Tempo, 31 January 2011: Gerwani in choreography ('Tjap Merah')
Tempo review (31 Jan 2011) of 'Tjap Merah', a dance piece by Yosep Prihantoro Sadsuitubun (grandson of K.S. Tubun) at GoetheHaus, Jakarta, closing the exhibition 'Indonesia and the World 1959-1966'. It stages the stigma on Gerwani women (Lubang Buaya dancing and castration myth, 'ET' label, Genjer-genjer); he says most
Gerwani's dilemma over Sukarno's polygamy (Merdeka.com, 2012)
Merdeka.com feature (24 Sep 2012) on Gerwani's dilemma over Sukarno's polygamy: it fought for a marriage law banning polygamy from 1950 but set the issue aside when Sukarno married Hartini, Dewi and Yurike Sanger, following the PKI line. Concise account of the polygamy contradiction.
Tempo, 1 October 2012: Film, state terror and the nation's wound (Ariel Heryanto)
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, 1 October 2012: Under Kopkamtib's grip
Tempo explainer (1 Oct 2012) on Kopkamtib, set up by Suharto on 2 Oct 1965 as the 'super organisation' that planned and drove the mass killings and detentions (Komnas HAM names it chief perpetrator). It notes army-controlled media showing Lubang Buaya photos with stories that Gerwani women tortured the generals, and ci
Tempo, 1 October 2012: Because of the general's authority (why West Java escaped the killings)
Tempo piece (1 Oct 2012) explaining why West Java saw no mass killings: Siliwangi commander Ibrahim Adjie ordered detentions without violence (per Benedict Anderson via Umar Said), and RPKAD, whose arrival triggered killings elsewhere (Cribb, Anderson), did not enter. Notes Suharto's 2 Oct 1965 letter claiming to preve
The Cold War in the City of Heroes: US-Indonesian Relations and Anti-Communist Operations in Surabaya (Setiyawan, 2014)
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
Ripples, Echoes, and Reverberations: 1965 and Now in Indonesia (Stroud, 2015)
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
Bhinneka, October 2015: Half a Century of the 1965 Genocide (Indonesian edition, women ex-prisoners' testimonies)
Bhinneka, October 2015 (Surabaya; ed. Soe Tjen Marching), a 1965 anniversary issue. Women ex-prisoners testify: Hartiti, a Gerwani member, was asked whether she joined the 'naked dance' and castrated the generals; Maria Goretti Sumilah was beaten and burned to confess she was Gerwani; Theresia Kadmiyanti ran a TK Melat
Bhinneka, October 2015: Half a Century of the 1965 Genocide (Indonesian edition, women ex-prisoners' testimonies)
Bhinneka, October 2015 (Surabaya; ed. Soe Tjen Marching), a 1965 anniversary issue. Women ex-prisoners testify: Hartiti, a Gerwani member, was asked whether she joined the 'naked dance' and castrated the generals; Maria Goretti Sumilah was beaten and burned to confess she was Gerwani; Theresia Kadmiyanti ran a TK Melat
Tempo, 18 April 2016: Onward the women's movement
Tempo editorial note (18 Apr 2016), recalling a 1978 Kartini Day feature on the women's movement from Aceh 1614 to the 1970s. It describes Kowani's formation (1946), Perwari's protest over Sukarno's 1954 marriage to Hartini, Perwari being squeezed as Gerwani, 'affiliated with the PKI', gained influence, and Gerwani ste
Twelfth Kowani Congress and its influence on the women's movement (Wijayanti, 2017)
Undergraduate article (2017) on the twelfth Kowani congress, Jakarta, 6-9 Feb 1961, arguing it tied the women's movement to government policy under Guided Democracy and sidelined polygamy and literacy issues; notes a Perwari-Gerwani split. Mostly general survey.
Challenging the Lifeline of Imperialism: Afro-Asian Solidarity 1955-1965 (McGregor and Hearman, 2017)
McGregor and Hearman's 2017 chapter on AAPSO (founded Cairo 1957-58) as the main vehicle of the 'Bandung Spirit' among non-state activists 1955-65, taking up Sukarno's 'lifeline of imperialism' image. Context for Afro-Asian solidarity.
Prize-winning athlete accused of being PKI who transformed herself into a man (Historia, 2017)
Historia feature (2017) on Karnah Sukarta (b. 1940, Ciamis), bronze medallist in javelin at the 1958 Asian Games, a Sukarno-admiring student reportedly joined Gerwani in Kawali, arrested after 1965 and held in Bandung. Biography of an athlete linked to Gerwani.
A heavy blow to the women's movement (Historia, 2018)
Historia article (2018) on the 1953 women's campaign against Government Regulation 19/1952 giving civil-service pensions to all widows of polygynous officials, including the 17 Dec 1953 mass meeting at Deca Park attended by Gerwani and others. Context on the anti-polygamy movement.
The role of Gerwani in Trikora 1961-1963 (Kurnia and Miftahuddin, 2019)
Journal article (2019) by Kurnia and Miftahuddin on Gerwani in Trikora 1961-63: Gerwani joined the Front Nasional on 17 Jan 1962 for 1.125 million members, and a delegation led by Sulami offered volunteers. Dated chronicle of Gerwani's West Irian mobilisation.
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.