Talk show host Irma content with her lot in life

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.