“Our Hari Ibu has history: The fight of our founding mothers against women's discrimination,” she said. “I know this because my mother was an avid activist fighting for women’s rights.”

However, I did not take my mother seriously. All my life, all I knew was that Hari Ibu was to celebrate mothers. That is what school taught me. Until a couple of years ago, through historical literature, I found out that Hari Ibu was initially a momentous women’s fight. Its current notion is part of the country’s patriarchal system of domesticating women.

Chairperson of Indonesia’s Women’s Congress (Kowani), Giwo Rubianto Wiyogo, during 2020’s Hari Ibu, stated that “women have big roles as part of the solution” to the country’s development, not just to “breed and raise children”.

I realized my mother had a point. Now that both my grandmother and my mother have passed away, I feel it is my duty to correct this historical anomaly to honor them. I would thus urge the renaming of Hari Ibu to Hari Perempuan (Women’s Day). This change can be our battle against the country’s patriarchal system, which constricts women and is very detrimental to the nation’s progress.

The history of Hari Ibu began with the first Women’s Congress in Yogyakarta on Dec. 22-25, 1928, one of several in a historic chain of events in the quest for independence in what was then the Dutch East Indies. The women’s activists fought not only for the nation’s freedom, which Indonesia won in 1945, but they also challenged the deep-seated patriarchal system of the time.

The first Women’s Congress saw around 1,000 participants from 30 organizations from Java and Sumatra discussing education and women’s empowerment. They also advocated the eradication of illiteracy, child marriage, women trafficking and polygamy in their agenda.

The second Women’s Congress in 1935 discussed women as ibu bangsa (the nation’s mothers; hence the name, Hari Ibu) to nurture the younger generations and help develop the country. The third Women’s Congress in 1938 discussed gender equality and inaugurated Dec. 22 as Hari Ibu. The 1941 Women’s Congress fought for women’s rights to vote. In 1959, 14 years after independence, president Sukarno officiated Hari Ibu as a national day.

Hari Ibu started to lose its real meaning after Soeharto, an Army general, took power in 1966 and strengthened the patriarchal system.

He launched the Empowering Family Welfare (PKK) program, which covered household chores, at the grass roots. The PKK sought to “domesticate” women only as “wives and mothers” deemed “perfect” by society. 

Soeharto also launched Dharma Wanita (Women’s Virtue), an organization for state officials’ wives. This was another form of “domestication”, which regarded women as nothing more than “someone’s wife” rather than as individuals with their own aspirations.

These reinforced the religious conservative beliefs that a “good woman” was a “good mother and housewife”. The word ibu, which in daily usage often refers to adult women, became more specific for “mother”. Hari Ibu shifted to what most Indonesians know today: The typical Mother’s Day.

Some might argue that Indonesia has April 21 Kartini Day to commemorate women’s emancipation in our national calendar of events. Do we need another women’s day? Understanding history would answer this.

Born on April 21, 1879, from a royal family in Jepara, Central Java, Raden Ajeng Kartini is a national heroine advocating for women’s emancipation. Back then, girls were prohibited from attending school. Kartini was among the few to receive an education. Yet, her dreams of studying in the Netherlands crumbled as tradition obliged her to stay at home and be “a good wife”.

Kartini was unstoppable. She established a school for girls in Rembang, Central Java. Kartini shared her aspirations for women’s emancipation in a book titled Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang (After Dark There Comes Light), a collection of her letters to her best friend JH Abendanon in the Netherlands.

In 1964, Sukarno officiated April 21 as Kartini Day to honor women’s emancipation. However, recent studies have found that it was controversial. Many people thought Kartini was pro-Dutch and only fought for the women of Central Java, we can leave this notion for another debate.

Kartini opened the path for women’s emancipation, but we cannot dismiss the historic first Women’s Congress. Fighting for women’s rights is a collective and continuous task, not just of one person in one period of time.

Some activists and historians have campaigned to rectify this anomaly through discussions. But it is not enough. As long as we call it Hari Ibu, most people will celebrate it the way the old-me did, by presenting gifts to their mothers. It is a nice gesture, yet it degrades the issues discussed in the Women’s Congress, which very much remain relevant today.

Renaming it to Hari Perempuan could revive the original spirit of Hari Ibu. The word perempuan applies to girls, young ladies, adult and elderly women. Every perempuan naturally has nurturing traits and is capable of being ibu bangsa in their own way, whether or not they bear children.

Hari Perempuan would be dedicated to every woman, regardless of their marital status, for their contribution to national development. To mothers, who raise their children, while supporting their families’ livelihoods. To all daughters and young girls as a way to teach young boys how to treat girls with respect.

Hari Perempuan can be a step forward in breaking the country’s patriarchal system. We can light the spark for all perempuan in Indonesia that the fight for women’s rights belongs to us all, like our founding mothers did in 1928. 

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The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.