Kartini Day

21 April is celebrated as Kartini Day in Indonesia. I still can recall clearly when I was in primary school, Kartini Day is always marked with dressing in Indonesian traditional costume followed with some competitions in school. But what is Kartini Day? R. A. Kartini was a woman of 18th century, who is famous for promoting the idea of women emancipation. In the midst of limitations placed on Javanese women at that time, she had the idea to elevate the status of women through education. She was indeed a great woman and heroine. Hence, her birthday is always a celebration of women emancipation in Indonesia.

But how do you understand women emancipation? Emancipation is a broad term used to describe various efforts to obtain political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchised group, or more generally in discussion of such matters. The key word here is equality. However, there are tendency to divert this meaning that emancipation means women need to be given privileges. When majority of the leaders are men, we start complaining that there is no emancipation, we need more women leaders. Personally I believe, emancipation doesn't mean women have to be privileged. Emancipation doesn't mean there should be equal number of men and women in strategic posts. To me, emancipation means women and men are able to stand on the same ground and compete at the same par. There shouldn't be any disadvantages to neither men or women. Whoever emerges as a winner through a fair competition process should be accepted in the society, be it a woman or a man.