Repressed Female Sexuality in Indonesia Abigail Byrne SOAN 102 Why does Indonesian culture continue to women of their sexuality, which results in fits of hysterical illness?

http://www.magnolia-kazanlak.com/images/img042.jpg

Research Findings - Cultural silencing has persisted due to reinforcing factors but the practice is changing

• This question is relevant because of the struggles with women’s rights that are occurring across the globe. The struggle in Indonesia is representative of the issues that Western modernized countries are facing on a more subtle level. For example, In the United States’ pop culture, women are eroticized and held to unrealistic standards of body image. Although this perception of sexuality exists, any woman that outwardly embraces her sexuality is deemed a ‘slut’ and judged for her promiscuity.

• The patriarchic organization of society, which is strengthened by the disempowerment of women, giving men the dominant stance pertaining to sexuality. (Creese, 2004; Jennaway, 2002) • Women in villages in Indonesia expressed the frustration they feel from their inability to discuss and act out their sexual urges. They talked about how they feel the hysterical illnesses arising from their frustrations. One woman, Ning, talked about the sickness she felt knowing the object of her desire was nearby but knowing that she could not approach him or act out her desires. (Jennaway, 2002)

• This practice could be of interest to other anthropologists who study the development of gender and sexual identity in cultures and how those roles might be changing with the global exchange of information. • This practice is of a complicated nature because women’s sexuality is abused while their voice is silenced. It raises interesting questions about the nature of human sexuality.

• In Indonesian culture repressed sexuality is expressed through fits of hysterical illnesses. The fits are viewed as symbolic of feminine power, which creates a hierarchy among women. The women who are the least sexually fulfilled have the most intense fits of hysterical illness and therefore have the strongest “feminine power”. They are viewed as having a superior sense of their femininity and control over it by other women. (Jennaway, 2003)

History of Female Repression

• The tone set by sexual education in Indonesia is condemning of women who engage their sexuality rather than encouraging of healthy expressions of sexuality and safe sexual practices. (Holzner and Oetomo, 2004)

• Based on Kakawin poetry texts, the tradition originated in the royal courts. These texts are mainly from the Javanese courts, composed between 1049 AD and 1527 AD. There are texts surviving from as late as the 15th century. • Marriage is depicted as a significant determination of political significance and the relationships between powerful families. The majority of the marriages are arranged and require equality in status for both parties; for the women, this means maintaining an image as a pure, delicate creature. A suitable husband must be linked to a previous divine being, have high social status, and be of a certain degree of kinship, usually cousinhood; because this standard is so precise, when a suitable husband has been found, the bride must accept her spouse and is responsible for maintaining her marriage.

• The tradition of cultural silencing is changing. (Adnkronos, 2009) The more globalized youth culture is rejecting the oppression of female sexuality, which is resulting in clandestine courtship behaviors, meaning they are more willing to engage in premarital sex, but are also wanting to keep those relationships as secretive as possible. (Bennett, 2005) http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6450446.jpg

• The younger generations are reaching for sexual fulfillment of both men and women, which, while being healthier expression of sexuality, is wrought with issues as the youth are not being taught safe sex practices. (Holzner and Oetomo, 2004). Even the use of love magic among the youth is adapting to be more gender equal, which is removing the silencing of women. (Bennett, 2003)

• Because divorce was available and men were allowed to be polygamous and women were only expected to marry once, the success of a marriage was of much higher consequence for the bride. Lastly, if a woman were not married, she would be considered as not having fulfilled her purpose in this life.

So Where Does This Leave Us? In this particular instance, a people have engaged in systematic oppression of a large group within the culture because it is a tradition linked to lineage relations and the formations of marriages. It has persisted because other beliefs have developed around that tradition. It is necessary to understand why a practice exists within a group before those outside the group form a collective opinion on it. The question of how the oppressed women in Indonesia feel about their silencing and how the practices changes can be used as a cultural development model in other groups experiencing similar tensions. So other local governments could look at successful educational programming in Bali and Java communities and use that to develop community programs to help themselves move away from similar oppressive patterns.

• Created the tone of responsibility of the woman in being desirable to a potential husband by maintaining her purity and also in maintaining the marriage through by being a woman with developed sexuality. • The practices trickled down from court life into the lives and traditions of the peasants because the royalty were viewed as being of a higher order and therefore worth copying. (Creese, 2004)

Java

Disagree?

Bali

Reference List

http://www.maparchive.org/data/media/120/indonesia_relief.jpg

One inherent contradiction is that women are expected to be virginal and nubile, both enough to attract a desirable husband. They are expected to use their sexuality to lure a husband without engaging in any forms of expressing that sexuality. Those seem like big enough contradictions that it is almost like the women are set up to fail. However, because so much of the success of marriages is lain on women, and successful marriages are crucial for childbearing, we know that the society does not inherently want the women to fail.

• Adnkronos International. 2009. Indonesia: Women Prefer Divorce to Polygamy in Islamic Courts. http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.0.2978152304, accessed 2/11/09. • Bennett, Linda Rae. 2003. Indonesian Youth, Love Magic and the In/Visibility of Sexual Desire. Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs. 37(1): 135-158. 2005. Patterns of Resistance and Transgression in Eastern Indonesia: Single Woman’s Practices of Clandestine Courtship and Cohabitation. Culture, Health & Sexuality. 7(2): 101-112. • Blackburn, Susan. 2004. Review Article Two Views of Indonesian Women: Matriarchy vs Patriarchy. Australian Feminist Studies 19(44): 241-243. • Hughes, Donna M., with Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn and Vanessa Chirgwin. The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation – Indonesia. Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Indonesia.php, accessed on 2/11/09. • Creese, Helen. 2004. Women of the Kakawin World: Marriage and Sexuality in the Indic Courts of Java and Bali. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. • Graham, Sharyn. 2005. Review of Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36(1): 160-162. • Holzner, Brigitte M., and Oetomo, Dédé. 2004. Youth, Sexuality and Sex Education Messages in Indonesia: Issues of Desire and Control. Reproductive Health Matters. 12(23): 40-49. • Jennaway, Megan. 2003. Displacing Desire: Sex and Sickness in North Bali. Culture, Health & Sexuality. 5(3): 185-201. 2002. Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.