ABSTRACT
Suharto’s New Order exercised gendered power through policies such as family planning and state control of women’s organizations in a familial model that registered male authority. This gendered power operated discursively: officially sanctioned images of femininity in this period symbolized Indonesian women as subordinate to men within the family and the state, with their primary civic duties performed in their roles as wives and mothers. Repressive and restrictive representations of women and circumscribed female roles in public life underpinned the political system. Women’s citizenship was maternal citizenship, and their difference from men was deemed to be located in their kodrat (biologically specific nature) assumed to be God given and sanctioned by Islam. It was a central pillar of the ideology of the New Order-the azas kekeluargaan, the family foundation of the state. The family trope symbolically anchored the militarized hegemonic masculinity and disguised its violent character through the image of the benevolent bapak (father). The associated exercise of authoritarian power supported the monopolization of political and economic control by a small elite of military men and rent-seeking cronies (Robison 1986).
