#intanparamaditha — Public Fediverse posts

Unpacking: Feminist Strategies in Indonesian Art and Culture by Intan Paramaditha from Magdalene.co

Unpacking: Feminist Strategies in Indonesian Art and Culture

Despite the dominance of patriarchy in the arts and culture, women continue to come up with strategies.

By Intan Paramaditha from Magdalene.co, February 27, 2019

2018 was a year of contesting space in the arts and culture, as tensions sharpened between dominant ideological practices and the various groups that challenged them, sought alternative routes and broke through. The good news is that women have never stopped strategizing—and they will continue to do so.
Twenty years of the Reformasi era (since the 1998 democratic reforms) reminds us of the resurgence of women’s movements after their marginalization and depoliticization under the New Order regime (1965 to 1998). Yet gender bias remains deeply entrenched everywhere, including in the arts and culture. In 2018, arts forums, cultural discussions, competitions, and award ceremonies continued to feature “all-male panels,” perpetuating men’s dominance as authoritative voices and decision-makers.

For example, few women’s names appeared among the nominees for literary awards over the past two or three years. “Indie” festivals and events, which we expect to offer an alternative to dominant constructions of taste, are also often inattentive to the importance of women’s voices. Even at the Cultural Congress held toward the end of last year, from December 5 to 9, 2018, it was difficult to find panels that included women as speakers or experts, let alone panels that considered feminist perspectives.

On the other hand, I was fortunate to be involved in two cultural-activism projects and to work alongside women who continually seek possibilities for intervening in and reshaping public space. At the beginning of last year, I served as one of the judges for Cipta Media Ekspresi, a grant program for women cultural practitioners working in all fields of the arts. The grant was followed by a mentoring program, a program dedicated to refining creative work and developing conceptual frameworks through the School of Women’s Thought (Sekolah Pemikiran Perempuan) held in Yogyakarta, from October 17 to 19, 2018, as well as several other initiatives that are continuing this year.

On a smaller scale, my fellow writer Lily Yulianti Farid and I organized Period, a class in literary and film criticism, on December 17–18, 2018. The class was one step toward helping build a more critical, diverse, and equitable arts ecosystem. Taught by Melani Budianta and Lisabona Rahman, it was open to everyone—women, men, and others—but emphasized feminist perspectives in the process of curating the reading materials and works to be examined.

My experience over the past year has shown me three things: 1. We are not lacking in women working in the arts and culture. 2. The exclusion of women’s voices and feminist perspectives from dominant spaces and strategic positions continues. 3. Despite the limited space available to them, women continue to devise strategies. These findings are not new, and the two projects I have mentioned represent only a small fraction of the many collective initiatives undertaken by women in response to patriarchal dominance in the arts and culture. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write about them, again and again.

At the 2009 Symposium on Performance in Indonesia, held in Yogyakarta, a number of women artists and activists in the Gender and Sexuality focus group mapped these issues and held a series of meetings to determine their next steps. Ten years later, we still face many of the same problems.

The forty women who received Cipta Media Ekspresi grants represented western, central, and eastern Indonesia and came from diverse backgrounds: traditional sinden vocalists, rock musicians, Quranic scholars, laborers, homemakers, and indigenous leaders. Throughout 2018, news about the grantees’ various stages of creative work—research, production, and performance—continued to circulate, and my timeline filled with the names of women creators and researchers in literature, theater, dance, film, visual art, and music. They were all women or identified as women. This immediately dismantles the claim that women’s supposedly limited participation justifies male dominance in arts and cultural forums. In reality, women are present. They think, create, make decisions, and collaborate.

I documented the various challenges facing women in the arts and culture, as well as the range of strategies that emerged, while working with women’s rights activist Andy Yentriyani and colleagues at Cipta Media Ekspresi to design the School of Women’s Thought program. The central problem in the arts and culture is not women’s absence, but the inability to recognize and value their work. What should have been done long ago, then, is to dismantle the ideologies and practices of the institutions that constrain—and even erase—women’s endeavors. How do the institutions of family, marriage, and religion serve as signposts that dictate the limits of women’s creative work? How do the cultural “gatekeepers”—schools, arts communities, critics, and arts councils—continue to determine access and establish standards without considering feminist perspectives?

Over the past year, I have witnessed women navigating these conditions in many different ways. The presence of women instructors and speakers in Period workshops, for example, can be seen as a quick strategy in response to the “all-male panel.” But some strategies take years to develop. How can we create and sustain spaces that recognize women’s work? How can we continue to ensure the visibility of women artists and intellectuals in the public sphere?

This essay presents several feminist strategies in the arts and culture—a reminder, or a kind of crib sheet, that we can keep consulting, because we are quick to forget, and quick to be forgotten. I refer to a range of initiatives conceived and led by women. I do not call them “first steps” because, as I noted above, women’s collectives have been strategizing for a long time.

Unpack: Keywords in Women’s Thought

At the Cipta Media Ekspresi School of Women’s Thought in Yogyakarta, we discussed several keywords for collective examination, including “the body,” “politics,” and “power.” There is one important word we should underscore as a feminist keyword: “unpack.”

The first thing we need to do, whether as creators or as readers and viewers, is to unpack the assumptions in our heads. The spirit of unpacking is the spirit of asking questions rather than making statements.

Ika Vantiani’s visual-art project offers an important example of how women can—and must—unpack concepts that are regarded as ordinary and accepted without question. In last year’s exhibition and installation Women and the Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language, Ika examined the definition of the word “woman” in Indonesia’s official dictionary, the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia or KBBI. She found that the word never escaped either the reproductive sphere (“capable of menstruating, becoming pregnant, giving birth, and breastfeeding”) or the sexual sphere (“prostitute,” “bad woman,” “mistress”). Why is there no example such as “woman president,” for instance? Ika’s findings show how a patriarchal viewpoint operates through institutional legitimization of meaning.

Women are constantly taught to arrange or organize what already exists rather than create something new. They are trained to clean the house, tidy their rooms, build a household, and ensure that every element of their lives remains harmonious. In the process of putting things in order, they are often discouraged from asking questions, because questions, challenges, and any activity that involves unpacking may threaten the status quo. Women should therefore claim the word “unpack” and make it part of feminist transformation.

Recognizing Women’s Work as Feminist Ethics

One strategy for supporting women in the arts and culture is to make the effort to recognize and appreciate women’s work part of feminist ethics. Whoever we are—as creators, readers, viewers, critics, or activists—we can begin by asking ourselves: How many works by women have we read? Which women directors, choreographers, or composers do we know? If women’s names are difficult to find, we have a responsibility to ask why and to seek them out.

At the School of Women’s Thought, we held a “critical appreciation club,” a discussion forum designed to sharpen participants’ analytical skills in responding to creative work. Led by artist Naomi Srikandi and film critic and archivist Lisabona Rahman, we discussed works by two women artists, Melati Suryodarmo and Mouly Surya. In the Period literary and film criticism class, participants were asked to write reviews of works selected by the organizers and instructors. Most of the works on the list were by women writers and directors.

Why bring identity into it instead of simply viewing an artist as an artist, without regard to whether they are a man or a woman? Because no work is value-free: every work, whether or not it claims to pursue a political agenda, is a product of ideology. In practice, although we know certain prominent—and privileged—women’s names, most work by women is often not taken seriously. Gender bias shapes the institutionalization of aesthetic standards, and it also affects how women’s work is evaluated according to particular stereotypes.

One strategy that must be pursued continuously is to treat discussion forums as showcases for women’s thought. Here, we should detach the idea of a showcase from its stereotypically feminine associations—such as a mannequin in a fashionable dress—and reimagine it as a space for displaying the ideas of women creators and intellectuals. We need to keep creating such showcase spaces, whether temporary or permanent.

Tracing Feminist Methodologies

Studying feminist methodologies can sharpen our creative practices, research, and activism. There are, of course, many different feminist methodologies, but I want to emphasize two aspects relevant to art and culture: 1. An awareness of the relationship between power and the institutionalization of value, as seen in the practice of constructing canons. 2. An awareness that historiography is not neutral.

Curator Alia Swastika shared the story of a woman artist who was not considered good enough within the mainstream visual-arts landscape. Rather than quickly compromising in response to this rejection, Alia, as a feminist curator, traced the origins of particular aesthetic standards, identified who established them, and examined who benefited from—and who was excluded by—those standards.

In her research on the work of painter Emiria Soenassa, scholar Heidi Arbuckle found that she encountered more information about Emiria in women’s magazines than in magazines or forums devoted to “high art.” Heidi therefore employed a feminist methodology that traces women’s roles in history through alternative channels such as memory, oral testimony, caricature, anecdotes, and even gossip columns.

What gets written, appreciated, and deemed worthy of inclusion in the canon is a matter of power structures and power relations. The canonization of Western literature has long been criticized for centering the work of white men. It is therefore astonishing that, after so many debates about the politics of exclusion, the panel on literary canonization at last year’s Cultural Congress included no women speakers whatsoever. Discussions about the importance of the canon—and critiques of the very idea of the canon—will go nowhere without taking women’s perspectives into account.

The institutionalization of what is and is not considered valuable is not a neutral process, and neither is historiography. That is why, in my essay A Feminist Trajectory of Literary Influences, I underscored the importance of tracing the genealogy of women’s thought. If public discourse about culture so often refers to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Umar Kayam, or Goenawan Mohamad, why not also draw on the concepts developed by intellectuals such as Saparinah Sadli, Toeti Heraty, Melani Budianta, and Julia Suryakusuma? The recording of history, along with the practices of citation and reference, is a politics of recognition and exclusion.

One of the many interventions worth noting from last year was Ruang Perempuan dan Tulisan (Women and Writing Space). Conceived by Dewi Noviami and Dewi Kharisma Michellia and involving a number of young women writers, the project sought to examine and document the contributions of women writers from earlier periods. As we might expect, their ideas and names have often been excluded from—and erased from—history.

Challenging the Relationship Between Women and Aesthetics

“How can women’s work transcend its personal and autobiographical qualities?” A male literary figure once posed this question at a forum discussing the work of women writers. A young woman writer criticized the question, pointing out that many works by men are autobiographical yet are still considered to possess high aesthetic value.

Again, returning to the keyword “unpack,” we need to keep challenging the assumptions behind questions that oversimplify the relationship between women and aesthetics. Is women’s work really more personal and autobiographical than experimental? Is it true that work advancing a particular political position—such as a feminist agenda—tends to neglect aesthetics?
At a discussion commemorating the work and career of Nh. Dini at Bentara Budaya Jakarta last December, I was reminded once again of the assumptions attached to women writers. In the 1980s, women’s writing was considered concerned only with feminine and domestic issues—romance and household matters, for example—and incapable of addressing major ideas such as nationhood and nationalism. Yet if we read Nh. Dini’s work closely, we can see a vision of cosmopolitanism that both engages with and comes into tension with ideas of national identity.

Nh. Dini also criticized the unequal relationship between East and West on the global stage. We therefore need to unpack our own ways of seeing. Have we considered the work’s many possible interpretations? Have we been trained to view women’s work in such a way that, without realizing it, we place it into preexisting categories?

Recognizing Spaces Created by Women

We need to recognize and acknowledge women’s initiatives to create alternative spaces. Focusing on the genius of writers, directors, choreographers, and others ultimately traps us within a masculine Romantic logic that separates infrastructure from the concept of the auteur. Yet that infrastructure consists precisely of invisible “reproductive labor”—work that, as Cecil Mariani pointed out in her presentation, is performed predominantly by women.

Women’s skill in organizing and running projects is often dismissed as mere administrative ability. Yet this very expertise has produced outstanding producer-founders since the 2000s, including Mira Lesmana, Shanty Harmayn, Nia Dinata, and Meiske Taurisia. These women have not only reimagined the role of the producer; within the scope of their respective positions, they have also opened up space for discussions of gender.

Over the past ten years, I have witnessed countless remarkable initiatives led by women. As a feminist media outlet, Magdalene continues to feature the voices of women experts in fields ranging from religion to law, while also providing young women with a platform to articulate their ideas and engage in dialogue. Beyond her individual work as an artist, Ika Vantiani is one of the founders of the collective Mari Jeung Rebut Kembali, which advocates the importance of reclaiming authority over women’s bodies. House of the Unsilenced, founded by Eliza Vitri Handayani, has once again underscored the urgency of sexual-violence issues through collaborations between artists and survivors.
Olin Monteiro continues to build networks of women artists, particularly outside Java and Sumatra, through Arts for Women and Penerbitan Buku-Buku Perempuan. Then, this coming March, the Perempuan Lintas Batas collective, or Peretas, will hold a gathering in Poso, Central Sulawesi, bringing together fifty women working in the arts and culture to discuss issues, strengthen their networks, and explore possibilities for collaboration.

These examples represent only a small selection of the many alternative spaces developed through women’s efforts. Since most of these initiatives are independent, do-it-yourself projects whose funding is not always secure, sustainability is often a major challenge. Their existence nevertheless reminds us, first, to appreciate the courage, political commitments, and creativity reflected in women’s diverse strategies; and second, to understand that many paths exist beyond the dominant ones.

During a public discussion at the School of Women’s Thought, one participant asked whether she should change herself and her work in order to be accepted by the broader public. Lisabona Rahman, the program’s mentor and chair of the Cipta Media Ekspresi jury, replied: “It is best not to compromise when it comes to ideas. If one door is closed, find another.”

If certain cultural spheres do not support a woman artist, she knows that a variety of women’s collectives are ready to support her along alternative paths. Perhaps what she has conceived is better suited to the realm of the counterpublic, where alternative discourses circulate—and where most feminist cultural-activism projects are situated.

Working Toward Plurality

Women’s various strategies should be grounded in a feminist orientation toward plurality rather than uniformity. First, we can understand “plurality” as an approach rooted in collaboration and flexibility. Collaboration among women is a form of resistance to a patriarchal system that tends to divide women by granting opportunities to only a select few. Why should we submit to the logic of competing for a single elite position when we have the opportunity to dismantle the space and make room for more women to participate?

Critiquing uniformity also means embracing flexibility in our strategies. In other words, we should not think in terms of one approach, but of many. To bring women’s ideas before a broader public, for example, we need a range of tactics. On the one hand, we still need infrastructures for women that are explicitly identified as “women’s” spaces—spaces where women can speak out forcefully within women’s networks. On the other hand, we also need different public strategies for involving men as stakeholders and encouraging them to use their privileges to express critical positions on gender-related issues.

Finally, an emphasis on plurality means continuing to pursue collective justice rather than settling for individual achievement. Of course, we value powerful women such as Susi Pudjiastuti and Sri Mulyani, who have broken through barriers. We also often understand our own achievements as feminist struggles. Yet this emphasis on individual achievement should not be allowed to become a comfort zone, because achievement is inseparable from the privileges a person possesses. Most women do not have those privileges, and we have been reminded by feminist writer Audre Lorde: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are different from my own.”

This post is based on https://magdalene.co/story/bongkar-siasat-feminis-dalam-seni-dan-budaya-di-indonesia/.

Author Background

Profile and Interviews:

• The Guardian: An article featuring Paramaditha discussing her novel The Wandering and its themes. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/06/the-wandering-intan-paramaditha-review-indonesian-writer-debut-novel.

Academic Background:

• Macquarie University: Faculty page with details on her academic career and research interests. Macquarie University, https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/intan-paramaditha.

Literary Contributions:

• Penguin Random House: Publisher’s page for The Wandering with a biography and summary of her works. Penguin Random House, https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/intan-paramaditha.

Recognition and Reviews:

• The Jakarta Post: An article discussing Paramaditha’s influence on Indonesian literature and reviews of her works. The Jakarta Post.
• Asia Society: A review of her collection Apple and Knife and its impact on readers. Asia Society.

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Unpacking: Feminist Strategies in Indonesian Art and Culture by Intan Paramaditha from Magdalene.co

Unpacking: Feminist Strategies in Indonesian Art and Culture

Despite the dominance of patriarchy in the arts and culture, women continue to come up with strategies.

By Intan Paramaditha from Magdalene.co, February 27, 2019

2018 was a year of contesting space in the arts and culture, as tensions sharpened between dominant ideological practices and the various groups that challenged them, sought alternative routes and broke through. The good news is that women have never stopped strategizing—and they will continue to do so.
Twenty years of the Reformasi era (since the 1998 democratic reforms) reminds us of the resurgence of women’s movements after their marginalization and depoliticization under the New Order regime (1965 to 1998). Yet gender bias remains deeply entrenched everywhere, including in the arts and culture. In 2018, arts forums, cultural discussions, competitions, and award ceremonies continued to feature “all-male panels,” perpetuating men’s dominance as authoritative voices and decision-makers.

For example, few women’s names appeared among the nominees for literary awards over the past two or three years. “Indie” festivals and events, which we expect to offer an alternative to dominant constructions of taste, are also often inattentive to the importance of women’s voices. Even at the Cultural Congress held toward the end of last year, from December 5 to 9, 2018, it was difficult to find panels that included women as speakers or experts, let alone panels that considered feminist perspectives.

On the other hand, I was fortunate to be involved in two cultural-activism projects and to work alongside women who continually seek possibilities for intervening in and reshaping public space. At the beginning of last year, I served as one of the judges for Cipta Media Ekspresi, a grant program for women cultural practitioners working in all fields of the arts. The grant was followed by a mentoring program, a program dedicated to refining creative work and developing conceptual frameworks through the School of Women’s Thought (Sekolah Pemikiran Perempuan) held in Yogyakarta, from October 17 to 19, 2018, as well as several other initiatives that are continuing this year.

On a smaller scale, my fellow writer Lily Yulianti Farid and I organized Period, a class in literary and film criticism, on December 17–18, 2018. The class was one step toward helping build a more critical, diverse, and equitable arts ecosystem. Taught by Melani Budianta and Lisabona Rahman, it was open to everyone—women, men, and others—but emphasized feminist perspectives in the process of curating the reading materials and works to be examined.

My experience over the past year has shown me three things: 1. We are not lacking in women working in the arts and culture. 2. The exclusion of women’s voices and feminist perspectives from dominant spaces and strategic positions continues. 3. Despite the limited space available to them, women continue to devise strategies. These findings are not new, and the two projects I have mentioned represent only a small fraction of the many collective initiatives undertaken by women in response to patriarchal dominance in the arts and culture. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write about them, again and again.

At the 2009 Symposium on Performance in Indonesia, held in Yogyakarta, a number of women artists and activists in the Gender and Sexuality focus group mapped these issues and held a series of meetings to determine their next steps. Ten years later, we still face many of the same problems.

The forty women who received Cipta Media Ekspresi grants represented western, central, and eastern Indonesia and came from diverse backgrounds: traditional sinden vocalists, rock musicians, Quranic scholars, laborers, homemakers, and indigenous leaders. Throughout 2018, news about the grantees’ various stages of creative work—research, production, and performance—continued to circulate, and my timeline filled with the names of women creators and researchers in literature, theater, dance, film, visual art, and music. They were all women or identified as women. This immediately dismantles the claim that women’s supposedly limited participation justifies male dominance in arts and cultural forums. In reality, women are present. They think, create, make decisions, and collaborate.

I documented the various challenges facing women in the arts and culture, as well as the range of strategies that emerged, while working with women’s rights activist Andy Yentriyani and colleagues at Cipta Media Ekspresi to design the School of Women’s Thought program. The central problem in the arts and culture is not women’s absence, but the inability to recognize and value their work. What should have been done long ago, then, is to dismantle the ideologies and practices of the institutions that constrain—and even erase—women’s endeavors. How do the institutions of family, marriage, and religion serve as signposts that dictate the limits of women’s creative work? How do the cultural “gatekeepers”—schools, arts communities, critics, and arts councils—continue to determine access and establish standards without considering feminist perspectives?

Over the past year, I have witnessed women navigating these conditions in many different ways. The presence of women instructors and speakers in Period workshops, for example, can be seen as a quick strategy in response to the “all-male panel.” But some strategies take years to develop. How can we create and sustain spaces that recognize women’s work? How can we continue to ensure the visibility of women artists and intellectuals in the public sphere?

This essay presents several feminist strategies in the arts and culture—a reminder, or a kind of crib sheet, that we can keep consulting, because we are quick to forget, and quick to be forgotten. I refer to a range of initiatives conceived and led by women. I do not call them “first steps” because, as I noted above, women’s collectives have been strategizing for a long time.

Unpack: Keywords in Women’s Thought

At the Cipta Media Ekspresi School of Women’s Thought in Yogyakarta, we discussed several keywords for collective examination, including “the body,” “politics,” and “power.” There is one important word we should underscore as a feminist keyword: “unpack.”

The first thing we need to do, whether as creators or as readers and viewers, is to unpack the assumptions in our heads. The spirit of unpacking is the spirit of asking questions rather than making statements.

Ika Vantiani’s visual-art project offers an important example of how women can—and must—unpack concepts that are regarded as ordinary and accepted without question. In last year’s exhibition and installation Women and the Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language, Ika examined the definition of the word “woman” in Indonesia’s official dictionary, the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia or KBBI. She found that the word never escaped either the reproductive sphere (“capable of menstruating, becoming pregnant, giving birth, and breastfeeding”) or the sexual sphere (“prostitute,” “bad woman,” “mistress”). Why is there no example such as “woman president,” for instance? Ika’s findings show how a patriarchal viewpoint operates through institutional legitimization of meaning.

Women are constantly taught to arrange or organize what already exists rather than create something new. They are trained to clean the house, tidy their rooms, build a household, and ensure that every element of their lives remains harmonious. In the process of putting things in order, they are often discouraged from asking questions, because questions, challenges, and any activity that involves unpacking may threaten the status quo. Women should therefore claim the word “unpack” and make it part of feminist transformation.

Recognizing Women’s Work as Feminist Ethics

One strategy for supporting women in the arts and culture is to make the effort to recognize and appreciate women’s work part of feminist ethics. Whoever we are—as creators, readers, viewers, critics, or activists—we can begin by asking ourselves: How many works by women have we read? Which women directors, choreographers, or composers do we know? If women’s names are difficult to find, we have a responsibility to ask why and to seek them out.

At the School of Women’s Thought, we held a “critical appreciation club,” a discussion forum designed to sharpen participants’ analytical skills in responding to creative work. Led by artist Naomi Srikandi and film critic and archivist Lisabona Rahman, we discussed works by two women artists, Melati Suryodarmo and Mouly Surya. In the Period literary and film criticism class, participants were asked to write reviews of works selected by the organizers and instructors. Most of the works on the list were by women writers and directors.

Why bring identity into it instead of simply viewing an artist as an artist, without regard to whether they are a man or a woman? Because no work is value-free: every work, whether or not it claims to pursue a political agenda, is a product of ideology. In practice, although we know certain prominent—and privileged—women’s names, most work by women is often not taken seriously. Gender bias shapes the institutionalization of aesthetic standards, and it also affects how women’s work is evaluated according to particular stereotypes.

One strategy that must be pursued continuously is to treat discussion forums as showcases for women’s thought. Here, we should detach the idea of a showcase from its stereotypically feminine associations—such as a mannequin in a fashionable dress—and reimagine it as a space for displaying the ideas of women creators and intellectuals. We need to keep creating such showcase spaces, whether temporary or permanent.

Tracing Feminist Methodologies

Studying feminist methodologies can sharpen our creative practices, research, and activism. There are, of course, many different feminist methodologies, but I want to emphasize two aspects relevant to art and culture: 1. An awareness of the relationship between power and the institutionalization of value, as seen in the practice of constructing canons. 2. An awareness that historiography is not neutral.

Curator Alia Swastika shared the story of a woman artist who was not considered good enough within the mainstream visual-arts landscape. Rather than quickly compromising in response to this rejection, Alia, as a feminist curator, traced the origins of particular aesthetic standards, identified who established them, and examined who benefited from—and who was excluded by—those standards.

In her research on the work of painter Emiria Soenassa, scholar Heidi Arbuckle found that she encountered more information about Emiria in women’s magazines than in magazines or forums devoted to “high art.” Heidi therefore employed a feminist methodology that traces women’s roles in history through alternative channels such as memory, oral testimony, caricature, anecdotes, and even gossip columns.

What gets written, appreciated, and deemed worthy of inclusion in the canon is a matter of power structures and power relations. The canonization of Western literature has long been criticized for centering the work of white men. It is therefore astonishing that, after so many debates about the politics of exclusion, the panel on literary canonization at last year’s Cultural Congress included no women speakers whatsoever. Discussions about the importance of the canon—and critiques of the very idea of the canon—will go nowhere without taking women’s perspectives into account.

The institutionalization of what is and is not considered valuable is not a neutral process, and neither is historiography. That is why, in my essay A Feminist Trajectory of Literary Influences, I underscored the importance of tracing the genealogy of women’s thought. If public discourse about culture so often refers to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Umar Kayam, or Goenawan Mohamad, why not also draw on the concepts developed by intellectuals such as Saparinah Sadli, Toeti Heraty, Melani Budianta, and Julia Suryakusuma? The recording of history, along with the practices of citation and reference, is a politics of recognition and exclusion.

One of the many interventions worth noting from last year was Ruang Perempuan dan Tulisan (Women and Writing Space). Conceived by Dewi Noviami and Dewi Kharisma Michellia and involving a number of young women writers, the project sought to examine and document the contributions of women writers from earlier periods. As we might expect, their ideas and names have often been excluded from—and erased from—history.

Challenging the Relationship Between Women and Aesthetics

“How can women’s work transcend its personal and autobiographical qualities?” A male literary figure once posed this question at a forum discussing the work of women writers. A young woman writer criticized the question, pointing out that many works by men are autobiographical yet are still considered to possess high aesthetic value.

Again, returning to the keyword “unpack,” we need to keep challenging the assumptions behind questions that oversimplify the relationship between women and aesthetics. Is women’s work really more personal and autobiographical than experimental? Is it true that work advancing a particular political position—such as a feminist agenda—tends to neglect aesthetics?

At a discussion commemorating the work and career of Nh. Dini at Bentara Budaya Jakarta last December, I was reminded once again of the assumptions attached to women writers. In the 1980s, women’s writing was considered concerned only with feminine and domestic issues—romance and household matters, for example—and incapable of addressing major ideas such as nationhood and nationalism. Yet if we read Nh. Dini’s work closely, we can see a vision of cosmopolitanism that both engages with and comes into tension with ideas of national identity.

Nh. Dini also criticized the unequal relationship between East and West on the global stage. We therefore need to unpack our own ways of seeing. Have we considered the work’s many possible interpretations? Have we been trained to view women’s work in such a way that, without realizing it, we place it into preexisting categories?

Recognizing Spaces Created by Women

We need to recognize and acknowledge women’s initiatives to create alternative spaces. Focusing on the genius of writers, directors, choreographers, and others ultimately traps us within a masculine Romantic logic that separates infrastructure from the concept of the auteur. Yet that infrastructure consists precisely of invisible “reproductive labor”—work that, as Cecil Mariani pointed out in her presentation, is performed predominantly by women.

Women’s skill in organizing and running projects is often dismissed as mere administrative ability. Yet this very expertise has produced outstanding producer-founders since the 2000s, including Mira Lesmana, Shanty Harmayn, Nia Dinata, and Meiske Taurisia. These women have not only reimagined the role of the producer; within the scope of their respective positions, they have also opened up space for discussions of gender.

Over the past ten years, I have witnessed countless remarkable initiatives led by women. As a feminist media outlet, Magdalene continues to feature the voices of women experts in fields ranging from religion to law, while also providing young women with a platform to articulate their ideas and engage in dialogue. Beyond her individual work as an artist, Ika Vantiani is one of the founders of the collective Mari Jeung Rebut Kembali, which advocates the importance of reclaiming authority over women’s bodies. House of the Unsilenced, founded by Eliza Vitri Handayani, has once again underscored the urgency of sexual-violence issues through collaborations between artists and survivors.

Olin Monteiro continues to build networks of women artists, particularly outside Java and Sumatra, through Arts for Women and Penerbitan Buku-Buku Perempuan. Then, this coming March, the Perempuan Lintas Batas collective, or Peretas, will hold a gathering in Poso, Central Sulawesi, bringing together fifty women working in the arts and culture to discuss issues, strengthen their networks, and explore possibilities for collaboration.

These examples represent only a small selection of the many alternative spaces developed through women’s efforts. Since most of these initiatives are independent, do-it-yourself projects whose funding is not always secure, sustainability is often a major challenge. Their existence nevertheless reminds us, first, to appreciate the courage, political commitments, and creativity reflected in women’s diverse strategies; and second, to understand that many paths exist beyond the dominant ones.

During a public discussion at the School of Women’s Thought, one participant asked whether she should change herself and her work in order to be accepted by the broader public. Lisabona Rahman, the program’s mentor and chair of the Cipta Media Ekspresi jury, replied: “It is best not to compromise when it comes to ideas. If one door is closed, find another.”

If certain cultural spheres do not support a woman artist, she knows that a variety of women’s collectives are ready to support her along alternative paths. Perhaps what she has conceived is better suited to the realm of the counterpublic, where alternative discourses circulate—and where most feminist cultural-activism projects are situated.

Working Toward Plurality

Women’s various strategies should be grounded in a feminist orientation toward plurality rather than uniformity. First, we can understand “plurality” as an approach rooted in collaboration and flexibility. Collaboration among women is a form of resistance to a patriarchal system that tends to divide women by granting opportunities to only a select few. Why should we submit to the logic of competing for a single elite position when we have the opportunity to dismantle the space and make room for more women to participate?

Critiquing uniformity also means embracing flexibility in our strategies. In other words, we should not think in terms of one approach, but of many. To bring women’s ideas before a broader public, for example, we need a range of tactics. On the one hand, we still need infrastructures for women that are explicitly identified as “women’s” spaces—spaces where women can speak out forcefully within women’s networks. On the other hand, we also need different public strategies for involving men as stakeholders and encouraging them to use their privileges to express critical positions on gender-related issues.

Finally, an emphasis on plurality means continuing to pursue collective justice rather than settling for individual achievement. Of course, we value powerful women such as Susi Pudjiastuti and Sri Mulyani, who have broken through barriers. We also often understand our own achievements as feminist struggles. Yet this emphasis on individual achievement should not be allowed to become a comfort zone, because achievement is inseparable from the privileges a person possesses. Most women do not have those privileges, and we have been reminded by feminist writer Audre Lorde: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are different from my own.”

This post is based on https://magdalene.co/story/bongkar-siasat-feminis-dalam-seni-dan-budaya-di-indonesia/.

Author Background

Profile and Interviews:

• The Guardian: An article featuring Paramaditha discussing her novel The Wandering and its themes. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/06/the-wandering-intan-paramaditha-review-indonesian-writer-debut-novel.

Academic Background:

• Macquarie University: Faculty page with details on her academic career and research interests. Macquarie University, https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/intan-paramaditha.

Literary Contributions:

• Penguin Random House: Publisher’s page for The Wandering with a biography and summary of her works. Penguin Random House, https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/intan-paramaditha.

Recognition and Reviews:

• The Jakarta Post: An article discussing Paramaditha’s influence on Indonesian literature and reviews of her works. The Jakarta Post.
• Asia Society: A review of her collection Apple and Knife and its impact on readers. Asia Society.

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