ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the consequences of New Order policies for Indonesian women. The recent events in Indonesia have underscored the importance of giving credence to women as political actors, as both subjects and agents of change. New Order policies for women have been characterised by the promotion of gender difference, with officially sanctioned images of femininity locating Indonesian women as subordinate to men within the family and the State. Principles of social organisation are not immutable, and coexist with other ideological systems that attempt to regulate personal and social life. Women and men benefited equally from some of the material improvements in the term of the New Order until the onset of the monetary crisis at the end of 1997. The economic policies pursued by the New Order have transformed the social and economic participation of men and women in ways that contradict the prevailing state ideology that emphasised domestic roles for women.
