In honor of Kartini Day, we devote this week’s episode to Indonesia’s most famous feminist, R.A. Kartini. We dig into her life, how she was born into a priyayi noble family whose strong culture led to her confinement in her family compound (also known as “dipingit”). We read excerpts from Kartini’s own writing and talked about how family and love can sometimes hold women like Kartini back. We also contrasted Kartini to a lesser known but equally badass Indonesian woman, S.K. Trimurti, who shared Kartini’s priyayi background but said NO to her dad and broke down barriers to become one of Indonesia’s most influential journalist and labor activist. We hope this episode will be the start of a “reclamation” of Kartini Day from its surface-level and shallow appropriation to a time where we can productively & critically question our own societal conditioning.
Thanks for listening!
