ABSTRACT

Chapter 1 introduces the sites that spark feminist ideas among pioneering women in the early 1900s and shape the making of the emancipation era. It identifies the historical significance of efforts made by pioneering women who promoted emancipation through physical revolution and cultural education. Physical revolution was attributed to a resistance movement by pioneering women who resisted Dutch colonialism, 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, the importance of cultural education was a common concern among pioneering educators, such as Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905), Dewi Sartika (1884–1947), and Rahmah El-Joenesijjah (1900–1969). These pioneering women promoted emancipation and progress for women through education within the contexts of colonialism. I use education as one of the sites for women’s emancipation to show the commonality between Indonesian and Western feminism at its early formation. Along with education, I also cite nationalism and Islamic reform as sites for the pursuit of emancipation, not only for individual men and women, but also for the nation. The inclusion of women in nationalist projects, especially within Islamic reform movements such as Aisyiyah (19l7) of Muhammadiyah, Persatuan Islam Istri (Persistri, 1936) of Persatuan Islam (Persis), and Muslimat of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, l946) undergirds the rediscovery of Islam as a source of progress for Muslim communities. The resignification of Islam as a source of progress linked Islamic reform movements in Indonesia to those in the Middle East. Equally important to mention is the linkage of women’s promotion of emancipation through education in Indonesia to Western feminism. I point to the examples of Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1905) and Maria Ullfah (1911–1988) to demonstrate the connectivity of the local and global nexus in women’s movements as well as the changes in women’s access to education. The confluence of efforts made by pioneering women, Islamic reform’s inclusion of women in nationalist projects, and their connectivity to international women’s movements underlies the epistemological formulation of the changing relationship between Islam and feminism. The emerging relationship between Islam and feminism makes up the emancipation era.