Maria Ulfah Santoso

Maria Ulfah Soebadio Sastrosatomo, better known by her first married name Maria Ulfah Santoso, was an Indonesian politician and women's rights activist who served as Minister of Social Affairs under Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir. She was the first Indonesian woman to receive a degree in law as well as the first female Indonesian cabinet member. Santoso, the daughter of a politician, became interested in women's rights after seeing numerous injustices in her youth. Despite pressure to become a doctor, she graduated with a degree in law from Leiden University in 1933; while in the Netherlands she also became involved in the Indonesian nationalist movement.