also find it a bit shocking that some people my age, middle class women, have even grown more conservative than our parents’ generations. They start making their children wear the hijab earlier, which is very problematic, because as the girls grow up and start to question their identity or want to express themselves authentically by removing their veil, people, even those who don’t wear the hijab, see it as an act of betrayal. They have to be extraordinarily brave to remove the hijab.
What does it mean to be an Indonesian feminist? Does Indonesian feminism have its own unique characteristics?
This is a tough question that I have pondered for some time. I have met so many Indonesian feminists who would not fit the tired and clichéd stereotypes of angry feminists. I find that Indonesian feminists are very good at living and working in that gray area that separates patriarchy and feminism. They are empowered but they are very good at navigating within the social and religious confines without unnecessary hostilities. It’s like they choose their battles carefully.
Different identities—two women, two styles in downtown Jakarta.
Final question: Kartini—the aristocratic Javanese woman who pioneered education for girls and wrote on women’s issues at the turn of the 20th century—is a national hero and still the best-known symbol of the women’s movement. On 21 April each year, schoolgirls across the country get done up in traditional Javanese dress to honor her memory. Is she really still a useful icon for women’s rights in modern Indonesia?
I will have to say, yes. However, she would be a more useful icon if her actual significance hadn’t been so diluted throughout history, and by the ridiculous kebaya-wearing celebration we do every year. Kids grow up never really knowing her significance, never once reading any of her writings.
Her significance to me is not that she opened up the girls’ school (though that was important, too), but the fact that she showed that even in those years, a Javanese woman could have such sophisticated critical thoughts and ideas, and could articulate them. I think Indonesian women, specifically middle class young women, need this kind of hero to inspire them, although the millennials might find it hard to relate to this quiet strength.
DATING, SEX AND MARRIAGE
The Internet is awash with articles claiming to offer definitive insights into the world of dating in Indonesia. But they are usually written by expat men, and they seem to focus almost exclusively on the kind of dating that originates in the seedy bars of Jakarta’s notorious Blok M quarter. There are also plenty of more formal, anthropologically-inclined articles which paint a portrait of a deeply traditional society where all aspects of courtship are overseen by conservative parents, where holding hands in public is forbidden, and where premarital sex is completely unknown (beyond the boundaries of Blok M, presumably). It shouldn’t take a genius to work out that these contradictory portrayals in truth represent opposing extremes, and don’t really have much to do with how most young Indonesians go looking for love.
Weddings are an excuse for extravagant traditional dress, as with this Balinese couple.
It didn’t take me long when I started teaching English to Indonesian teenagers to realize that they were pretty much like teenagers everywhere. There was always plenty of gossip about romances blossoming between classmates; someone was always broken-hearted; and the girls were forever huddled in a corner dissecting the latent romantic inferences extractable from a text message.
The first step on the road to forming a romantic attachment is pendekatan. This is a gentle process of “getting close” to your potential beau in general social settings. Mind you, Indonesians tend to move fast: a couple of trips to the mall as part of a group of friends and a subsequent flurry of text messaging is all that’s needed before formal pacar (the gender-neutral word for boyfriend/girlfriend) status is achieved. And from then on, it’s time for pacaran (dating, with a specific person; dating in general is perkencanan), which typically involves going to the movies, hanging out in coffee shops and at food stalls, and, inevitably, going to the mall.
For young people, still living with their parents—and especially for girls—life is definitely a bit more restrictive in Indonesia than it is in most Western countries—probably comparable to how things were in the USA a couple of generations ago. It would certainly be very, very unusual for an unmarried young couple to be allowed to share a bed under their parents’ roof. But at the same time, there’s an awful lot of parental blind-eye-turning going on, and it certainly seems to have become more socially acceptable for university-age couples to take backpacking trips together. All of which, brings us conveniently to the topic of sex…
The happy couple dressed in the traditional Minangkabau wedding costume from West Sumatra.
SEX AND SEXUALITY
According to public morality—and according to those anthropological primers—premarital sex just isn’t allowed and doesn’t happen in Indonesia. But of course, wherever you are in the world, public morality has never really tallied with what people actually do. There are great variations between different communities, different regions, and different religious outlooks, but there’s certainly nothing particularly unusual about premarital sex in Indonesia. More than quarter of a century ago, one study revealed that over 50 percent of unmarried couples in urban areas were having sex, and it would be a safe bet to say that the percentage has increased considerably since then. Unmarried cohabitation is still highly unusual, however, and having children outside of marriage likewise. Unmarried (as opposed to divorced) mothers face a good deal of stigma in most parts of Indonesia. It’s unfortunate that sex education is rather lacking. I’ve been to a depressing number of wedding ceremonies for what in Indonesia are known as “marriages by accident”—where the bride is displaying a distinct bump beneath her wedding dress…
Regional ethnic identity comes to the fore on the wedding day for a Batak couple in Sumatra.
TYING THE KNOT
If the dating scene in Indonesia is more liberal than many foreigners might imagine, marriage is still a very important thing, and choosing to remain unmarried is, for both men and women, something akin to a deviant act—and certainly something that will result in incessant hectoring from parents, aunts and uncles, and society at large. The question in Indonesia is not “Are you married?”, but “Are you married yet?” And if the answer is “Not yet,” then the next question is, inevitably, “Why not?”
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