Yesterday's day...
Nieuwe Vlaardingsche Courant, 5 March 1947: Dutch commentary column on the Indies and Palestine. In one line, 'the Indonesian women's organisation' at talks in Malang is said to consider cooperation with the Dutch impossible after Linggadjati. The organisation is not named and cannot be identified as Gerwis (founded 19
With the Gerwis congress in sight: Jakarta feature on preparations
De Waarheid, 27 Jan 1954, p. 5: correspondent's Jakarta feature ahead of Gerwis's second congress (opening 26 March 1954), describing its literacy courses, hygiene campaigns, defence of women under customary law, wage struggles (Sampurna cigarette factory Surabaya, Kaliklatak coffee estate) with SARBUPRI, and the mass
The lives of Indonesian women (Asahi Shimbun, 12 October 1955)
Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo evening edition, 12 Oct 1955, p. 2) article on the lives of Indonesian women, apparently built around Herawati Diah's visit. OCR is largely scrambled; legible fragments include Jakarta, women's organisations, subsidy, Paris and school. Gerwani is not identifiable.
Women seen on a journey: Asakura Setsu on the women of Indonesia
Mainichi Shimbun (Tokyo morning edition, 2 Sep 1959, p. 5): article on Asakura Setsu's travel piece on the women of Indonesia. The OCR is almost entirely scrambled, so this summary rests on the title and a few legible words; no named Gerwani member or Gerwani mention is visible.
Neue Zeit, 20 Feb 1960, p. 4: Kartini did not want 40 secondary wives
Neue Zeit, 20 February 1960, p. 4: women's-page feature "Kartini wollte keine 40 Nebenfrauen", signed Sulami, on Kartini (1879–1904), pioneer of the Indonesian women's movement. It recounts her opposition to child marriage and polygamy under Dutch colonial rule, her letters, and her sympathy for socialism, and quotes P
Jenab's Hope (National Seminar on Peasant Women, 1961)
Api Kartini (1961) human-interest profile of Jenab, a poor peasant woman from Pabuaran village, West Java, who attended the DPP Gerwani National Seminar on Peasant Women in Jakarta with her baby. Describes her family's poverty (8 of 12 children died) and her hopes for implementing the sharecropping and agrarian laws; n
Soviet Woman, 31 Jul 1964: 'A Factory and Its Workers', with opening of a Kartini profile
Soviet Woman, 31 Jul 1964, pp. 2-8: mostly a feature on the Minsk Tractor Works, a Soviet-American women's conference report by Lydia Kislova, and the opening of a Kartini profile, which tells of her 'pingitan' seclusion and quotes Indonesian ambassador Manai Sophiaan on Kartini Day (21 April). Gerwani is not mentioned
Six million women volunteers ready: International Women's Day feature on Indonesia
Xinhua feature in Renmin Ribao (9 Mar 1965, p. 4) for International Women's Day on Indonesia's 'six million' women volunteers, enrolled since Sukarno's March 1964 call: military training, takeovers of US Information Service offices and US plantations, street protests. Mrs Arudji Kartawinata and Kartini Radjasa are quot
Neue Zeit, 24 Sep 1965, p. 4: Independent and equal (stalks of rice as a symbol of happiness)
Neue Zeit, 24 September 1965, p. 4 (women's page): ADN reportage "Halme des Reises als Symbol des Glücks – Selbständig und gleichberechtigt" by ADN Jakarta correspondent Helga Pe[...] on Indonesian women's life. It claims women drive cars, work as police and journalists, make up almost half of students and that the dep
Soviet Woman, 30 Apr 1967: 'Kartini Day' (Manai Sophiaan and A. Belenky)
Soviet Woman, 30 Apr 1967, pp. 13-16: Kartini Day features by Mme Manai Sophiaan (ambassador's wife) and Soviet orientalist A. Belenky on Kartini as feminist, anti-colonial forerunner of the national movement, plus a book review on American women and a note on Soviet-Indonesian women's correspondence. Gerwani and 1965
Daily World, 11 January 1969: Women's political rights worldwide
Daily World, 11 Jan 1969, p. M-5: feature on women's political rights worldwide, covering suffrage dates, education and the work-family dilemma. Indonesia appears only in passing, with the figure that some years earlier 42% of Indonesian men and 70% of women were illiterate, and as a country granting women equal status
Women's studies column, with note on Indonesian women's movement and polygamy (Edmonton Journal, 1972)
Edmonton Journal, 16 Aug 1972, p.20: a column on Women's Studies reviewing the essay collection Woman in Sexist Society. A short passage on non-Western women's status notes that Indonesian women's active economic role, and that the Indonesian women's movement's major goals were abolition of polygamy and divorce by repu
Neues Deutschland, 1 Feb 1975, p. 15: Paris was the destination for delegates from all over the world
Neues Deutschland, 1 February 1975, p. 15 (anniversary supplement for International Women's Year): retrospective 'Paris war das Reiseziel für Delegierte aus aller Welt' on the 1934 World Women's Congress against Fascism and War in Paris. Among the speakers, 'the delegate Siti' (surname not given) brought greetings from
Neue Zeit, 24 Nov 1979, p. 12: Among the Minangkabau the mothers rule
Neue Zeit, 24 November 1979, p. 12 ('Rund um die Welt'): feature 'Bei den Minangkabau regieren die Mütter' on the matrilineal Minangkabau of West Sumatra (about three million people, around Bukittinggi). It describes matrilineal descent, women's ownership of house and land, men's role as outside representatives, and ad
'No body issues, they reproach us for it': 40 years of the Dutch Women's Movement
Het Parool feature by Petra van Alten (30 Oct 1986) on the 40th anniversary of the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB): founding in 1946 from Algemene Vrouwenbonden and resistance women, its protests against Dutch Indonesia policy and troop sailings, Cold War isolation, affiliation to the Women's International Democratic
East is East and West is West (Kousbroek)
Rudy Kousbroek's column 'Oost is Oost en West is West' in NRC Handelsblad (19 Feb 1988): an anecdote of a Minahasan surveyor in Maluku shocked by his atheism, with remarks on Indonesian attitudes to feminism and childlessness. Ends as the surveyor asks whether they are communists. No mention of Gerwani; background colo
Lesbian women in the Third World: persecuted and recognised
Het Vrije Volk interview feature (9 Jul 1990, p.10) by Canis Zijlmans on anthropologist Saskia Wieringa's research on lesbian women in the Third World. One passage mentions her research in Indonesia on the 'three-million-member' communist women's organisation Gerwani, wiped out after Suharto's takeover, and lesbian lif
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.
Cezanne (Trouw corrections column)
Trouw correction column (4 Oct 1995): a wrong phone number for the Cézanne exhibition, and a note that the 30 September article on the 1965 coup drew on Saskia Wieringa's research, due for her Amsterdam doctorate on 6 October, under-acknowledged. Gives her thesis title: The Politicization of Gender Relations in Indones
History of Gerwis and the emergence of Gerwani (detikNews, 2013)
detikNews feature (2013) on Gerwis's founding on 4 June 1950 by six organisations (Rupindo, Persatuan Wanita Sedar, Istri Sedar, Gerwindo, Wanita Madura, PPRI) and founders Trimurti, Salawati Daud, Umi Sardjono, Tris Metty and Sri Panggihan, with I.G.A.A. Ratih. Concise account of origins.
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.
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