7th WIDF Congress, International Women's Year, Berlin 1975
Published proceedings of the 7th Congress of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), Berlin, 26 October 1975: opening and general-secretary addresses (Aruna Asaf Ali, Fanny Edelman), the report on WIDF work since the 1969 Helsinki congress, finance and credentials reports, the Prospective Plan to 1980 a
Daily World, 16 May 1975: Connecticut towns hear peace delegates (WILPF-WIDF seminar)
Page 9 of the Daily World (New York, 16 May 1975) with a Connecticut report on delegates to a WILPF-WIDF disarmament seminar. They included British woman Carmel Budiardjo, who was in Djakarta in 1965 and imprisoned for three years while her husband remained jailed after ten years; she says over a million were killed an
Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (Alexander and Mohanty, eds., 1997)
Routledge volume (1997) edited by Alexander and Mohanty proposing transnational feminism against the centre-periphery model of global sisterhood, with fourteen chapters on colonial legacies, identities and organising. Theory background; no Indonesian content.
Chandra Mohanty's Feminism without Borders (2003): reprints 'Under Western Eyes', 'Cartographies of Struggle' and other essays criticising the monolithic Western view of the 'Third World woman' and global sisterhood. Theory background; no Indonesian content.
The WIDF: History, Main Agenda, and Contributions, 1945-1991 (de Haan, c.2012)
Overview essay by Francisca de Haan (Women and Social Movements International database, c. 2012) on WIDF's origins, agenda, UN role and Cold War marginalisation, 1945-1991. Gerwani is listed once as a large, influential WIDF member organisation (with footnotes to Wieringa and to McGregor on Indonesian women and WIDF);
Katharine McGregor's 2012 article on Indonesian women's ties with the WIDF 1946-65: the federation gave Gerwani a 'political compass', and Gerwani used it to win support for anti-imperialist domestic struggles and by the early 1960s shaped WIDF priorities. Core source on Gerwani and the WIDF.
Katharine McGregor's Aug 2016 gateway essay to the Indonesia section of the Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires database: anti-imperial activism, Gerwani and the WIDF, source guide (Api Kartini, congress reports) and thematic analyses. Introduction for researchers.
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.
2017 Rowman and Littlefield volume edited by Margaret McLaren on decolonising transnational feminism under neoliberal globalisation, with ten chapters on epistemology and politics and a preface by Mohanty. Theory background; no Indonesian content.
WIDF, the Third World and the Global Cold War (Gradskova, 2019)
Yulia Gradskova's 2019 article, from Soviet WIDF archives (GARF), on how far the WIDF's anti-colonial stance gave women from Africa, Asia and Latin America real voice in the late 1950s-mid 1960s; internal documents show a Europe- and Soviet-dominated agenda. Context for Gerwani's WIDF role.
Global Gender: the WIDF, the Global South and the Cold War (Gradskova, 2021)
Yulia Gradskova's 2021 monograph on the WIDF, the Global South and the Cold War, based on GARF, RGASPI and IISH archives: Soviet supervision, Cold War battles and relations with women from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Background on the WIDF in which Gerwani participated.
Tempo English, 4 October 2021: Soft on Sukarno (Gerwani and Sukarno's polygamy)
Tempo English cover story 'Soft on Sukarno' (4 Oct 2021, Hussein Abri) on why Gerwani, which campaigned against polygamy, stayed silent when Sukarno married Hartini in 1954. Umi Sardjono told Ruth Indiah Rahayu the group still needed Sukarno against imperialism, and defended him in Harian Rakjat (4 Jan 1956). The stanc
Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949 (Armstrong, 2023)
Elisabeth Armstrong's 2023 book reconstructing the Asian Women's Conference, Beijing, 10-16 Dec 1949, hosted by the WIDF and the All-China Democratic Women's Federation, with its 'inside/outside' praxis of women's anti-imperialism. Context for WIDF-Asia ties before Gerwis's founding.
Yulia Gradskova's 2025 open-access monograph on 'East South' women's networks from the late 1950s to the 1980s through Tashkent and Havana, using GARF, WIDF and Radio Free Europe files. Background on socialist-bloc women's internationalism.