MPR Asks Women To Appear Imperfect, How Come?

MPR Deputy Chair, Lestari Moerdijat/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairperson of the MPR, Lestari Moerdijat, sees the need for consistent encouragement to increase the contribution of women's roles in public spaces.

According to her, this step is very important because women must be able to get out of the current stereotypes, so that they can play more roles in realizing public policies.

"So far, women have always been portrayed as being perfect human beings. To increase their role in every public policy, women must have the courage to be imperfect by breaking the stereotypical glass wall that surrounds them," she said, in a statement in Jakarta, Monday.

She said this when she was a keynote speaker in a webinar themed “Global Diaspora Aceh Revisiting Acehnese Women Heroes in Women's Leadership”, Saturday 18 June.

She considered that making sacrifices to become imperfect human beings and getting out of the stereotypes that have been supporting women, is a big challenge so that women's involvement in the public sphere can be increased.

According to her, the struggle of Acehnese women to take part in the public sphere should be better considering the role of Acehnese women that emerged in the past.

"As for the history of the archipelago, women have become part of the struggle of the Indonesian nation. Moreover, specifically Acehnese women have sovereignty in the Islamic kingdom between 1641-1699," she said.

She gave an example, Aceh has many female heroes, including Admiral Keumalahayati (1550-1615), Tjut Nyak Dien (1848-1908), and Cut Nyak Meutia (1870-1910).

However, according to her, currently, women in Indonesia are still struggling to achieve an increase in their representation in parliament to 30 percent.

She cited data from the World Bank (2019), Indonesia was ranked 7th in Southeast Asia for women's representation in parliament.

“The data shows that the participation of Indonesian women in parliament is still relatively low. Therefore, various efforts to encourage women to be able to get out of the stereotypes that have supported them must continue to be pursued," she said.

She considered empowerment in terms of education and knowledge to be able to open the horizons of women's thinking. In addition, according to her, the community must be consistent and massive in order to create independence which is very useful for increasing the role of women in public spaces.