By Mulyanda Djohan

Although some of the Indonesian women have exceeded or been equal with the position of men in many sectors of life, the social status of the nation's women as a whole is far behind the men, a woman leader said recently.

Rita Subowo, the first Indonesian woman taking up the post of the chairmanship of the country's top sport council known as KONI, told Xinhua in an interview that the traditional challenges of discrimination against women had hampered their progress.

The archipelago country is home to a population of more than 230 million people comprising hundreds of ethnic groups with most of them still exercising traditional culture and habit of putting women on the back banner.

"In many cultures, family give a priority to men for progress rather than women. This makes the women in the position of being more difficult for improvement," she said.

Although many women in the country had been able to reach top position in politics, business and social life, their number was still incomparable to men.

"Actually, the Indonesian women have been on progress, but their quantity is still low," she said.

Subowo said that all the traditional barriers could be overcome gradually and surely by raising the level of education in both genders, which could improve the insight and the way of their thinking.

To change them internally through education was much easier than to change them externally by changing their culture or habit, which have been long rooted in the community, said Subowo.