood that we caused heavy traffic. Today, as
time rolls by and society claims everybody in every social stratification needs
to commemorate Kartini’s struggle, many institutions obligate their members to
wear traditional clothes, too, on 21st April. In most places in
Java, this means kebaya for women and batik or koko shirt for men. They also
celebrate it by conducting fashion show or cooking competitions. Of course,
that’s a nice thing to do. As young generation, we should conserve our culture
and be proud of it. The question: is it what Kartini’s struggle all about?
Wearing a nice kebaya to appear pretty, supple, and graceful? With the fact
that Kartini devoted her short years of life trying to break through the cage
of Javanese patriarchal culture that degraded women as delicate figures created
to serve men, it is safe for me to say that we still misinterpret the meaning
of her struggle.
 |
| Google was being Google: it doodled Kartini to celebrate her birthday, too! |
Kartini
is an important figure in Indonesia’s long list of heroes and pioneers. What
did she fight for? Education for girls, regardless of their ancestry status and
age. This makes her a feminist. As we have already known, in Kartini’s era,
only local royalties could go to school and got basic education with children
of Dutch elites. This privilege stopped as soon as they hit the age of
maturity, for they had to stay at home until a royal man came proposing. In
Javanese culture, this act of keeping a girl at home until being proposed is
called pingitan. Kartini expressed her feelings: refusal, anger, sadness,
through letters she sent to her Dutch friends. She sounded her first idea of
emancipation to Estella Zeehandelaar; her desire for freedom of walls of her
house that had trapped her for years, how she thought that “law and education
belong to men only”, and that she wasn’t impressed by the practice of
polygamies and arranged marriages.[1]
Her other friend, Rosa Abendanon, collected all the letters she sent, and her
husband, Jacques Henrij Abendanon, published it under the title of Door Duistemis Tor Licht (in Bahasa
Indonesia: Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang).
It was Kartini who gave J. H. Abendanon inspiration to build schools for the
royals as well as the commoners, when he was appointed as Dutch East Indies’s
Minister of Culture, Religion, and Craft in early 1900’s.[2]
| With Rosie the Riveter on it, this poster appeared during World War II and became a symbol for patriotic womanhood. |
In
her letters, it was even implied that Kartini was somewhat angry at Javanese
feudal culture that forced her to become a wife and a mother, when she was a
student whose thirst for knowledge wasn’t fulfilled. So how could we
commemorate her by wearing kebaya to symbolize her as a Javanese feudal, domestic
mother? The fact is, W. R. Supratman originally created a song titled Raden Ajeng Kartini, but then it was
changed into Ibu Kita Kartini in
Soekarno’s reign.[3]
However, it was during New Order, a doctrine that defined women as wives and
mothers, appeared. The doctrine was coined as “state ibuism” by Indonesian
feminist Julia Suryakusuma.[4]
As
an emancipator and Indonesia’s first feminist, have Kartini’s ideas of gender
equality been well received among Indonesian society? To some extends, the answer can be yes
and no. As modernization and globalization wave from one place to another, our
knowledge about the idea of gender equality has increased. Many women have
gathered, being a voice instead of an echo. Feminist movements roar louder.
Yet, our awareness and understanding is still shockingly hazy, and some people
still see the world through patriarchal spectacles.
The
most notable cases that have gone on for years are child marriage cases.
Indonesia is one of ten countries with the highest numbers of child brides
every year, with an estimated one in every five girls is married before the age
of 18.[5]
One of the key drivers is rigid gender norms, where there is a statement that
“girls don’t need higher education—they will end up in their kitchen anyway”.
Other drivers include poverty, economic dependency, financial incentives, dowry
practices, lack of access to education and health service. Most marriages don’t
end well; poverty keeps catching up while the young couple bears children,
resulting in domestic violence, stolen dreams and childhood.
Perhaps
we don’t realize, there have been many thoughts from Indonesian youth that have
tendency to commodify women. You may have familiarized yourself with the
analogy “women in modest clothes are like wrapped candies, they are more
valuable because they are still pure and untouched”. This saying has analogical
fallacy, because candies don’t have any reasoning capabilities, and they are
only possessions, subjects to people’s satisfaction. Therefore, if you say that
women are like candies, you practically agree that women are subjects to
people’s satisfaction.
Another
thing that indicates our awareness towards gender equality is still poor is the
growth of rape culture in Indonesia. In a nutshell, rape culture is “a complex
of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against
women”. This complex of beliefs includes, “Only ‘bad’ women get raped,” or,
“Women incite men to rape.” This culture can be caused by the lack of sex
education, patriarchal culture, and weak law enforcement.[6]
What’s the evidence? In 2013, UN conducted a study about sexual violence in
Asia and the Pacific, which found that 19,5% men in rural Indonesia, 26,5% men
in urban Indonesia, and 40,6% men in Indonesia-Papua had committed rape at some
time in their lives.[7]
It
must be still fresh on your mind: the case of YY, a ninth-grader in Bengkulu,
who was raped by fourteen men on her way home from school. This horrible case
has summoned national outrage. Sadly, some people still blamed it on the
victim; that she should have not walked home alone. Parents in YY’s village
also feel the terror, and as result, they become more protective of their
daughters. They make sure their daughters use water taxis, always have
companies to walk home with, and dress more moderately.[8]
This is a pattern that’s common in patriarchal society. When a woman gets raped
by a man, other women get told how to dress and behave, meanwhile other men
don’t get told not to rape.
Those
are the evidences of how the battle that Kartini fought for then, is still
raging on now. Instead of focusing on what kebaya to wear and win a fashion
show competition with, it would be better if everyone takes their role and
works together to solve every problem regarding gender equality issue.
REFERENCE
[1]Rahman Indra, “Apa
Sebenarnya Isi Surat-Surat Kartini?’, National
Geographic Indonesia, last accessed on 8 May 2016,
http://nationalgeographic.co.id/berita/2014/04/apa-sebenarnya-isi-surat-surat-kartini
[2] “J.
H. Abendanon,” Wikipedia, last
accessed on 8 May 2016, http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.H._Abendanon
[3] Petra
Mahy, “Being Kartini: Ceremony and Print Media in the Commemoration of
Indonesia’s First Feminist,” Intersections:
Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 28 (March 2012), last
accessed on 8 May 2016, http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue28/mahy.htm
[4] Jewel
Topsfield, “Feminism in the spotlight as Indonesia celebrates Kartini Day,” The Sydney Morning Herald, last accessed
on 21 April 2016, http://smh.com.au/world/feminism-in-the-spotlight-as-indonesia-celebrates-kartini-day-20160420-goalp2.html
[5] “Child
Marriage Around the World: Indonesia,” Girls
Not Brides, last accessed on 9 May 2016,
http://girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/indonesia/
[6] Boby
Andika Ruitang, “Indonesia, You Have a Rape Culture Problem. Stop Pretending
that You Don’t,” Medium, last
accessed on 8 May 2016, http://medium.com/life-tips/indonesia-you-have
-a-rape-culture-problem-stop-pretending-that-you-dont-63d301bb021#.owr264e1a
[7] “The
UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific,” Partners for Prevention, last accessed
on 8 May 2016,
http://partners4prevention.org/about-prevention/research/men-and-violence-study
[8] Christine
Franciska, “How a rape that was ignored angered Indonesia’s women,” BBC, last accessed on 8 May 2016,
http://bbc.com/news/world-asia-36200441
**originally written for an essay assignment in one of my class.
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