Indonesia Without Feminism: The Failure of Breaking the Borders

This article has also been published in The Jakarta Post website with some modifications from the editor on April 11, 2019. The Jakarta Post version can be read here: https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/04/10/indonesia-without-feminism-break-down-walls-of-communication.html 

An anti-feminist movement “Indonesia Tanpa Feminisme(Indonesia Without Feminism)” has started its online campaign through a popular social media platform, Instagram. Although this campaign has been newly started, within only less than a month since its first post, this campaign account has gained around 2.300 followers and perhaps will still grow.

This anti-feminist movement reminds us of the latest comment of an Islamic leader group about the role of women as a wife within the family regarding the Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill (RUU PKS). Viewing the marginal position of women and feminist issues in the society’s contemporary discourse, such as in the religion and moreover in everyday life, thus has created an important question, how significant is the feminism in this current country?

The history of feminist thought has actually begun since a long time ago in this country. Started from the colonial era, there were numbers of women national heroes who struggled across different issues. The most popular one is R.A. Kartini who wrote a series of poetry as a form of fighting against the education inequality between men and women in the colonial Javanese culture.

The feminist movement began to enter the political discourse by bringing the women issues in the era of President Soekarno through some organizations, such as the Indonesian Women Movement (Gerwani). However, because of the elimination of the leftist and progressive groups during President Soeharto’s New Order regime, the feminist movement started to lose its shine and even being marginalized in the public discourse.

The feminist movement began to reprise after the reformation. However, this reborn is not as easy as it was expected. During this democratization period, every thought, idea and group that were previously marginalized during the Soeharto era, are in the competition to regain the public attention. The emerge of these previously marginalized ideas and groups sometimes clashes with each other, such as the LGBT group and traditional values and even the feminist group and the religion.

In current Indonesia, it is important to find connections between multiple issues and discourse. Thus, the feminist movement and activists should work on this logical framework. The emerge of Indonesia Without Feminism campaign is simply because the supporters do not see the significance of feminism in the context of their everyday life, particularly from the religious perspective. Breaking this border is the challenge, therefore, there are some important points to note.

First, the definition of feminism must be contextualized with the context of the women and must be translated into their everyday life practices. This creates another question; how does the anti-feminist movement supporters define the feminism, so they arrive at the conclusion that Indonesia does not need feminism? If we take a look at their Instagram campaign, they define the feminism as an anti-thesis of religious values. Thus, it is important to explain feminism through the religion’s lens.

A great example in defining and practicing feminism through a religious perspective is the Aisyiyiahmovement. Founded in 1917 by Nyai Ahmad Dahlan, Aisyiyiahmovement has successfully integrated Islamic values with the feminist perspective to empower the women. The integrated values are not only on the discourse and conceptual level but are also applied to women’s everyday life practices. Aisyiyiahmovement addresses women-social related issues, such as education, health and social services by creating numbers of higher education institutions, kindergarten, health clinics and nursing homes.

The similar approach could be applied in addressing the common perspective of the feminism as a Western-imported idea. Therefore, explaining the feminism through local’s perspectives is necessary. For example, mothers of rural Papua have successfully demanded the establishment of a local market, so they could help to improve their family economic condition. Another example of current Indonesia situation is the growing trend of women online transportation drivers as a breakthrough of the sexual division of labor.

Second, by acknowledging the contextualization of feminist definitions and practices, we need to realize that the feminism works across different issues in society. Mothers of Papua and women online transportation drivers have demonstrated the relationship between feminism and economic issues.

There is also a story of women of Kendengwho are against the establishment of the cement factory near their village. They are merely not just a group of women. More than that, they work across several important issues, such as environmental and capitalism issues while also reflect on their position as a mother and a wife within the family.

Mother of Kamisanmovement reflects this interconnected position of feminism as well. Their roles as a mother who lost a child during the dictatorial period have brought human rights issues into the public discourse.

Third, these forms of interconnected movements and definitions of feminism must be disseminated as accessible forms of knowledge to society. For instance, there is actually feminist discourse in Islamic history. There are several examples of women who held top positions as a leader as well as in empowering the society, including the Prophet’s wife itself. Yet, how these examples and explanations are disseminated to regain public awareness?

Current feminist movements need to be creative in bringing down feminist issues into the grassroots level. Making a simple movement like telling a bedtime story to the children about the story of women empowerment and leadership under the religious values could be the easiest way. The form of knowledge does not need to be serious and scientific like academical journals. In breaking the borders, the forms of knowledge are supposed to be accessible for all levels of society.

Finally, failure in realizing those three important points will result in the failure of breaking the borders of feminist discourse. Sadly, this failure still happens and reflected by the emerging of Indonesia Without Feminism movement. This movement perhaps has just been started, but without further consideration of feminist-concerned groups, there is a possibility for this campaign to be more popular and even make the feminist movement more difficult to regain the public awareness. Acknowledge the border, work through it and create the individual as well as collective consciousness through knowledge dissemination will avoid the failure and even form stronger feminist solidarity.

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