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.
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
Tempo, 1 October 2012: Gulag on the bank of the Lampir river (Plantungan camp)
Tempo report (1 Oct 2012) on the Plantungan camp (Kendal) for women Group B political prisoners, opened 1971 in a former leprosarium. Names Gerwani activists and others held there: Sumiyarsi Siwirini ('Lubang Buaya doctor'), Siti Suratih, Mia Bustam, Pujiati, C.H. Sumarmiyati, Mujiati. Covers conditions, 'santi aji' in
Truth Will Out: Indonesian Accounts of the 1965 Mass Violence (Wardaya, ed., 2013)
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
The Dance That Makes You Vanish: Cultural Reconstruction in Post-Genocide Indonesia (Larasati, 2013)
Rachmi Larasati's 2013 introduction and chapter on how the New Order erased the dancing bodies of women labelled 'Gerwani' after 1965 and replaced them with state-trained 'clean' dancers performing the same traditions as national heritage. Autoethnographic study of dance and genocide.
Gerwani and women's political struggle (Rio Apinino, IndoPROGRESS, 2013)
Rio Apinino's 2013 IndoPROGRESS review essay of the Indonesian edition of Wieringa's Gerwani study: the film's Lubang Buaya scenes, Gerwis's founding in Semarang on 4 June 1950, PKI influence and the persistent 'whore' stigma. Chapter-by-chapter summary.
Persisting Silence: Sexual Slander, Mass Murder and The Act of Killing (Wieringa, 2014)
Wieringa (2014) uses The Act of Killing to argue Indonesian indifference to the film reflects the enduring success of the military's sexual moral panic against communism; discusses a director's-cut scene and levels of silence about Gerwani. Memory and silence.
Saskia Wieringa essay (22 Aug 2015, IPT 1965 site) on the army's sexual slander of Gerwani, reconstructing how 'Jamilah, Srikandi of Lubang Buaya' appeared in near-identical newspaper confessions in Nov 1965 and how a teenage Jemilah was arrested in place of the Gerwani leader Atikah. Key analysis of slander as fabrica
Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows (Pohlman, 2015)
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.
Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 (Pohlman, 2015)
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.
Sexual Slander Revealed: the story of Jamilah-Jemilah and The Act of Killing (Wieringa, 2015)
Wieringa (Indonesian Feminist Journal, Aug 2015): the 'confession' of 'Jamilah, Srikandi of Lubang Buaya' printed identically in four army papers on 5-7 Nov 1965, and the real Jemilah (arrested by mistake for Gerwani leader Atikah, tortured, lost her baby), from Juki Ardi's Aku bukan Jamilah.
Surviving in Impunity: Stories of Women Survivors Still Denied Justice (AJAR/Komnas Perempuan, 2015)
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
Surviving in Impunity: Stories of Women Survivors Still Denied Justice (AJAR/Komnas Perempuan, 2015)
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
Free English-language magazine issue edited by Soe Tjen Marching (Bhinneka Nusantara, Surabaya), October 2015, of victim testimonies. Ex-women prisoners Hartiti, Maria Goretti Sumilah and Theresia Kadmiyanti describe Gerwani-related interrogation: nude-dance and genital-mutilation accusations, searches for a 'Gerwani m
Free English-language magazine issue edited by Soe Tjen Marching (Bhinneka Nusantara, Surabaya), October 2015, of victim testimonies. Ex-women prisoners Hartiti, Maria Goretti Sumilah and Theresia Kadmiyanti describe Gerwani-related interrogation: nude-dance and genital-mutilation accusations, searches for a 'Gerwani m
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.co, 9 October 2015: The fall of the PKI, Suharto and the destruction of the women's movement
Tempo.co report (9 Oct 2015) on a Yogyakarta (UIN Sunan Kalijaga) discussion of Saskia Wieringa's book on the destruction of the women's movement. It summarises her argument that the military slandered Gerwani over Lubang Buaya as a pretext to kill; army press libel, and women forced to dance naked while soldiers photo
Pohlman (2016) argues the demonisation of Gerwani created an enduring 'pathological discourse' constraining women's sexual and political citizenship; perpetrators invoked the slander to justify violence, as in the cases of Ibu Susiani and others.
Gerwani and the pioneering of women's political struggle (Sundari, 2016)
Akhiriyati Sundari's 2016 Jurnal Perempuan review of the Indonesian translation of Wieringa's Sexual Politics in Indonesia (Penghancuran Gerakan Perempuan, 2010), recounting the Lubang Buaya slander as staged in the film and Gerwani's pioneering role. Book review.
Umi Sardjono, the Marxist feminist who steered Gerwani (Rahayu, 2017)
Ruth Indiah Rahayu's 2017 biographical portrait of Umi Sardjono (1923-2011), Gerwani chair, from Umi's own stories told 2004-09; opens with the film's Jamilah, whom Umi met in detention and apologised to. Intimate life history of a Gerwani leader.
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.
Feminism as a Class Question, Part II (Ita Fatia Nadia, 2020)
Part II of Nadia's essay (südostasien 3/2020): how the army and paramilitaries used sexualised violence to destroy Gerwani after Oct 1965, the Lubang Buaya slander and film, 1966 tattoo 'searches', and New Order redefinition of women's roles. In German.
Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia (Roosa, 2020)
John Roosa's 2020 book, from nearly 400 interviews, arguing the typical 1965-66 killing was army execution of detainees (hence mass disappearance); dissects army propaganda including how Gen. Sugandhi sexualised Lubang Buaya from 9 Oct 1965. Key scholarship.
The Women and the Generals: Unraveling a Myth of Sexual Perversion (Wieringa, 2020)
Wieringa's five-page review (Archipel 99, 2020) of Maj Wechselmann's documentary The Women and the Generals, which shows the army fabricated the story that Gerwani seduced and castrated the generals at Lubang Buaya as the core of the propaganda campaign. Film review.
Years of Dressing Dangerously: Modern Women, National Identity and Moral Crisis in Sukarno's Indonesia (Sullivan, 2020)
Charles P. Sullivan's PhD dissertation (History, University of Michigan, 2020) reads Indonesian women's magazines (Wanita, Puspa Wanita, Varia) from 1945-66 to argue that the Lubang Buaya narrative about Gerwani worked as a 'post-text' of long-running anxieties over modernity, moral crisis and the 'Mother of the Nation
Tempo.co fact-check, 15 June 2020: Did Ribka Tjiptaning call Jokowi's mother a Gerwani-PKI chair?
Tempo.co fact-check (15 June 2020) debunking a Facebook meme that PDI-P MP Ribka Tjiptaning said Jokowi's mother chaired Gerwani PKI. Ribka never said it (she wrote 'Aku Bangga Jadi Anak PKI', 2002) and Jokowi's mother Sudjiatmi was no Gerwani leader; a biography by Wawan Mas'udi and Ramdhon is cited. Shows Gerwani inv
Tempo, 2 October 2021: The burden of trauma of 1965 (why Umi Sardjono was not open about Gerwani's history)
Tempo feature (2 Oct 2021, Dini Pramita and Bagja Hidayat) on why Gerwani chair Umi Sardjono (Suharti Sumodiwiryo) said little after 13 years in Bukit Duri (to 1978). Drawn from Ita Nadia, Ruth Indiah Rahayu, others: she wept at accounts of rape and Sudjinah's injury, 'it is my responsibility'; friendships with Fransis
Tempo, 2 October 2021: Gerwani, Sukarno and polygamy (Gerwani and the dilemma of brotherhood)
Tempo essay (2 Oct 2021) by I Gusti Agung Ayu Ratih on why Gerwani did not criticise Sukarno's polygamy. It recounts Kowani expelling Gerwani on 29 Oct 1965 and removing Hurustiati Subandrio in 1966, the erasure of Gerwani from women's movement history, Perwari rivalry, Gerwani members' reverence for Sukarno, and anti-
Tempo, 2 October 2021: Song of the alarm (Umi Sardjono in Bukit Duri prison)
Tempo feature (2 Oct 2021, Riky Ferdianto and Mustafa Silalahi) on Umi Sardjono in Bukit Duri prison (detained 20 Oct 1965, solitary cell as category A, 'Senayan cluster' with Dahliar, Mudigdio, Salawati Daud, Kartinah Kurdi). Witnesses Mudjiati, Utati, Nani Nurani Affandi describe forced confessions of Lubang Buaya da