Okezone feature (1 Oct 2011) on Putmainah, then 83, former Gerwani chair for Blitar Regency and PKI legislator, covering her Islamic and leftist family background, Pesindo past, flight after the 1965 coup and later life. Biographical testimony of a regional Gerwani leader.
Wieringa's 2011 article condensing her research: the army's sexual slander of Gerwani was the spark without which the genocide would not have happened; reconstructs the Lubang Buaya night (about 70 women and girls, mostly Pemuda Rakyat volunteers) and reads the monument mural. Programmatic synthesis.
Ariel Heryanto essay in Tempo (1 Oct 2012) on state terror, propaganda film and the 1965 wound, from Supersemar and the Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI film to post-1998 indie documentaries and The Act of Killing. One passage states Gerwani leaders were detained, raped, tortured and portrayed as immoral mutilators in army press
Tempo piece (1 Oct 2012) on how Joshua Oppenheimer met perpetrators, from Matapao plantation workers to Anwar Congo and the Pasukan Kodok / Pemuda Pancasila in Medan. It cites Amir Hasan's pamphlet 'Embun Berdarah' on Teluk Mengkudu, which lists 702 PKI-linked villagers by affiliation, including Gerwani, and records an
Pohlman's 2013 article, from about 150 interviews, on women's stories of pregnancy, childbirth, raising, losing and aborting children during 1965-66 and detention, including cooperative childcare and a former Gerwani leader (Ibu Astuti). Gendered history of survival.
Wardaya's 2013 English edition of oral histories gathered 2008-11 by Sanata Dharma University's PUSdEP: witnesses from military, Muhammadiyah, Kejawen and Catholic backgrounds and survivors including women detained as alleged Gerwani; foreword summarises the Gerwani mutilation narrative and autopsy. Oral history source
PhD dissertation in History (UCLA, 2014) by Dahlia Gratia Setiyawan on U.S. anti-communist operations and the 1965-66 purge in Surabaya. Gerwani appears in context: as the PKI's women's affiliate (ch. 1), through the Surabaya women's coalition GOWS in the 27 September 1965 Grahadi demonstration (ch. 4), and in the Army
Pohlman (2015) on 'janda PKI': women widowed in 1965-66 were doubly stigmatised as widows and as 'PKI' women demonised by Gerwani propaganda; four testimonies show sexual violence and exploitation. Gendered stigma analysis.
Annie Pohlman's 2015 monograph, the first book-length study of gendered violence in 1965-66, based on about 150 women survivors: patterns of arrest, torture, rape, sexualised mutilation, strip searches for the 'Gerwani mark', sexual slavery and 'wife-taking'. Key scholarly source.
Martha Stroud's 2015 UC Berkeley/UCSF medical-anthropology dissertation, based on fieldwork in Yogyakarta (2010-12), examines how the 1965-66 killings shape daily life through propaganda, surveillance, stigma, silence and justice. Gerwani appears mainly as the object of New Order propaganda: the Lubang Buaya mutilation
Book by AJAR with Komnas Perempuan (Oct 2015) from participatory research with women survivors. In the 1965 context chapter (pp. 39-40) it describes false rumours about Gerwani and the sexual slander of the generals, with violence against Gerwani members. Survivor testimonies name Christina Sumarmiyati (arrested again
Book by AJAR with Komnas Perempuan (Oct 2015) from participatory research with women survivors. In the 1965 context chapter (pp. 39-40) it describes false rumours about Gerwani and the sexual slander of the generals, with violence against Gerwani members. Survivor testimonies name Christina Sumarmiyati (arrested again
Tempo.co profile (2 Oct 2015, by Bobby Chandra) of Putmainah, 77, former Gerwani chair and PKI faction member of the Blitar DPRD, now stroke-afflicted in Pakisrejo, Srengat. Her husband Subandi, Blitar Front Nasional and DPRD head, was killed after a PKI congress; she fled into the forest with seven children. Once a re
Tempo review (8 Feb 2016) of Elisabeth Ida Mulyani's video 'Supervivere' on 1965 exiles (Mintardjo and nine others in the Netherlands and Sweden), shown in Yogyakarta with a charcoal portrait 'Suti, Plight of Gerwani' by Dewi Candraningrum. It describes Suti, 95, founder of Gerwis Musuk/Boyolali in 1952, a literacy cam
Bernas, 19 July 2017, p. 4: Jurnal Perempuan letter on the unratified Rome Statute listing unresolved cases from 1965–66 to 1998 and naming Gerwani women as targets of sexual violence.
Nelly van Doorn-Harder's 2019 article on how Komnas Perempuan took up 1965 women survivors (2006 delegation, 2007 report), arguing the violence and stigma were justified as 'purification' and Gerwani women were cast as 'the most impure of all'. Gender and religious logic of impurity.
Wieringa and Katjasungkana's 2019 Routledge monograph, from the IPT 1965 prosecution report, arguing the 'real coup' was the ousting of Sukarno through about a million killings enabled by propaganda about Gerwani's alleged sexual perversion; chapter 6 treats two sexual moral panics. Key analysis.