Can Kartini Be Lesbian? Identity, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in a Post-Suharto Pop Novel

The British author Martin Amis once remarked that “the way a writer names his characters provides a good index to the way he sees the world—to his reality-level, his responsiveness to the accidental humour and freakish poetry of life” (Amis Amis, The moronic inferno and other visits to America, Penguin, London, 1987, p. 13). If this is so, what, then, does the choice of the name KartiniKartini, Raden Ajeng for the protagonist in the 2007 pop novel Kembang Kertas (Paper Flowers) by the Indonesian woman writer Eni MartiniMartini, Eni with the provocative subtitle Ijinkan aku menjadi lesbianLesbian (Allow me to be lesbianLesbian) tell us about the way she appropriates the iconic feministFeminist figure of KartiniKartini, Raden Ajeng who lived from 1879 to 1904? This essay explores how the KartiniKartini, Raden Ajeng image as a model of the ideal Indonesian woman is creatively refigured in this 21st-century expression of Indonesian popular culture and how the new post-colonial avatar is deployed to address problematics of genderGender, shame, and sexual orientationSexual orientation. The question arises as to the analogy between the emblematic KartiniKartini, Raden Ajeng, revered in IndonesiaIndonesia as the epitome of perfect heterosexual femininityFemininity, and the new-fangled KartiniKartini, Raden Ajeng figure in fictional form.