A Genealogy of Islamic Feminism

Pattern and Change in Indonesia

Etin Anwar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351757041
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A Genealogy of Islamic Feminism offers a new insight on the changing relationship between Islam and feminism from the colonial era in the 1900s to the early 1990s in Indonesia.

The book juxtaposes both colonial and postcolonial sites to show the changes and the patterns of the encounters between Islam and feminism within the global and local nexus. Global forces include Dutch colonialism, developmentalism, transnational feminism, and the United Nations' institutional bodies and their conferences. Local factors are comprised of women's movements, adat (customs), nationalism, the politics underlying the imposition of Pancasila ideology and maternal virtues, and variations of Islamic revivalism. Using a genealogical approach, the book examines the multifaceted encounters between Islam and feminism and attempts to rediscover egalitarianism in the Islamic tradition—a concept which has been subjugated by hierarchical gender systems. The book also systematizes Muslim women's encounters with Islam and feminism into five phases: emancipation, association, development, integration, and proliferation eras. Each era discusses the confluence of global and local factors which shape the changing relationship between Islam and feminism and the way in which the discursive narrative of equality is debated and contextualized, progressing from biological determinism ( kodrat ) to the ethico-spiritual argument.

Islamic feminism contributes to the rediscovery of Islam as the source of progress, the centering of women's agency through spiritual equality, and the reworking of the private and public spheres. This book will appeal to anyone with interest in international women's movements, interdisciplinary studies, cultural studies, women's studies, post-colonial studies, Islamic studies, and Asian studies.

1 The making of the emancipation era

A stepping-stone toward gender equality

This chapter discusses Indonesian women’s early encounters with the pursuit of progress within the contexts of colonialism, nationalism, and Islamic reform in the early 1900s. Indonesian and Western scholars locate the historical significance of women’s encounters with progressive ideas among Indonesian female pioneers through stories of heroism against Dutch colonialism, the emergence of national consciousness, and nation building.¹ I document this encounter by showing representative moments from the pursuit of “emancipation” among individual pioneering women (tokoh wanita), such as Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905), Dewi Sartika (1884–1947), and Rahmah El-Joenesijjah (1900–1969), capturing the spirit of nationalism, and locating the encounter between Islam and feminism as a source of progress within the local colonial settings. I also describe how the emancipatory process was debated and the extent to which both colonial feminism and Islamic reformism propelled the emerging relationship between Islam and feminism. I argue that feminist and Islamic ideas of progress not only served as a reference for contemporary Islamic feminists and gender activists but also provided them with an alternative view to dominant colonial discourses, practices, and policies.

Scholars such as Cora Vreede-de Stuers and Elsbeth Locher-Scholten show how the Dutch had the upper hand in the colonial discourses of emancipation. The image making of Kartini as the most prominent woman to represent “emancipation” infused a dominant colonial rhetoric in casting the need to liberate native women from backwardness. Vreede-de Stuers argues that Kartini’s image “was pushed to the foreground so as to become known all over the Netherlands’ Indies.”² Locher-Scholten labels Kartini as the “famous forerunner” in Indonesian feminism “who championed education for girls, monogamy, and the development of Javanese arts.”³ The image making of Kartini as women’s rights champion coincided with the policy to promote girls’ education “pursued by the director of education in the Netherlands – who also edited Kartini’s letters […] Everywhere Kartini’s name became the banner for the struggle for women’s emancipation through school education.”⁴ The elevation of Kartini as the model for emancipation demonstrates how women’s progress was cast in Western terms and served as a strategic power to project Western superiority over indigenous inferiority. The colonial project treated indigenous women as the other, who were “steeped in adat and religion” and whose activism was closely monitored and scrutinized.⁵ It was within these contexts that that call for emancipation emerged.

Despite the portrayal of indigenous women as the victims of religion and old-fashioned traditions, their efforts to raise awareness for the freedom of their country and the rights of women led to a call for “emancipation.” Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905) introduced the term “emancipation” to promote equality for men and women across various classes, ethnicities, races, and religions. Sitidjauhari Sudiro, an activist for women’s associations of Jong Java (founded March 7, 1915) and Jong Islamieten Bond (January 1, 1925), referred to the Kartini era as the emancipation era.⁶ Sudiro pointed out that Kartini’s book, titled Door Duisternis tot Light (Through Darkness to the Light), inspired women after her to educate themselves. She notes that Kartini’s contribution, however, did not go far enough to argue for independence. In this era, women’s struggles were only directed toward the demand for equal rights between women and men and the efforts of consciousness raising about their duties and responsibilities at the personal, familial, and societal levels. Overall, women were legging behind when it came to leadership and public initiatives.

Kartini, Sartika, and El-Joenesijjah were among few pioneering women who advocated for the need to transform the social status of women through education. While they differed in tactics, geographical locations, class status, and religious contexts, they promoted emancipation for women and progress for the nation. Pioneering women in Indonesia fought for emancipation within the wider struggle against colonial rule and traditional social practices. As they expressed their ideas for progress within their own geopolitical localities and local cultures, they addressed oppressive cultures, such as the exclusion of women from education, abusive marriages, and unilateral divorce. This quest for progress later solidified and created a precedence for how women’s movements in the colonial setting were inclusive of nationalism and Islamic reformism.

The quest for progress among pioneering women leads to several distinctive features of the emancipation era. First, initiators of progress were mostly women of elite families who received support from male family members. Men’s support of women’s progress played an important role in casting women’s participation in public as being a socially acceptable activity. Consequently, women recognized men as partners in their promotion of equality and the elimination of oppressive practices. The inclusion of men as partners in pursuing sovereignty and women’s rights reinforced the contextual distinctiveness of Indonesia where kinship relations mattered. While women in various locations in Indonesia have invoked the historical contributions of pioneering women when making arguments for their pursuit of gender equality and peacemaking, they have also been vocal regarding the value of men’s support for their movements. The second distinctive feature of this era includes the use of the rhetoric of emancipation to respond to the influence of Western colonial culture and the need for Islam to be more inclusive of women. It is a reflection of this challenge that postcolonial studies on Muslim women’s movements in Indonesia are inclusive of a multitude of responses toward oppressive colonial cultures and the progressive nature of Islamic reformism. Third, women’s pursuit for emancipation was connected to global feminism as well. While ideas for progress in Islam and “feminism” were locally grown and reflected the growing interest in nationalism, they were intricately linked to Islamic and feminist global networks.

In this chapter, I locate sites that sparked the Islamic and feminist encounters in the early 1900s and their impact on the discursive narrative of emancipation and progress for the homeland. The first section deals with the promotion of emancipation among pioneering women through physical revolution and cultural education. Physical revolution was common among pioneering women who resisted the Dutch colonialism by being physically involved in the resistance movement, as exemplified by Marta Christina Tiahahu of the Moluccas (d. 1818), Tjut Njak Dien of Aceh (d. 1908), and Tjut Njak Meutia of Aceh (d. 1910). Likewise, cultural education was a shared theme among pioneering educators, such as Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905), Dewi Sartika (1884–1947), and Rahmah El-Joenesijjah (1900–1969). I use education as the case in point of the Islamic and feminist encounter to demonstrate that women’s right to education serves as the hallmark for the emancipatory movement. Education was central not only to pioneering women but also to Islamic and nationalist reform movements. The second section contextualizes the emergence of Islamic reformism within the context of nationalism, its goals to pursue progress for men and women, and its connection to the Middle East. In showing the local and global connection, the chapter ends with the discussion of the broader context of the emancipation for gender equality as it relates to Euro-American feminism and Muslim women’s movements in the Middle East. I will particularly discuss Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905) and Maria Ullfah (1911–1988) in the last section to show continuity of education for women. I will now discuss the first site that contributes to the making of the emancipation era by highlighting contributions made by pioneering women in promoting emancipation and progress.

Casting emancipation: pioneering women and the politics of representation

The image making of emancipation portrays the distinct discursive narratives of the colonial and native projects. The colonial project painted women’s resistance toward the colonial imposition as “rebellion,” whereas Indonesians valued them as “resistance.” The colonials also elevated the narrative of a woman who was bound to a cultural imposition, such as in Kartini, while neglecting other stories that did not fit the colonial project. Scholars, such as Vreede-de Stuers, show how the image making of Rahmah El-Joenesijjah (1900–1969) did not enter the colonial narrative because her contribution to women’s rights was cast only in terms of Islamic reformism.⁷ As women’s contributions to women’s rights were divided into Islamic and feminist spheres, their narratives were often valued as two separate but parallel spheres. Against the colonial narrative of “emancipation,” this section shows how pioneering women contributed to the nationalist project as an inseparable aspect of their struggle for gender equality.

I approach the discursive narrative of “emancipation” in the early 1900s by examining legacies of pioneering women in resisting Dutch colonialism and oppressive local practices and promoting women’s education. The promotion of women’s emancipation can be categorized into two models: physical resistance and cultural education. The physical resistance model refers to women’s struggles against the Dutch colonial regime through physical involvement in the battlefield, as seen in the cases of Marta Christina Tiahahu of the Moluccas (d. 1818), Tjut Njak Dien of Aceh (d. 1908), and Tjut Njak Meutia of Aceh (d. 1910), to mention a few. These women were involved in struggles against the Dutch during the colonial period. Cultural education refers to attempts by pioneering women such as Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905), Dewi Sartika (1884–1947), and Rahmah El-Joenesijjah (1900–1969). They promoted education for girls as a means to emancipate women from illiteracy, backwardness, and subordination. I call it “cultural education” because Kartini, Sartika, and El-Joenesijjah promoted education to enhance women’s cultural and social skills as mothers and wives. They offered education that empowered women with greater knowledge of household management. While there are ample examples of pioneering women in the 1900s, I have chosen Raden Adjeng Kartini, Dewi Sartika, and Rahmah El-Joenesijjah to show how the role of Islam varies depending on class, location, religious tendency, and its relationship to colonialism. In addition, each of these individual pioneering women has continuously inspired contemporary Indonesians, and they have become staples in school textbooks. These textbooks shed light on how pioneering women’s pursuit of progress contributed to the spirit of progress locally, a new debate about Islam, the public role of women, and the expansion of the public sphere for women.

Pioneering women who made progress by way of physical resistance

The pattern of women’s engagement with physical resistance happened in places where the Dutch expanded their foothold. Locher-Scholten’s work shows that the making of Dutch colonialism from the eighte...