Raden Ajeng Kartini was a first wave feminist and is a national hero in Indonesia.
The pillars of her feminism were:
A. Family. This included deep love and respect for her father and husband.
B. What women are as mothers.
C. Education where teachers strive to be like mothers to their students.
D. Pride in her own people and culture.
If only modern feminists could be more Kartiniist.
I believe that is what a true fourth wave of feminism needs to aim for: no
more misandry and no more marginalisation of mums.
Like Kartini when she wrote with pride of having new life inside her:
“Rembang, March 6th, 1904.
My Own Dearest Moedertje:
I wish that I could throw my arms around your neck, I long from my soul to tell you of my great joy, to make you a sharer in our splendid secret. A great, sweet happiness awaits me. If Gods so wills it, toward the end of September, there will come one sent from heaven to make our beautiful life still more beautiful, to draw the bond closer and tighter that already binds us together. Mother, my mother, think of the little soul that will be born from our two souls to call me mother.
Can you picture it? I a mother! I shall make you, old Moedertje, I shall make you a grandmother! Will you come later on to see your grandchild? I shall not be able now to go to Batavia. Our plan was first to go on a journey this month, to take a month’s holiday. Now we must give up the idea. I am not able to travel, and when our little one is here, then, too, I may not travel. So I shall see Batavia no more, at least while you are there. And what would it be worth to me without you and Mijnheer? My husband is so glowingly happy because of this new life which I carry under my heart. That alone was wanting to our happiness.”
(A letter to her friend in Holland written 101 years ago today by Javanese Princess and Indonesian national hero, Raden Ajeng Kartini.)
Kartiniism.
Could this be Indonesia’s great gift to the world?
Geoff Fox, 6th March, 2025, Melbourne, Australia
MOTHERHOODS MATTER 