Further details on new cabinet (Sjarifuddin cabinet)
Het Nieuws (Algemeen Dagblad) report (4 Jul 1947, p.1): Sukarno addressed the new Sjarifuddin cabinet, hoping for a 'policy of peace'. The cabinet has 33 ministers and vice-ministers; the minister of labour, Miss Trimurti, is the only woman member. Notes Wondoamiseno's appointment and Sultan of Yogyakarta's retention.
Cabinet complete (Sjarifuddin cabinet, July 1947)
Het Parool (4 Jul 1947, p.17): complete list of the new republican cabinet under Amir Sjarifuddin, including Trimoerti as minister of labour, Wikana for youth, Wondoamiseno for the interior after being released over Sjahrir's abduction. Notes Dr Boediardjo's resignation and Sukarno's swearing-in speech hoping for a pol
Loose and fast from the Republic
De Locomotief, 13 May 1948: satirical column by an 'Indonesian collaborator' on life in the Republic. It says former Minister of Labour S.K. Trimurti, after the fall of the Amir cabinet, is 'a wiser but sadder woman' who no longer speaks publicly, and that Republican women were reluctant to speak at meetings. Hostile,
Murder of Dutchman in South Celebes: arrest of gang leader stirs Indonesian press
Algemeen Handelsblad correspondent's report (Batavia, 1949-11-11) on the Masamba murder of Dutchman Pluyter and the arrest of Makassar councillor Salawati Daud as gang leader. Notes the Indonesian press presents her as a freedom heroine and martyr, compared to Wolter Monginsidi; Maria Ulfah Santoso of the women's congr
Murder of Dutchman in South Celebes: arrest of gang leader stirs Indonesian press (page 1, 11 Nov 1949)
Page-image version of the same Algemeen Handelsblad report (1949-11-11, p. 1) on the Masamba murder of Pluyter and the arrest of Makassar councillor Salawati Daud as gang leader, with Indonesian press and Maria Ulfah Santoso presenting her as a freedom heroine. Surrounding headlines (Paris conference, Bonn, atomic cont
The lot of Salawati
Nieuwe Courant, 3 December 1949: commentary profiling 'Lot Salawati' (Salawati Daud) as 'very left and very revolutionary', leader of the Masamba gang. It speculates that she was humiliated at the Indonesian Women's Congress in Yogyakarta and then at home in Makassar, and sought rehabilitation through violence; it also
Indonesian miscellany (with item on Moedigdio and the Waworoentoe case)
Het Vaderland miscellany column 'Indonesische tjampoeran' (30 Jun 1951, p.12) with many short items. Relevant: an emergency meeting of parliament's home affairs section chaired by Mrs Moedigdio (Mudigdio) resolves to ask the government about Mrs Waworoentoe, dismissed as mayor of Manado and placed under house arrest by
S.K. Trimurti (Gerwis) on National Awakening Day, 20 May (Harian Rakjat, 20 May 1952)
Harian Rakjat, 20 May 1952. A front-page item quotes S.K. Trimurti of Gerwis telling the paper that 20 May should truly become a day of unity in the struggle for independence; she recalls the 1948 Yogyakarta commemoration and the unrealised National Program, blaming organisational fragmentation. The issue also covers S
Woman and the Changing Marriage Pattern of Indonesia (van der Kroef, 1957)
Journal article by Justus M. van der Kroef (American Catholic Sociological Review, June 1957) on women's status and marriage in Indonesia: adat versus Islamic law, polygamy, divorce rates, colonial and revolutionary change. Surveys women's organisations (Perwari, Kowani) and notes Kowani's early left turn and WIDF cont
Kartini Day Figure: Mrs Utami Suryadarma
Api Kartini (1959-60) profile for Kartini Day of Utami Suryadarma, wife of the Air Force chief, presented as a leading woman of Indonesian women's organisations: Kowani foreign-information head, chair of the Children's Welfare Foundation, Armed Forces arts committee and an AURI wives' committee, and founder of a girls'
Commemorative Book for 30 Years of the Indonesian Women's Movement Unity, 1928-1958
430-page commemorative volume (Ministry of Information, 1959) narrating the federated Indonesian women's movement from the 1928 congress through the revolution and KWI congresses to 1958; history drawn largely from Sri Mangunsarkoro.
Chronological Survey of Women's Position in Marriage, 1959 (Kowani Legal Commission)
Pamphlet by the Legal Commission of the Kongres Wanita Indonesia (22 Dec 1959): numbered chronology of the struggle over women's position in marriage from 1928, the 1937 draft ordinance, to post-independence marriage law debates.
A Little about the Indonesian Women's Movement
Api Kartini (late 1964) history of the Indonesian women's movement for Youth Pledge Day, tracing Kartini, Isteri Sedar, Perwari, wartime Fujinkai and Gerwis's founding on 4 June 1950 from the Gerakan Wanita Sedar, its name change to Gerwani after merging with railway workers' wives and Perwin Menado, joining Kowani and
History of the Indonesian Youth Struggle (Youth Bureau, Ministry of Education and Culture, 1965)
Official history of the Indonesian youth movement (1908-1960) compiled by the Youth Bureau of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Balai Pustaka, Jakarta 1965 (prefaces dated Dec. 1963), in five periods. Gerwani appears only briefly: it is listed among organisations demanding action against the 1957-58 PRRI separatis
The Crescent Arises over the Banyan Tree: Muhammadiyah in a Central Javanese Town (Nakamura, 1976)
Mitsuo Nakamura's 1976 Cornell PhD thesis, an ethnography and local history of the Muhammadiyah reform movement in Kotagede, Yogyakarta, arguing that Islamization of Java is an ongoing, internally generated process. Gerwani appears only in passing (p. 208), listed with Pemuda Rakyat and Lekra as PKI-influenced mass org
Interview with Maria Ulfah Santoso: PKI and Gerwani tried to control Kowani (Tempo, c. 1977; JPRS)
JPRS translation of a Tempo profile (c. early 1977) of Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. Serang 1911): her marriage to political prisoner Soebadio Sastrosatomo with Subandrio's help (Jan 1964), early women's-movement work, Perwari and Kowani, and the PSI. She says that during her 11 years leading Kowani from 1952, 'PKI and Gerwa
Bernas, 8 January 1992: 'Pluralism and Indonesian women'
Bernas (Yogyakarta), 8 Jan 1992, p. 4: essay by a UGM student on Indonesian women's organisations 1945–65, noting sharp Guided Democracy conflict between Gerwani and Kowani culminating in 1965, and criticising later homogenisation.
Wieringa's 2000 article on communism and women's same-sex practices, prompted by Kowani chair Ine Sukarno's 1999 claim that Gerwani supported lesbianism; argues Gerwani's morality was puritan and heterosexual and that 'militant motherhood' threatened conservatives. Links Gerwani slander to sexuality politics.
Autobiographical Fictions: Indonesian Women's Writing from the Nationalist Period (Shackford-Bradley, 2000)
PhD dissertation (UC Berkeley, 2000) by Julie Shackford-Bradley reading autobiographical fiction by Indonesian women writers of the nationalist period: Kartini, Hamidah, Suwarsih Djojopuspito and S. Rukiah Kertapati (ch. 5 on Kedjatuhan dan Hati). Gerwani is not discussed; it appears only in bibliographic notes citing
The Women's Movement in Indonesia, with special reference to 'Aisyiyah (It, 2005)
Suraiya It's 2005 Temple University religion PhD dissertation on the Indonesian women's movement, with the Muhammadiyah women's section 'Aisyiyah as case study (Ch. 2 history from Kartini to the New Order; Ch. 3 religion and family law; Ch. 4-5 'Aisyiyah; Ch. 6 conclusion). Gerwani appears only in passing: Gerwis is li
Child-raising, Childbirth and Abortion In Extremis: women's stories 1965-1966 (Pohlman, 2013)
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.
Women Survivors Speak of the 1965 Mass Killings in Indonesia (Global Voices, 2015)
Global Voices feature (30 Oct 2015; Indonesian repost 2016) on AJAR's project interviewing 26 women survivors, with photos and testimony of Vena Taka, Kadmiyati, Frangkina Boboy and Migelina Markus. Women survivors' testimony and demands for justice.
The winding road of the women's federation (Historia, 2017)
Historia article (2017) tracing the Indonesian women's federation from the 1928 congress to its capture by the New Order in 1966, framed by Ruth Indiah Rahayu's view that the movement 'died' and was confined to Dharma Wanita and PKK. Popular history.
Ummah Yet Proletariat: Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959 (Lin, 2020)
PhD dissertation (History, University of Washington, 2020) by Hongxuan Lin tracing the confluence of Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959, through vernacular print culture; it genealogises Sukarno's NASAKOM. Gerwani appears only briefly: citing Blackburn, it says millions joined for
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
Mysterious poet and supporter of children's literature: Sugiarti Siswadi (Tempo, 1 May 2021)
Tempo article, 1 May 2021, by Isma Savitri and Hardian Putra Pratama, on Lekra writer Sugiarti Siswadi: Lekra central leadership member from 1959, children's-literature advocate, author of the banned Sorga Dibumi, and editor of Api Kartini. Researchers cannot trace her life; one suspects she was jailed in Semarang in 1
The Butterfly Effect: Stealth Politics by the Reformist Women's Movement (Puspita, 2023)
PhD dissertation (Northwestern, June 2023) by Sabina Satriyani Puspita in political science on how the 'reformist' women's movement wins policy change through 'stealth politics', using the 2021 Regulation 30 on campus sexual violence. Gerwani appears in historical chapters: the 1965 stigmatisation and the sexual-dance/
Revolutionary Worlds: Local Perspectives and Dynamics during the Indonesian Independence War, 1945-1949 (2023)
Open-access edited volume (Oostindie et al., KITLV/NIMH/NIOD, Amsterdam University Press 2023) on local experiences of the Indonesian revolution 1945-49. In Galuh Ambar Sasi's chapter on Yogyakarta (pp. 65-66) Suripno and Francisca Fanggidaej, 'heads of Pesindo', tour Republican towns after visiting Europe and India, r
Revolutionary Worlds: Local Perspectives and Dynamics during the Indonesian Independence War, 1945-1949 (2023)
Open-access edited volume (Oostindie et al., KITLV/NIMH/NIOD, Amsterdam University Press 2023) on local experiences of the Indonesian revolution 1945-49. In Galuh Ambar Sasi's chapter on Yogyakarta (pp. 65-66) Suripno and Francisca Fanggidaej, 'heads of Pesindo', tour Republican towns after visiting Europe and India, r
Tempo.co, 11 November 2025: Saskia Wieringa - the Suharto regime was highly militaristic, like today (danger of Suharto
Tempo.co interview (11 Nov 2025, Shinta Maharani and Juli Hantoro) with Saskia Wieringa, known for Gerwani research, on Suharto's designation as national hero. She says it perpetuates symbolic violence and impunity (Drexler), recalls the brutal 1965 slander of Gerwani and the 'Gerwani baru' label, and argues Suharto de