Relevance of Kartini Day

KOMPAS/NIKSON SINAGA

Researchers from state high school Unggul Del perform laboratory tests in their school in Laguboti, Toba Samosir regency, North Sumatra Utara, on Thursday (8/2/2018). Their research was about the fermentation of soybeans in zero gravity at the Space Station. The students wanted to promote tempeh as a future food at the space station.

Today, we celebrate Kartini Day by searching for the relevance of thought and activism of a woman who was born 139 years ago to present needs.

What Kartini fought for has partly been realized. The school enrollment rate for girls and women is equal to that of the male. Women can enter various types of work, even occupying the highest position in their organizations or become successful entrepreneurs like men.

Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt in 1992 published the book Megatrends for Women and had predicted a major change in the role of women. The same change also started to be felt in Indonesia at the end of the same decade as the number of women entering employment increased.

Today, an increasing number of women occupy important positions in government or businesses, research and the academic world. This change is increasingly showing the importance of women\'s role. The inclusion of women in the workforce that provides economically valuable income, whether due to the call to provide for family needs or because of career choices, carries the consequences that women have their own income.

The experience of doing work other than household affairs gives women knowledge. The two things can save women when the situation in their households deteriorates, partly because of violence.

Giving women adequate education and employment opportunities increases their chances of avoiding early marriage, thereby reducing the risk of maternal reproductive health problems and infant mortality.

As women have their own income, the relationship between women and men are no longer dependent or independent, but interdependent and makes the relationship more equal.

On the male side, slow changes also occur. More and more men are willing to share their roles with women in taking care of children and taking care of domestic work when women are a source of the family economy. This more equal relationship can lead to a decrease in incidences of violence against women and children.

However, there are still challenges to be answered, namely ensuring that all women have equal opportunities to education, good and sufficient nutrition, and access and control over economic resources. As Kartini aspired, a well-educated and healthy woman will give birth to healthy children and be able to educate her children to be superior human beings.

Even though the state does not discriminate against women and there are many women who don’t experience discrimination, there are still many other women who have not had equal access and control over economic resources, education, nutrition and health care because of cultural barriers.

Therefore, women, who make up half of the population, need to get the chance to become the best and play a greater role in development, if necessary through temporary special measures.