TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Emancipation means being freed from all shackles. Almost a century and a half ago, the struggle of Dewi Sartika and R.A. Kartini was limited to women's right to education. We still feel the fruits of their struggle to this day. Women now have extensive access to education, from elementary school to university.
But, in the words of poet Chairil Anwar, "The work is not yet done, there is nothing yet." According to data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), only 10.5 percent of urban women graduated from university in 2015. In the countryside, the figure was even worse: less than 3.3 percent. The figures were about the same for men. This means the road to educational emancipation is still long for both sexes.
It is true that women can now work in many sectors and occupy positions from director to president. But many still do not attain a satisfactory level of education and employment. Incidents of violence against women are still high, with almost 300,000 cases reported in 2014, 20,000 more than in 2013. And the maternal mortality rate soared to almost 360 per 100,000 births in 2012, far above the Millennium Development Goals target of 100 per 100,000 births.
This is the reality that women face in this Internet age. The emancipation movement is no longer limited to freedom for women, but also their families, villages, nations and even their environment.
When nine women from Purwodadi, Pati and Lembang set their feet in cement in front of the State Palace last week, they were fighting for more than their families: they were campaigning for the public at large. Their protest against the building of a cement factory by Semen Indonesia in Rembang, Central Java was a struggle for the emancipation of their environment, where the water supply is under threat of contamination and their cultural heritage is in danger of being ruined.
It is this type of struggle that started from the actions of the women whose stories we tell in this edition. They are the tales of 45 women who are still under 45 years of age. We chose this number because on March 6, Tempo magazine reached the age of 45 years.
Their names have shone in a wide range of fields, from science to the environment, and they come from everywhere, Papua to Aceh. They were carefully selected by our editorial team with the help of outside experts, women who have been active in fighting for the advancement of their gender.
What they have achieved is clearly different, but they have one goal in common: they did it for the people, for the good of humankind, the environment and nature not simply to advance their careers.
There is Sely Martini, an activist with the Indonesian Corruption Watch, who campaigns tirelessly against one of our nation's greatest scourges. There is Rosalinda Delin, a midwife from Belu Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, who travels on a scooter from village to village to persuade mothers to put an end to the hasai hai practice of exposing mothers and babies to smoke for 42 days.
Rosa Dahlia teaches in an elementary school in the interior of Papua that had long been closed because no one was prepared to work there. Nissa Wargadipura established an Islamic boarding school that teaches environmentally friendly farming practices in Garut, West Java. Then there is 20-year-old Katyana Azlia Wardhana, who started the Sudah Dong ('Enough Already!') anti-harassment movement, which now has 900 volunteers.
This does not mean we are defending gender bias. What these women have done only reinforces the fact that equality is growing everywhere, but the progress attained so far must be maintained and accelerated.
Achievements and awards sometimes make people forget their goals. We do not want our chosen women to transform themselves into celebrities, busy giving interviews everywhere and forgetting the villages they serve. They should continue to be ordinary women, sensitive to the people around them and their environment. What they do is taking small steps that make this nation better. If these steps are multiplied, change will be unavoidable. (*)
Read the full story in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine
