Indonesian Women, the WIDF and the Struggle for Women's Rights 1946 to 1965 (McGregor, 2012)

McGregor, K. (2012). Indonesian women, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the struggle for ‘women’s rights’, 1946–1965. *Indonesia and the Malay World, 40*(117), 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2012.683680 PDF: 02 Secondary Sources/2.1 Gerwani, Women's Movements and Gender/McGregor (2012) - Indonesian Women, the WIDF and the Struggle for Womens Rights 1946 to 1965.pdf PDF PAGES 1 to 17 of 17. Text from the PDF text layer where present, otherwise Tesseract OCR (ind+eng); OCR errors remain. === [PDF page 1] === Indonesia and the Malay World ISSN: 1363-9811 (Print) 1469-8382 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/cimw20 INDONESIAN WOMEN, THE WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN'S RIGHTS’, 1946–1965 Katharine McGregor To cite this article: Katharine McGregor (2012) INDONESIAN WOMEN, THE WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN'S RIGHTS’, 1946–1965, Indonesia and the Malay World, 40:117, 193-208, DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2012.683680 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2012.683680 Published online: 23 May 2012. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1302 View related articles Citing articles: 3 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cimw20 === [PDF page 2] === Katharine McGregor∗ INDONESIAN WOMEN, THE WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 –1965 This article examines the transnational links Indonesian women made with women abroad by means of participation in the WIDF (Women’s International Democratic Federation) from 1946 – 1965. Drawing on Indonesian women’s speeches at WIDF congresses, contributions to WIDF publications and documents from Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, the Indonesian Women’s movement) national congresses the article argues that the WIDF provided an important political compass for Indonesian women on the political left and directly influenced the form and content of its campaign for women’s rights. At the same time Gerwani women were able to draw attention and attract support from the extensive membership of the WIDF for domestic challenges, which they positioned as connected to broader struggles against imperialism. With a rapidly rising membership Gerwani was assuming increased importance and influence in the WIDF by the early 1960s and had begun to shape the direction and causes of the WIDF. In 1947 amidst the throes of the Indonesian independence struggle the Secretariat of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (hereafter WIDF) received a letter from the Indonesian Women’s Congress, a nationalist federation of women’s organsiations formed a year earlier, reporting on attacks by the Netherlands on the Republic of Indonesia (WIDF 1947a: 5). In the letter Congress women expressed their delight at learning Dutch women had sent a telegram to the UN Security Council protesting against Dutch troops being sent to Indonesia and demanding a speedy end to the war against the Republic. In response the WIDF (1947a: 6) issued the following instruction: I would like to thank Adrian Vickers and Julia Martinez for inviting me to participate in the workshop on Indonesians abroad held in 2010 at the University of Wollongong from which this article originated, and Saskia Weiringa, Francisca de Haan, Jennifer Lindsay and the anonymous referees for their helpful feedback. Thanks also to Vannessa Hearman for her research assistance and to the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne for a grant to support this research. Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 40, No. 117 July 2012, pp. 193– 208 ISSN 1363-9811 print/ISSN 1469-8382 online # 2012 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World http://www.tandfonline.com/journals http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2012.683680 === [PDF page 3] === 194 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD The national branches of the WIDF together with all democratic organizations must carry out an energetic campaign against this colonial war which brings death and devastation to a people whose only crime is to want to be free. By means of this early link with the WIDF Indonesian women were able to publicise the impact of Dutch aggression to a wide audience and to campaign for broader support for Indonesian independence. From 1946 –1965 Indonesian women, mostly from the political left, continued their involvement in the WIDF using their links to this organisation to gain support and inspiration for their struggles to secure complete independence and to gain new rights for Indonesian women. Histories of Indonesian foreign politics are typically written from the perspective of the roles elite men played in crafting foreign policy (see for example Agung 1973), but we know little of how other Indonesians, and especially women, forged political relationships abroad and formulated international political agendas. This is in part due the continuing assumption, despite the development of feminist international relations as a field of study, that women’s activism does not constitute foreign diplomacy or that gender is irrelevant in international relations (see Youngs 2004). This blind spot concerning the international networks in which women engaged is also connected to ‘methodological nationalism’ or ‘the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world’, an assumption which has obscured ‘how transnational the world has always been’ (Wimmer & Schiller 2002: 302). In the last two decades studies of transnational history have moved beyond nationbased studies to examine movements and organisations that cross national borders and which also shape the nation. By re-examining the past through the lens of transnational links scholars have produced new insights into how ideas, people and the world were previously connected. In his study of Chinese-Indonesian interactions and diverse images of China in Indonesia in the 1950s and 1960s Liu (2011), for example, unveils how key Indonesian leaders and intellectuals looked to China as an alternate model of modernity. In their edited collection on Indonesian cultural linkages across the world in the 1950s and 1960s, Lindsay and Liem (2011) demonstrate how such connections shaped the process of becoming Indonesian. Focusing on political alliances between Australian, Indian and Indonesian unionists from the 1940s to 1970s Goodall has broadened our understanding of the shared struggles and frictions in these networks (2011; and in this issue). In a larger survey of the Indonesian women’s movement in the 1950s Elizabeth Martyn (2005: 3) began to assess how Indonesian women from different organisational backgrounds engaged with the world in the 1950s arguing that Indonesian women primarily used these links to construct national identity and legitimate that nation-state. This article narrows the focus of analysis to an examination of the links Indonesian women on the political left made with women abroad by means of participation in the WIDF from 1946 – 1965. It focuses on women on the political left firstly because they were, as Martyn has noted, most active in international activism and secondly because the contemporary trend towards examining Islamic women’s activism has resulted in a tendency to overlook women on the left. This is connected to the fact that while Islam is of growing significance in contemporary Indonesia the political left was crushed in the 1965 – 66 army led repression which resulted in approximately 500,000 deaths and === [PDF page 4] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 195 hundreds and thousands of imprisonments (Cribb 1990). Drawing on the writings of Indonesian women in the form of speeches at WIDF congresses, contributions to WIDF publications and documents from their national congresses the article argues that the WIDF provided an important political compass for Indonesian women on the political left and directly influenced the form and content of its campaign for women’s rights. At the same time Indonesian women were able to draw attention and attract support from the vast membership of the WIDF for domestic challenges which they positioned as connected to broader struggles against imperialism. There are very few studies of either the WIDF or of the Indonesian women’s organisation that formed the strongest link with the WIDF, the Indonesian Women’s Movement (Gerwani). According to Francisca de Haan (2010: 553), the paucity of studies of the WIDF is in large part because of first World (US capitalist bloc), Cold War assumptions the organisation was not feminist in orientation, but rather a Soviet front and thus not truly representative of a broad range of women. De Haan (2010: 557) describes the WIDF as broadly representative of ‘left feminism’ meaning women in the WIDF critiqued the sources of women’s oppression, but also wider structures of power that underpinned repression. The most comprehensive study of Gerwani is that of Saskia Wieringa (2002) who analyses the role of Gerwani in the larger women’s movement in Indonesia assessing how members negotiated the joint pressures placed upon them by the powerful president, Sukarno, and by the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI). Gerwani was closely associated with the party following its line on many issues but not formally affiliated. Wieringa canvasses Gerwani’s links with the WIDF, but she does not assess the influence of the WIDF on Gerwani or how Gerwani shaped the WIDF. The founding of the WIDF and the immediate impact of the Cold War The WIDF was established at the first international congress of women in Paris in late November 1945, a conference attended by over 800 women from 41 different countries and diverse class backgrounds. The founders espoused four key principles: anti-fascism, lasting peace, women’s rights and better conditions for children (de Haan 2010: 548). They were concerned about the negative effects war had on both women and children. Indonesia had a diverse women’s movement beginning in the early 20th century encompassing secular and Islamic groups and gathering momentum after the 1928 national women’s congress. A number of women’s organisations formed the Indonesian Women’s Congress (Kowani, Kongres Wanita Indonesia) in 1946, a year after Indonesia was forced into a struggle against the Dutch to prevent re-colonisation. Kowani leaders requested that Kowani become a member of the WIDF in 1946 largely because of the WIDF’s support for ending colonialism (WIDF 1947b). By 1949 however, due to objections raised from Muslim women’s organisations in Kowani to the WIDF’s socialist orientation, Kowani withdrew its membership of the WIDF. The Movement for Politically Aware Women (Gerakan Wanita Sadar – Gerwis), which was socialist in orientation and a member of the broader organisation Kowani, took over this membership in its founding year of 1950 (Martyn 2005: 157). The WIDF no doubt appealed to Gerwis because of its embrace of issues wider than === [PDF page 5] === 196 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD reform of the marriage law, an issue which occupied most other women’s organisations. Gerwis increasingly turned to campaigning for women’s labour rights and for the achievement of full Indonesian independence and socialism leading to a self-held perception that they were ‘the vanguard of the women’s movement’ (Wieringa 2002: 140). Further to this they also campaigned against price rises and for peace, linking war to a curtailment of women’s rights. From 1950 until the early 1960s the relationship between Gerwis (as of 1954 Gerwani) and the WIDF intensified. At least six Indonesian women served on the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin for periods of one to two years. Many of these women contributed articles to the monthly WIDF publication, Women of the Whole World (1946– 1991). In addition many more Indonesian women participated in WIDF congresses and in the congresses of member organisations around the world exposing them to travel, further political activism and ideas of importance to their struggle for women’s rights. WIDF congresses and Indonesian participation The WIDF held congresses every three years and many of the resolutions formulated at these congresses concerning actions to be taken by member organisations became the basis of domestic campaigns for Gerwis. In 1952 Suwarti Bintang Suwardi, member of the constituent assembly and the first chair of Gerwis, attended a WIDF congress held in Vienna entitled ‘On the Defence of Children’. Gerwis publicised the decisions of this congress concerning the rights of children in translations of conference publications and by convening public discussions in Indonesia on the topic. Further to this, regional Gerwis leaders formed committees for the defence of the rights of children in the regions of Indonesia, with the aim of convening a national conference on the rights of children (DPP Gerwani 1954: 27 – 28). Three Gerwis representatives, Umi Sardjono (vice-chair of Gerwis), Tam and Warsini, who were at a conference on peace in the Asia Pacific as trade union delegates, attended a People’s Congress on Peace in December 1952 in Vienna. There they delivered 17, 711 Indonesian signatures in support of peace. These women stayed on in Europe with instructions from Gerwis to attend the WIDF council meeting in the same month. Together with another delegate Aisjah, the General Secretary of Gerwis, they attended a working meeting in Berlin to plan for the 1953 Copenhagen World Congress of Women (DPP Gerwani 1954: 27). In Indonesia Gerwis publicised the 1953 congress widely in an effort to ensure they could send a large delegation and such that Indonesian women would be aware of the congress. Indonesia was represented by Gerwis women Trimurti (Minister in the first cabinet of the Indonesian Revolution and another vice-chair of Gerwis), Kartinah, Maasje Siwi, Darmini, Sulami, and Setiati Surasto, who headed the delegation. Several women from other organisations that were part of the larger leftist family in Indonesia also joined the delegation including Sumampouw-Rompas and Sumampouw-Lapian from the Minahasa Women’s Union in Sulawesi, Hadiprabowo from the Women of the People (Wanita Rakyat) and Ratjih from the Democratic Women (Wanita Democrat) (DPP Gerwani 1954: 27). Participants travelled from 70 countries to attend the congress (Union of Australian Women 1953: 4). Due to the prohibitive costs of air travel many women had to travel by === [PDF page 6] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 197 sea and then land for several weeks to reach Copenhagen. Indonesian women caught ocean liners stopping and picking up delegates from other countries on the way via Singapore, Colombo, Somalia finally landing in Genoa, Italy, and travelling by train across France, Germany and eventually Denmark (Union of Australian Women: 1953: 1, 5). By means of these trips they mixed with a wide range of women forming new networks and friendships. The tone of the 1953 congress was upbeat, but serious given the recent developments of the Korean War and the French War in Vietnam. The congress focused on how to achieve both women’s rights and peace. In her opening remarks to the congress Madame Eugénie Cotton, the President and a key founder of the WIDF with a PhD in physics, declared: All women together constitute a great and new force on the march to progress. In unity these women will make this congress a decisive stage in the action they have undertaken in order to win their rights, to defend Peace and the happiness of their children. (Union of Australian Women 1953: 7) Cotton, who was also a co-founder of the World Peace Council, was firmly committed to addressing the inequality between men and women (de Haan 2007). She was a model activist and much admired amongst women of the WIDF. During the course of the congress delegates heard reports from representatives from many countries with a particular emphasis on the state of women’s rights in each country. In her report Indonesian delegate Sumampouw-Lapian from Sulawesi explained that women in Indonesia as mothers had no protection and infant mortality was high. She lamented the fact that despite the constitution of Indonesia guaranteeing women equal rights, women still had almost no rights in marriage and they could not achieve equal wages due largely to the terms of the Round Table Conference of 1949 (Sumampouw- Lapian 1953: 224). The Round Table agreement of 1949, which focused on transferring power from the Dutch to Indonesia, was signed by the Republic and the Dutch under UN supervision and required the Republic to take over much of the debt of the former Netherlands Indies. It also allowed the continuance of Dutch businesses in Indonesia, perpetuating Dutch dominance of the economy. Sumampouw-Lapian interpreted the agreement as ‘binding the Republic in the political and economic spheres’ such that local companies could not compete with foreign companies. As a consequence women were often the first to be dismissed from failed companies. She noted that many of women’s labour rights were now compromised (Sumampouw-Lapian 1953: 224). The Indonesian Labour Law of 1948 developed during Gerwis member Trimurti’s term as the first Labour Minister of the Republic was passed in 1951 and became the Labour Act. Trimurti, a journalist and activist who had been imprisoned by the Dutch, served on the executive of the Indonesian Labour Party (Partai Buruh Indonesia) and is the only woman Labour Minister to date in Indonesia. The law was progressive in terms of some women’s rights dictating that women should be given time off for breastfeeding and three months maternity leave (Blackburn 2004: 176). In the early 1950s, however, due to foreign domination of the economy many labour laws were ignored. The Copenhagen Congress resulted in two documents entitled ‘Appeal to Women of the Whole World’ and ‘Declaration of the Rights of Women’. The appeal demanded a === [PDF page 7] === 198 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD peace pact, an end to the wars underway in Korea and Vietnam and peaceful settlement of the German, Austrian and Japanese questions concerning the control and direction of these countries and an end to colonial and foreign domination (WIDF 1953a). The Declaration on the Rights of Women included a demand from women of the 70 countries who participated for a radical change and improvement in the political and legal position of women in these countries. The declaration focuses on claims for equal pay for equal work; women’s right to work; the need for crèches, kindergartens; rights to protection of women and children; maternity leave; rights to political representation and participation in elections; education for women; legal rights; rights of peasant women to own land; the right to vote; the same rights as men re property, children and marriage; the right to freedom of association and unhampered activity for women’s democratic organisations and the right to participate in other organisations (WIDF 1953b). Compared to trends in most allied countries where governments were encouraging women to return to the home and emphasising their domestic roles, this document was extremely progressive and reflected socialist ideals about gender equality. By 1954 the women of Gerwis had begun to rethink the basis of their organisation. Gerwis had begun with both a communist and feminist wing represented by leaders such as Trimurti and Suharti respectively, but the PKI leadership pressured Gerwis to expand its base. The communist women in Gerwis argued it was too narrowly focused on politically aware women and thus at the second Gerwis Congress in 1954, the organisation changed its name to Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, the Indonesian Women’s Movement). Gerwani then became a mass movement incorporating several organisations for wives of railway workers and Persatuan Wanita Indonesia (Perwin), Coalition of Indonesian Women, which was based in Manado, Sulawesi. Gerwani broadened its aims to a commitment ‘to defend the rights of women and children and to fully defend national independence and to act in defence of peace’ (DPP Gerwani 1954: 19). At this congress Umi Sardjono, who represented more of the middle line between the feminist and communist wings, was elected chair. The new goals mirrored those of the WIDF. In addition the congress reported that the declaration of women’s rights had allowed Gerwis to lay strong foundations for working together with other mass organisations (DPP Gerwani 1954: 31). The WIDF resolutions thus helped Gerwis to broaden their movement. From 1954 membership was open to all female Indonesian citizens aged 16 and above. Members had to follow Gerwani guidelines, programmes and organisational decisions, pay a joining fee and on-going fees, attend meetings and courses, and implement organisational directives (DPP Gerwani 1954: 43 –4). Following recruitment drives across the archipelago, Gerwani membership began to increase reaching 400,000 members by 1955 and 663,740 by 1957 (Wieringa 2002: 154). As a result of their participation in the Copenhagen Conference the WIDF made Darmini, who had already been serving on the secretariat, a permanent member of the secretariat in Berlin. Darmini was very good at languages and married to Harsono a leader in the Fisherman’s and Port’s Union who also frequently travelled abroad. She was first invited to join the WIDF secretariat after participating in a congress in East Berlin for the World Federation of Democratic Youth.1 In her contribution Sarmadji, interview 16 August 2011, Amsterdam. === [PDF page 8] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 199 to the 1954 executive meeting focusing on the unity of women and strengthening the women’s movement and the defence of women’s rights, Darmini reported: In carrying out the campaign for the rights of women, attempts were made, especially on the islands of Sumatra and Celebes, to inquire into the life and conditions of women and to enlighten them about the government regulation concerning maternity leave, because in these regions women are often discharged because of pregnancy. Discussions were organised among women workers and worker’s wives on the rights of women, and labour and marriage problems. In the oil region of Djambi (Sumatra) a committee was formed for leading the campaign on women’s rights, particularly on equal pay for equal work. The report documented Gerwani’s growing efforts to improve women’s lives by raising awareness amongst women of their rights. It reflected a clear effort to socialise the declaration of women’s rights to women across the entire archipelago. Gerwani was already campaigning for many of the rights highlighted at Copenhagen such as the rights of working women and the need for marriage reforms, but because the declaration was formulated at an international congress and supported by the thousands of women in attendance and the organisations they represented, Gerwani members were able to use the declaration to rally support both from other women and from the government. At the 1955 Kowani congress, for example, Gerwani gained support from other women’s organisations from all political persuasions for the declaration of women’s rights and for working on the problem of peace (Suharti 1956). In 1956 Gerwani Chair, Umi Sardjono, reported that the Copenhagen declaration had encouraged thousands of Indonesian women to struggle for their rights (Sardjono 1956: 16). In 1955 Gerwani sent nine representatives to the WIDF Mother’s Congress in Lausanne, Switzerland. The congress resulted in an increased emphasis on education and especially kindergartens for mothers and children in Indonesia (Sardjono 1956: 21 – 22). This congress continued the emphasis of earlier congresses on the rights of both women and children and a strong emphasis on improving education for children. Gerwani worked continuously to increase the number of kindergartens in Indonesia from 1951 onwards. In 1959 they held a national seminar on kindergartens and from the early 1960s began offering courses for kindergarten teachers. From the first kindergarten in 1951 to 1963 Indonesian women opened 700 kindergartens in rural and urban areas (WIDF 1963: 21 – 22). In 1957 Suwarti Bintang Suradi, who served on the Gerwani executive and on the WIDF secretariat, reported to the WIDF on the discrimination that working Indonesian women faced. She noted that ‘It is very difficult for Indonesian working mothers – one can even say impossible – to undertake jobs or accept transfers to jobs in other places other than the family residence without running the risk of a split in the family’ (WIDF 1957: 27). In addition she reported that many men were unwilling to work under women and in foreign companies especially married women were categorised separately and employed for only half a day with no entitlement to health insurance or other benefits. In this report she thus tied women’s working conditions to ‘imperial interests’, but also stressed the barriers Indonesian women faced in changing societal attitudes towards women as workers. One victory in the field of women’s rights was the 1957 === [PDF page 9] === 200 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD ratification of the ILO (International Labour Organisation) Convention 100 on equal pay for equal work. Indonesia was one of the first countries to ratify this convention (Blackburn 2004: 176). This did not, however, mean the decision was immediately or universally implemented. As the most vocal advocates of women’s labour rights in Indonesia, Gerwani leaders were able to exchange ideas and information with women abroad on their struggles in this area alongside more limited sympathy from the broader women’s movement for the campaign for labour rights. Continuing the emphasis on a broad definition of women’s rights the WIDF sponsored a ‘Conference on the Creation of Conditions that will Enable a Woman to Fulfil her Role in Society as Mother, Worker and Citizen’ as part of the 1958 WIDF Congress. In her submission to the conference Gerwani’s second vice-chair (1954 – 1965), Mudigdo expressed support for the WIDF’s proposal to draft a more progressive marriage law, which could then be promoted for ratification in the parliaments of member countries (Mudigdo 1958). Domestically Gerwani had campaigned vigorously for a new marriage law together with other women’s organisations throughout the 1950s. The key issues for Gerwani were to raise the age of permissible marriage, improve women’s rights in marriage and to ban polygamy. On the issue of banning polygamy they faced considerable resistance from Muslim women’s organisations. There are indications that the WIDF was not, however, just a source of support for Gerwani and their campaigns but that Gerwani also sought to influence the direction of the WIDF. In her report at the 1958 conference Mudigdo (1958: 66), who represented the communist wing in Gerwani and was the mother-in-law of PKI Chairman Aidit, criticised the WIDF for not emphasising enough issues particular to peasant women. She argued that discrimination against women still exists in colonial and dependent countries and also in advanced countries where, for example, women are not allowed to own property, yet ‘the discrimination in one country differs from that in another according to the situation in each country’. She argued that for women in colonial and dependent countries it is the women peasants who experience the most discrimination. In her view, claims for equal wages for equal work focused on women workers not peasants. Here she is most likely signalling the more informal and seasonal nature of plantation work, which made it more difficult to enforce national labour laws. Mudigdo reminded conference participants that peasant women have the highest illiteracy rates. She proposed a future WIDF seminar on women peasants and the formulation of a draft law on this topic that women in different countries could use to improve the rights of peasant women. Her critique mirrored the ideals of Gerwani and their on-going work amongst peasant women to help them achieve better working conditions and increased literacy (Blackburn 2004: 178 –81). This evaluation indicates that the relationship between Gerwani and the WIDF was sufficiently open for critiques to be posed by them as a member organisation and that this was not a case of the WIDF continuously dictating directives to Gerwani. The WIDF learns from Indonesian women The leadership and members of the WIDF shared knowledge about how women’s movements could be more successful in improving the rights and position of women. In November 1957, Geeta Mukherjee (1957) an Indian representative on the WIDF === [PDF page 10] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 201 secretariat in East Berlin wrote a fascinating account of the work of Gerwani amongst peasant women. The account was based on her conversations with Suwarti Bintang Suradi. Suwarti worked together with Mukherjee in Berlin in the secretariat of the WIDF and as neighbours they regularly cooked and ate together. The five-page account provided by Mukherjee was sent out to all WIDF member organisations in April 1958 with a cover letter from WIDF General Secretary Carmen Zanti (1958) noting that members should pay attention to the success of Gerwani. The account begins with a sense of awe that by Gerwani’s August 1957 congress they were one of the biggest women’s organisations in Asia and Africa (with 662,460 followers). Mukherjee canvassed the work Gerwani did in the cities, towns and countryside paying particular attention to how they attracted new followers. She noted their largest following was amongst peasant and working women. Gerwani women went to the plantations and spoke to peasants about key issues for them like menstruation leave, maternity leave and harassment from plantation owners. Then they began to campaign on these issues together with the women to improve their situation and to educate them about their rights as workers. Mukherjee noted that Gerwani also focused on these women’s family lives and problems relating to marriage, divorce and polygamy (which she explained to readers is a particular problem in this Muslim society). She noted Gerwani’s role in campaigning to reform the marriage laws and in demanding greater representation of women in local government organisations that dealt directly with matters such as divorce and the abandonment of wives by husbands (Mukherjee 1957). Divorce and abandonment were chronic in the 1950s due to the rising demand for younger and less politicised wives (Wieringa 2002: 114). Mukherjee highlighted to members of the WIDF Gerwani’s efforts to raise literacy levels amongst peasant women and to educate them on children’s health, sanitation and a balanced diet. Recalling her conversation with Suwarti, Mukherjee noted Gerwani relied on the goodwill of city-based women to go to the plantation areas for short periods of time to teach women in a short time to read and write (Mukherjee 1957). Many women then became cadres. Gerwani actively campaigned among teachers to appeal to them to go to village areas in their holidays to run literacy classes. They issued an appeal that everyone who could read or write should teach someone else. Gerwani also organised amongst middle-class women in cities running other kinds of classes for these women like midwifery in addition to some propaganda and agitation (Mukherjee 1957). In 1956 Gerwani had reported to the WIDF on these literacy campaigns (WIDF 1956), yet the circulation of this report suggests the WIDF wanted to promote Gerwani as an example of a successful women’s organisation. The report reflects the very positive image of Gerwani that representatives of the organisation sought to convey to women abroad. The reality was that although Gerwani experienced a very rapid increase in membership they also encountered resistance from other women’s organisations, from Indonesian men and sometimes from the very people they sought to recruit – farmers and villagers – due to their ‘moralistic and didactic stance’.2 Besides Darmini and Suwarti Bintang Suradi, three other Gerwani women served on the WIDF secretariat at its headquarters in East Berlin. Unfortunately, only one of these women to my knowledge, has left a written account of her experiences and Jay 1969 cited in Wieringa (2002: 176). === [PDF page 11] === 202 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD most have already passed away, but there are remaining traces of their influence in the WIDF. The most insightful comments about what it was like to work in the secretariat come from Sudjinah. In some unpublished notes on her life she recalls being asked to represent Gerwani because there were few women who had foreign languages. She took up the offer partly in the hope of furthering her education at Humboldt University which was just in front of the WIDF office at No. 13 Unter den Linden Street, yet found she was too busy with the WIDF to study (Sudjinah 1984). In her memoir, written many years later, Sudjinah reflects on her time working with representatives of women’s organisations from many countries including the USA, Italy, Iraq, Iran, Sweden, Spain, India and France. All these women lived in neighbouring apartments up and down Oranke Street. ‘We formed an international family which focused its attention on the defence of women’s rights around the world’ (Sudjinah 2003: 39). When she was just 25 years old she attended international conferences in Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Lausanne, and the WIDF bureau meeting in China in 1956 which were presumably funded by the WIDF. She recalls: that period of my life really was very interesting. Every day I met with women from different countries. I told them about the Indonesian struggle for independence and the position of Indonesian women which at the time was still much lower than that of men. Several national women’s organisations invited her to attend their conferences. Sudjinah attended women’s conferences as a WIDF representative in France, Austria and Sweden. She spent periods of a month in both France and China during this time (Sudjinah 1984). By working for the WIDF, Sudjinah was able to raise awareness abroad about the struggles of Indonesian women and to also learn from other women’s movements. Gerwani representatives in the WIDF secretariat all worked to promote the causes for which Indonesian women stood and to draw attention to the continuing challenges they faced. One means by which they did this was by contributing articles to the popular WIDF publication, Women of the Whole World. The magazine was published in the six languages of English, German, French, Russian, Japanese and Spanish. Articles from the magazine were also translated into other languages and sometimes read aloud on radio in countries with limited literacy rates (Api Kartini 1961: 20 – 21). Women of the Whole World was distributed in a large range of countries around the world including Australia, Belgium, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, German Democratic Republic, German Federal Republic, Great Britain, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, U.S.A, and the West Indies (Jamaica and Trindad). The magazine was a key means by which women from different countries could remain informed about the activities of women’s movements worldwide. It consisted of short articles on issues related to the causes of the WIDF and member organisations. In March 1957, Sudjinah wrote an article for the magazine entitled: ‘Indonesia: for a better future for our children: letter to an unknown friend’. Written in the style of a letter Sudjinah wrote: === [PDF page 12] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 203 Dear Friend Perhaps you have read something about ‘the country of a thousand islands’ in South East Asia, which is called Indonesia and have formed in your mind a picture of the life of its people. I hope yours is not an impression so often gained from books written in comfortable hotels by tourists, who describe a paradise – a life of ease and beauty under the shade of palm trees, surrounded by dancing girls and singing children scattering flowers. Especially is the beautiful island of Bali held up to Europeans as the romantic ideal – where living is a joy and the trees are forever green... But the reality is different. This is a curious opening and it is interesting to think about whom it might be aimed at. Had Sudjinah been confronted with these stereotypes living in East Berlin or was she referring also to some more orientalist perceptions of Indonesia within the WIDF? Sudjinah relates why Indonesia was ‘a magnet for Western imperialists’ and laments the conditions of Indonesian independence agreed to at the 1949 Round Table Conference especially the continuing ‘foreign monopoly’ over capital investments. She writes in an emotive style: ‘It was in these conditions, out of the inheritance of poverty and misery of the long dark colonial years, that the republic had to move forward, stepby-step, facing many difficulties internal and external’ (Sudjinah 1957: 16). She noted the problem of serious malnourishment and illiteracy amongst children and the fact many people could not afford to send them to school such that instead the children had to work. Some children roamed the streets as beggars or working as shoe cleaners (Sudjinah 1957: 17). She expresses an acute awareness as to the lasting legacies of colonialism and the continuance of imperial interests in Indonesia. In the same year she wrote this article the Indonesian government nationalised Dutch enterprises as both a rejection of continuing foreign ownership in Indonesia and in protest at the Dutch unwillingness to relinquish West New Guinea, the only territory of the former Netherlands East Indies not handed over in 1949 after the Round Table Conference. Sulami, who was Vice Secretary-General of Gerwani from 1957 to 1965 and served on the WIDF secretariat in East Berlin from 1958 – 1960 and 1963 –1964, was the most prolific contributor to Women of the Whole World. In 1959 she profiled the history of the Indonesian women’s movement in a three-part series drawing attention to the many challenges Indonesian women had faced in the Dutch colonial period, throughout the Japanese occupation and through to the era of independence, charting how they had in each period struggled for women’s rights (Sulami 1959). In this history Sulami highlighted the role of Kartini, an elite Javanese woman who at the turn of the 20th century began a critique of both colonialism and feudalism from a women’s point of view by writing to Dutch women abroad in Dutch. Kartini was an early model for the transnational cause of improving women’s rights and one of Gerwani’s stated goals as an organisation was to continue the struggle of Indonesian women as pioneered by Kartini (DPP Gerwani 1954: 49). In other articles in Women of the Whole World Sulami (1960a) continually referred to Kartini in a short history of Kartini and in fictional stories about Indonesian women that drew on Kartini’s critiques to highlight the causes for which Gerwani stood. The first === [PDF page 13] === 204 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD such fictional story Sulami wrote was entitled ‘Minah’. It told the story of a young woman who wanted to continue her education, but who was forced by her father to marry at the age of eleven (Sulami 1960c). In the story Minah negotiates with her proposed husband to only marry him if she can continue her education. The story mirrors the spirit of Kartini who wanted desperately to continue her studies, but was forced by her father to marry young. In her second fictional story, ‘Seven girls’, Sulami (1963) explored the predicament of seven Indonesian daughters of a wealthy Javanese businessman who, like Kartini, were not allowed to leave the home due to a traditional practice of seclusion: keeping girls confined to the home from puberty until marriage. The daughters were also faced with the prospect of arranged marriages. The article critiques the practices of sultans who traditionally kept many wives and concubines and collected taxes for colonial powers arguing they were able to do so because people believed in their superiority. Sulami reflects: ‘That is the combination of feudalism and colonialism which gave women no rights, no freedom, no right to property and happiness’ (Sulami 1963: 31). Through these fictional articles Sulami alerts the readers of this magazine to ongoing issues in Indonesia at that time concerning child marriage and limited rights for women to education and in marriage, issues that the Gerwani and other women’s organisations in Indonesia were working hard to tackle. In these articles Sulami and Sudjinah have left important records of the struggles in which they engaged and of how they projected these struggles to women abroad. The tide turns Due to continued reports from Gerwani of their success in terms of an increasing membership, the WIDF began to pay more and more attention to Gerwani. In 1960, for example, the WIDF decided to hold a council meeting in Jakarta. Reporting in Api Kartini, Sulami wrote that in the lead up to the meeting ‘the WIDF has been busy making an effort to deepen their understanding and learn more about the Indonesian women’s movement’ (Sulami 1960b). As mentioned above in 1959 Women of the Whole World featured a three-part series on Gerwani, which was considerable page space for a publication attempting to represent women from many countries around the world. Indonesian delegates reported that they felt they had achieved a new status in the WIDF. In 1960 at the Copenhagen meeting to commemorate 50 years of International Women’s Day, held between 21 –24 April, the head of the Indonesian delegation Hurustiati Subandrio, the left-leaning wife of Foreign Minister Subandrio and later leader of Kowani (1961 –1966), was invited to lead the proceedings on 21 April in honour of Kartini Day (Api Kartini 1960). In addition Hurustiati headed the Commission on Education and Culture, and other Gerwani delegates were given leadership roles in the Commission for Women’s Rights and in the committee that drafted the meeting’s resolutions. At the 1960 WIDF council meeting in Warsaw, Maasje Siwi, was elected as an Indonesian member of the highest body of the WIDF, the executive committee. As the 1960s progressed, Gerwani women were increasingly pressured at home by the President and the Communist Party to emphasise Indonesia’s anti-imperialist struggles and downgrade their emphasis on women’s rights. They became firm supporters of both President Sukarno’s campaigns for the return of West New Guinea === [PDF page 14] === THE STRUGGLE FOR ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’, 1946 – 1965 205 (1960 – 1962) and his policy of Confrontation (Konfrontasi) with Malay[si]a as opposition to what he saw as a British imperialist project in the formation of this new nation. At the same time their emphasis on women’s rights diminished (Wieringa 2002: 199 –200). The WIDF supported the struggle for the return of West New Guinea on the basis that continuing Dutch control of the territory constituted colonialism. Yet the WIDF was not willing to back Confrontation because it prioritised peace over a potential military confrontation (McGregor forthcoming). In 1963 there was a major falling out between the two organisations over this issue at the Moscow WIDF Congress (Sardjono 1964: 17). From this point on Gerwani received far less attention in the WIDF although Gerwani members continued to attend WIDF congresses. In late 1965 the army blamed the murders of the top army leadership by the September 30th Movement, on the Indonesian Communist Party. Then together with anti-communist coalitions the army began a violent attack on the PKI and all associated or affiliated organisations resulting in an estimated 500,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of imprisonments without trial. Gerwani women were targeted in these attacks because they were viewed as part of a larger communist family and by late 1965 the organisation had been banned. Some Gerwani women were murdered. Others including those who had been active in WIDF like Sudjinah, Sulami, Maasje Siwi, Mudigdo and Umi Sardjono, were imprisoned for long periods of time in Bukit Duri prison in Jakarta and subject to torture and abuse. Perhaps due to limited reporting on the violence outside of Indonesia or because of the split between these organisations, I have not been able to find a response from the WIDF to this repression in their official publications. It is possible that they either received little news about the repression due to the fact that Gerwani leaders either quickly went into hiding or, once captured, were unable to communicate with the outside world due to strict controls inside the prisons. Assessing the relationship Between 1946 and 1963 the WIDF provided an important source of support and direction for Gerwani. The WIDF congress resolutions often led to direct campaigns in Indonesia to achieve a set of rights or to pressure the people and government to pay more attention to issues such as women’s and children’s rights. Although some feminists have critiqued the quest for women’s rights as limiting in the sense that it does not focus on addressing underlying structural inequalities in society, rights discourse is empowering for women in the sense that it makes ‘them visible in the international sphere where we are still almost completely invisible’ and ‘it offers a focus for international feminism which can translate into action if responses to women’s claims are inadequate’ (Charlesworth 1994: 61). For Indonesian women the discourse of women’s rights was crucially important because it connected them to women in the outside world of similar politics thus legitimising their claims at home as they negotiated the new political terrain of independent Indonesia. Although the congresses mostly took place far away in Europe, Gerwani made a concerted effort to socialise the resolutions of each congress throughout Indonesia. They publicised resolutions in the press and in public discussions held in city and regional areas. In doing so they attempted to connect the struggles of Indonesian women with those of women more broadly. Gerwani activists at all levels were also educated as to the causes === [PDF page 15] === 206 INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD of the WIDF thus creating a strong awareness in Indonesia of the transnational nature of many of the causes for which Indonesian women were fighting (Sulami 1959, part 3: 31). Through their connections with the WIDF a select number of Indonesian women had the opportunity to travel abroad and educate women overseas as to the issues of importance to Indonesian women. In their interactions with other women in East Berlin, through their submissions to congresses and in the articles they contributed to Women of the Whole World they shared stories of their successes and continuing struggles in achieving women’s rights. Here they emphasised the on-going issues of child and forced marriages, rights for working women, illiteracy and the lack of education for women and issues affecting the most oppressed Indonesian women: the peasants. Gerwani attracted much attention from the WIDF due to their rapid growth as a mass movement from the mid 1950s onwards. Building on the WIDF’s support for the independence of nations, Gerwani women also continued to alert members of the WIDF to on-going imperialism in Indonesia as a consequence of the unfair terms of the transfer of sovereignty in 1949 including foreign domination of the economy. In the 1960s as anti-imperialism eclipsed Gerwani’s focus on women, however, the two organisations reached an impasse. 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Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wimmer, A. and Shiller, N.G. 2002. Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-State building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–34. Youngs, G. 2004. Feminist international relations: a contradiction in terms? Or: why women and gender are essential to understanding the world ‘we’ live in. International Affairs 80 (1): 75–87. Zanti, C. 1958. Letter to Women’s International Democratic Federation member organizations concerning Mrs Geeta Mukherjee’s account of the work and progress of the Indonesian Women’s Movement. (21 April). Women’s International Democratic Federation Collection (1950 –1985). Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History. Katharine McGregor is Senior Lecturer in Southeast Asian History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is author of History in uniform: military ideology and the construction of the Indonesian past (NUS Press, 2007) and coeditor with Douglas Kammen of The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965 –68 (NUS Press, 2012). This article forms part of a larger research project entitled ‘Indonesians on the World Stage: Transnational Political Activism in the Shadow of the Cold War