First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

filed in Myths and stereotypes

Madam Minister of Trade

June 25, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Thanks to my friend, Matty, for pointing me to an interview with Mari Elka Pangestu, the Minister of Trade for Indonesia:

I grew up in a very traditional family. My mother was always telling me, “Don’t be so smart, don’t show that you’re smart or you’ll never get married, you’ll never get a boyfriend…” I wanted very badly to do well in school. I wanted to do better than the boys, I had a very competitive spirit, but my mother was always telling me the opposite. My mother also didn’t want me to do a Ph.D. She said, “For sure you’ll never get married if you get a Ph.D. in economics.”

So I had a very, very insightful father who from the age of 10 he said to me, “You have to do well in school, because you have to be financially independent, no matter what. Even if you get married, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be financially secure. Your husband can die, you can get divorced.”

Mari Elka Pangestu, now married with two children, became the first woman in Indonesia to earn a Ph.D in economics.

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