Powerful women who know our dirty laundry

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.