JP/20/RTMINI

JP/20/RTMINI

A role model for women in the modern age

Carla Bianpoen
Contributor/Jakarta

When Ratmini Soedjatmoko celebrates her 80th birthday on Friday,
she can look back on a life well-balanced between work and
family.

Ratmini, like other professional women has often wrestled with
this hot gender issue, the difficult choice between career and
home. However, she has stood out as someone who has been
everything to her loved ones without losing her own sense of
identity.

As the wife of Soedjatmoko -- one-time ambassador to the
United States, a rector in the United Nations University, a
scholar of international development and politics, who has played
a role in the first print media in the Indonesian Republic and
has taken part in hundreds of other activities, Ratmini's name is
rarely found alongside his.

Soedjatmoko's biography only mentions his marriage to an
"artist", the former Ratmini Gandasubrata. Neither does one find
her name linked to those of her daughters, Kamala Chandrakirana,
head of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, whose
name is inscribed in the annals of women's activism, or Isna, who
is engaged in sustaining the environment, or Galuh Wandita, a
social activist who has worked for various NGOs.

However, her three daughters credit Ratmini for laying down
the fertile ground that nurtured their own fruitful careers.

As Kamala puts it: "When we were growing up, Mama was the one
who was always there for us, sewing the clothes we wore, helping
us finish our frustrating homework, driving us to our after-
school lessons and mending almost everything in the house that
needed repair."

Isna, her second daughter, sees her not just as a wife, but as
a friend to her father: "She was a team player in the family who
also had a personal identity." Meanwhile, Galuh mentions her as
a source of love, strength and inspiration.

Amid the flurry of social responsibilities as the wife of her
husband whose engagement with books and development issues took
up most of his time, and her being a mother who went all-out to
see to the needs of her children, Ratmini was never outspoken
about gender equality or shared responsibilities.

However, with poise and quiet intent, she managed to find a
niche where she could further her own desires and talents.

Before she married Soedjatmoko at the age of 32, she was a
teacher, Ratmini revealed, seated in her studio in her spacious
house in the center of the city.

Of noble birth

Born into the Javanese aristocracy, her father, Sudirman
Gandasubrata, who was a judge and member of the Landraad (Country
Council), and her mother, Satinah, sent her to the Home Economics
Teacher Training school after she had finished basic and high-
school education at the school for Dutch children.

That was a privilege for indigenous children whose fathers
worked in the Dutch colonial administration at the time. "But I
still needed a written recommendation", said Ratmini, who has
kept the document as a memento of those times.

While gender differences were not often spoken about in her
family, there were times she felt the sting of being treated
differently because of her sex. When the Japanese invaded the
country, she was called back home by her parents in Ponorogo from
her teacher training course in Surabaya.

"My brothers, on the other hand, were allowed to continue
their studies elsewhere."

Yet it was not in her nature simply to sit idly at home. "I
took sewing and cooking classes," she said, something that served
her well when playing host to her husband's and children's
friends in later life.

After the Japanese occupation, Ratmini returned to school,
this time to the teacher training college where she graduated
with honors. She taught at her alma mater for a while, but
obtained a scholarship to study art at the Kunstnijverheid
(applied art) school in the Netherlands.

Art teachers were very much needed, and Ratmini already had a
reputation for being good at drawing. The year in Amsterdam
spurred on her artistic talents.

Drawing figures, fashion design, the history of costumes,
textiles and familiarization with perspectives -- all fell well
into line with her artistic inclinations, and art later proved to
be her "niche" -- a place where she could retreat into herself in
between the hustle and bustle of her being a wife, a mother and a
hostess.

She became an art teacher and an artist in her own right.
While we may not find her name in many art commentaries, her
husband's biographies do mention her art.

She followed her husband everywhere and traveled to many
countries, but she never stopped improving her technical skills.
In Washington, she took classes at the Corcoran Art School and
expanded into jewelry and quilt-making. In Tokyo she undertook
Japanese brush-painting.

Nevertheless, not much time was left to pursue art, and while
her former works were strong and boldly expressive, her later
works became more subdued, revealing her adjustment to her role
as a wife and a mother, a phenomenon that often occurs with women
artists.

However, these added responsibilities did not mean she had
lost her passion for art and she founded Group Sembilan (the
Group of Nine) together with friends that were also artists with
other obligations. Although the group did not join in the hype of
other contemporary art movements, its existence to the present
day testifies to its significance, especially since it has become
enriched by the participation of professional artists.

Today, when many people of common descent aspire to obtain an
aristocratic title, Ratmini did the opposite, doing away with the
title Raden Adjeng, with which a woman from the Javanese
aristocracy is born.

Her strength of character, however, shows a nobility that
comes from within -- ethical, fair, compassionate and honoring
humankind irrespective of class, background or ethnicity;
standing tall in every situation.

As Kamala puts it: "I see her as an amazingly independent
woman, with awesome discipline, with a humbling capacity to
accept unexpected turns in life and showing a courageous ability
to put absolute trust in each of her children."

Retaining her own identity while being a team player in the
family, Ratmini has made herself a role model for modern women.