Kartini’s Influence in the Millenials Era

Kartini’s Day

It is known that April 21 is regarded as Kartini Day. Ever since elementary school, often, we hear the name Kartini frequently. Now, let us get to know the person behind this legendary name. Kartini’s contribution in the fight for gender equality rendered her as one of the heroes of Indonesia. There are a number of values that millennials can comprehend from Kartini.

The first value is her perspective on equality. Even though Kartini has an aristocratic background, it did not stop her from befriending everyone regardless of their social background. She was also liked by society as Kartini has her own belief towards equality. This can be seen by how she firmly opposed many nobles’ actions which used their degrees and rank to exploit the citizens under them.

The next value is courageous and optimistic. In the past, Kartini was opposed by the surrounding community because they had different views about women. Kartini considered that women must leave the house, study, and pursue their dreams. She did not agree with Pingit culture as just staying in the house will close opportunities for women to see the world. This was what prompted her to open a special learning place to educate women and children. Moreover, she was also very optimistic that her actions will have a big impact on the future.

Another value from Kartini is being independent. At the time during her seclusion, she thought of how she could influence her surroundings. She also found ways of how she could enrich herself through writing letters to her pen pals. As a result, she was able to build the First Women’s School in Java.

Now, we could all agree that Kartini is an admirable woman and is a person who inspires thousands and maybe millions of people, especially, women in our country. Since then, the patriarchal culture has not been quite the same anymore. Women are free to do whatever they want an is considered as equal to men.

Being a woman in this era is a challenge. where there are still many people who are fixated on understanding patriarchy. But, of course in the era of globalization, a feminist can easily fight for women’s rights. Many platforms can be used to educate others. One of them is social media that can be easily accessed by many groups. Other patriarchal doctrines can also be abated by the emergence of many women leaders in public and private companies. In addition, the men also began to open up with an independent woman.

Kartini is a woman that most of us long to be; independent, wise, and smart. She could do more than what men can do and that is amazing. In this era, we could achieve the level of her brightness by keeping it with three notable keys that are crucial towards the millennial era that will be further discussed as follow. So, let us dive into it.

1. Social Intelligence

Intelligence does not just mean you are smart in math. Knowing how the social structures work, contributing to social activity, the capability to differentiate the right sides, giving out empathy, are examples of having social intelligence. It is also important as we do not want to be brainwashed by narrow-minded people which can lead to negative behavior in the social environment. As well as what Kartini did, we want to use our voices to vocalize not only our rights but whoever is oppressed.

2. Digital Capacity

Besides training and enhancing your soft skills, hard skills are still important to be capable of conducting tasks. In this digital era, women need to learn and dive deeper into the world of technology. We do not have to go to the extent of being able to rebuild a computer, no, but at least we can understand the basics of it and use our creativity to make the better of it in our ways, such as making a blog, online counseling, creative funding, and many more.

3. Economic Independence.

Last but not least, earn enough money so you can support yourself without being pressured to get married just for a stable financial. This one is really important since a lot of women was never taught on how to earn their own money and they eventually got lost when reaching adulthood age where they finally took the old-fashioned culture of marrying someone and spend the rest of their life tied up being a housewife without freedom just because their partner sees them as an incapable person to live without them solely because of the economic dependency.

Kartini has worked so hard fighting for women’s rights in this country. Her sacrifice resulted in women’s equal rights along with men. This showed that we, women, are indeed strong, independent, and clever, just like men. So do not be discouraged when you see men, or anyone, do better than you: Because ladies, “Yes, we can!”

Happy Kartini’s Day, everyone!

Writers: Fathimah Nur Shabrina, Selly

References
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