ABSTRACT
The relationship between Islam and feminism became increasingly more divergent during the development era as the domestication of the Western concepts of developmentalism, gender, and feminism; the state imposition of Pancasila ideology; and the institutionalization of maternal virtue intersected in defining women’s roles in national development during the New Order regime. The government’s adoption of Western concepts, such as Women in Development (WID), Gender in Development (GID), and Gender and Development (GAD), set the tone for how women were included in Indonesia’s national development. As in many Asian countries, women’s contribution to national development in Indonesia was cast in terms of their roles as supportive wives and mothers. The deployment of maternal virtues reiterated the dual function of women during the development era as carriers of tradition and caretakers of the integrity of “the family” against the excesses of developmentalism. In the process, the state not only designated women as mothers and wives by instituting maternal virtue to impose gender order but also reworked gender roles in the private and public spheres. The state’s imposition of this gender order set the divergent relationship among women’s organizations in articulating their visions and goals of equality according to state, feminist, and Islamic aspirations. The state discursively and nondiscursively dominated gender politics by infusing the gender ideology of maternal virtue into women’s organizations, especially through Dharma Wanita (Women Virtue) and Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Welfare Guidance), and through the institutionalization of maternal virtue in the 1974 Marriage Law. While the state extended paternalistic support for nearly all women’s groups, its policies on women’s roles in development were under the scrutiny of nongovernmental agencies and feminist camps. Nongovernmental agencies opposed the state’s imposition of gender order by employing gender analysis in addressing violence in family and workplace, whereas feminist academicians sought to indigenize feminism within the contexts of Indonesian politics. By the 1980s, the gender and feminist critiques on the gender order were on the rise in secular settings. Secular feminism capitalized on Islam’s hierarchical views and practices of gender and, consequently, perceived Islam as a hindrance to women’s progress. The relegation of Islam as less important to women’s empowerment and progress mirrored the undercurrent of the New Order’s politicization of Islam. The state’s emphasis on gender order and its various responses sparked the autonomous and parallel spheres of Islamic and feminist equality during the development era.
