Talk show host Irma content with her lot in life
Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
It's Kartini Day, the time when women's rights activists make their perennial cry that Indonesian women are underprivileged and victims of discrimination.
But Irma Natalia Hutabarat begs to differ. For many of the modern feminists fighting for equality today, some of her views might be dismissed as obscenely old-fashioned.
"I feel great being a woman in Indonesia. There are a lot of privileges about being a woman. One of them is that I get special and pleasant treatment from my surroundings," she said.
"To be honest, I enjoy it if men open the door for me and carry my bags. We deserve that, that's our privilege ... It's our privilege, too, if we can enjoy wearing beautiful dresses and fine jewelry. Men cannot."
Still, don't dismiss Irma as a woman content to stay at home and while away her hours prettying herself up, even though her first taste of life in the public eye was winning Putri Remaja Indonesia, a teen beauty and talent contest organized by Gadis young women's magazine, in 1980.
She went on to study Russian literature at the University of Indonesia, and has now parlayed her looks and intelligence (and a distinctive husky voice) into a career on TV, hosting Metro TV's Today's Dialogue.
She is also a consultant for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Garuda Indonesia, and a member of such social organizations as the Institute for Civic Education (ICE) and Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), part of her concern about the poverty, poor education and corruption that plague the country.
Irma is also among the more free-thinking modern women who dispute that Kartini is a fitting heroine of women's emancipation.
Kartini was simply sharing her personal burdens and feelings to her overseas friends, and was conveniently adopted as the figurehead for the women's cause.
"It only happens that she was a Javanese noble and able to write in a foreign language, a rare skill for women of her time, and had friends in the Netherlands who were then able to publish her letters after she died. That's all.
"Here is a small example: If I were her, I would never have let my mother laku dodok (walk on her haunches) in front of my regent husband. In the name of anything, the mother is more precious the husband. She should have protested that. She did not.
"It's totally different between understanding there is a problem and taking action to overcome it."
At her serene home decorated with ethnic ornaments and antique furniture in Kemang, South Jakarta, the mother of three enthusiastically talks about her concept of women and equality.
In her view, women must consider themselves as special creatures, of course different from the opposite sex, and even superior to them in some areas.
"Our mindset about Indonesian women has to be changed. We should not see ourselves as victims because we aren't ones."
In her Batak family, Irma learned that her mother equally shared the power with her father and that her grandmother was as important as her grandfather in running the household.
And she believes that gender equality is found in other societies in the archipelago
"In Bali, for example, women play major roles in both family and society. They even enliven the economic circles for their families. So who are we to say we are weak and victimized. We are not!"
Even in notoriously patriarchal Javanese culture, except among the aristocracy, she said that women figured prominently in the family.
Irma argues that issues put forward on the agenda of women's groups are really matters that stem from industrialization and capitalization.
"It's totally wrong. If they (activists) ask for equal treatment in their companies, they should not do so on behalf of women movement. It is about welfare, about money they earn."
Many problems related to gender issues, Irma added, come from a shallow adaptation of Western concepts that labeled certain countries or religions sexist.
Westerners assumes Islam puts women below men because of examples like the Taliban regime, she said.
It was not Islam, Irma argued, but culture that was to blame.
"Islam does not discriminate between the sexes. The religion gives different roles for men and women, that's natural because men and women are designed distinctly," she said.
Women here are actually freer to make the choices in their fate, such as remaining single or getting married, having children or not, Irma said, despite societal pressure.
"The fact is many women do those things and that's OK. For me, getting married and having children are wonderful life experiences. We feel more special as women, thank God," she said.
"It's something given to us, and we have to be proud of it. I am so proud of that -- being able to be pregnant. Bearing a life inside you is the most wonderful feeling that ever happened to human beings," she said.
"We produce milk. Men cannot. They can only produce sperm, our emotional food, but milk is for both emotional and physical (needs).
"Isn't it thrilling to know that our vagina is the source of civilization," she added, quoting from Eve Ensley's play Vagina Monologues, "and our breasts are the source of life."
Irma, who married her third husband, architect Widodo Soenarko, in 1993, said it not the case that she did not defend women, but there is something far greater than protesting gender discrimination or injustice.
"Fighting against oppression goes far beyond sex or gender," she said.