Supporting Student Success

Is Kartini my ideal self?

Kartini was a female activist who was very prominent in advocating for women's emancipation and education around 1800. Much of her work is breathtaking and eye-opening for Indonesia. Her work intended to create positive changes in women's welfare and inspire equal access to opportunities for girls’ education. Amazed by her insight about equality, many Indonesian women set her as a role model.

Just like us, young Kartini also had a role model. As a child that was born into a noble family, Six year old Kartini got the chance to study with other Dutch students, which was a luxury not afforded to most natives back then. As a result of this education, Kartini earned both academic and life skills, such as sewing. Kartini took sewing lessons from Mrs. Marie Ovink - Soe, and gained many insights from her mentor. Early education and social interactions with other nations have broadened horizons and made the Kartini that we know today.

Now, let’s stop for a moment to ask ourselves who are the people that we consider as role models in our lives. Is it our dad, our mom, boyband, friend, actress? Whoever our role models might be, it’s fair to say that our attitudes and perspectives can be influenced by the role models we have in our lives. These changes happen because we observe our role model’s values, perspectives, behaviours and try to align our own choices with theirs.

'Ideal self' and 'Real self' are terms in psychology to distinguish who we want to be (ideal self) versus who we are at the moment (real self). Since most of Kartini’s role models were noblewomen who did have equal access to opportunities and education, Kartini’s values, perspectives and passions grew from her interaction with these positive influences.

Kartini hoped that someday, as a woman, her ideal self could have the autonomy to make her own choices without restrictions being placed on her by male figures.

The ideal self and real self are part of the self-theory founded by Carl Rogers, one of the founding fathers of humanistic psychology. According to him, for us to be fully functioning, we need to actualise ourselves by making a congruence between our ideal self and real self. In his self - theory, as long as we live, our ideal self may change. Being aware of the changes will help build congruence between self, and allows us to function as individuals and in society.

In conclusion, having a role model as our ideal self is a good thing because it guides us to be a better person each day. Nevertheless, being aware of the gap and knowing how to minimize the gap is also important.

Kartini is aware that her ideal self was incongruent in the era that she was growing up in. Hence she created works and spoke out against injustice, starting from her close circle to the outer circle. That way, not only could she get the benefit of equality, but she went on to help all Indonesian women to receive the benefit. She had a plan to minimize the gender gap and acted accordingly to actualize her real self.

These are tips for you to build congruence between your ideal self and your real self:

• Practice acceptance of any experience that you've had.

• Identify your value and others' values. Determine ones that make you feel comfortable.

• Create a comparison and contrast of what you want to be versus what you are now. Examine the gap to create an action plan.

• Create a visual representation of the plan, including steps to take in order to achieve your goals.

• Learn constantly and reflect on every action you do or plan to do.