Powerful women who know our dirty laundry

Santi W.E. Soekanto, Contributor/Depok

For many people in my neighborhood, the most powerful woman in recent years was not Megawati Soekarnoputri, but Mrs. Sleman. She does the laundry for at least four families and knows all about people's dirty laundry, so to speak.

When somebody needs a domestic helper, they go to her for referral because she is the informal leader of a circle of fellow launderers, so naturally she acts as a clearing house of juicy tidbits about people's lives. If it's really true that information is power, then she holds in her hands the actual weapon of mass destruction.

She knows, for instance, which sons of which community leaders use drugs. She knows which girl in the kampong has fallen pregnant and whose parents have hastily packed her up to join some obscure relatives somewhere in Central Java. She knows in which house bokep (blue films) keep playing, and who watches them.

She knows which couple has been having a series of serious spats in which the word "divorce" has been repeatedly uttered. She knows which husband was visiting a woman of a certain reputation behind his wife's back.

In effect, she is the CIA of my neighborhood.

She dresses modestly and rides a bike to work every morning after feeding her children and ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver husband. She has a smiling, open face, and speaks gently, but the way she wields her power is really lethal.

We recently met on our way to work, and I asked her to help me with the ironing in the coming weekend. She then dropped a bombshell.

"You know, Ibu, Mrs. Loba-loba cut her hair this morning. She's almost bald, now."

"You mean she didn't go to a beauty salon and have her hair cut there? She did it herself?"

"She had a fight with Mr. Loba-loba. What a row. It's about the debts they incurred building their new house. She screamed and then she took these huge pair of scissors. Now her hair is all patchy because of her self-service haircut."

Mrs. Sleman was gaining momentum, fired up by my reaction of horror.

"Her husband tried to take away the scissors, so they wrestled. It was awful."

This is the era of infotainment where even the most trivial aspects of celebrities' lives are turned into TV gossip shows that people gobble up with gusto. But those unearthly, skinny creatures in skimpy outfits that have nothing to do with me.

Mrs. Loba-loba, on the other hand, is the pillar of our community, the local female role model who seems to be able to pull it off by combining domestic life with community responsibilities, all the while in well-groomed work outfits.

My husband shot me a warning look, so I backtracked.

"Well, yes, I hope everything is OK now," I said with a smile, before bidding goodbye.

Later, my husband took me to task.

"Never again respond to her gossiping; if Mrs. Sleman could say things like that about Mrs. Loba-loba, she can talk about us too!"

"But we haven's got any dirty secrets! At least, nothing that I know of," I tried to argue, but faltered because I realized he was right. No families are without secrets.

A Muslim, I consider certain areas in a family's life are aurat (private), or privacy that must be guarded. We should not discuss our life behind the bedroom door with others unless for counseling or health purposes. I would not want any intrusion into my family's privacy, so I should respect other people's privacy, too.

I learned to ignore Mrs. Sleman whenever she began her public information dissemination campaign, which was not easy because, honestly, she could make it all sound so exciting. She sensed she had lost an audience in me and never again brought me stories about other people's lives.

But she remains a good friend to my family. She recently helped us organize a bazaar of cheap commodities for low-income residents, mobilizing her friends who also worked hard despite earning low incomes themselves.

There was Mrs. Wartini, who was abandoned by her husband and, in addition to doing laundry, had to clean so many people's houses in order to keep her children in school. There was also Mrs. Mur , hose unemployed husband sits on his butt at home while she walks many kilometers every day selling tins of crackers.

There was also Mrs. Nur, a quite, young Javanese lady who walks the neighborhood selling jamu (herbal tonics) to supplement her husband's meager salary as a security guard, in order to help his elderly, ailing parents back in their village.

In their quiet, unassuming ways, they really are the powerful women in my life.