Feminism

By Vivi Widyawati and Zely Ariane

Around 100 women and men took part in a rally, Miniskirt Protest — Women against Rape, at the Bundaran Hotel Indonesia in Thamrin, Jakarta, on Sunday, September 18. Dozens of women, including several activists from Perempuan Mahardhika (Free Women), wore miniskirts, as a statement that rape has nothing to do with the way women dress.

By Max Lane

On Sunday, September 18, around 100 women staged a lightning protest in Jakarta’s main thoroughfare, Jalan Thamrin, to protest statements by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo in response to rapes that have taken place in public transport. He said: “Imagine if someone on board a mikrolet (minivan) sits wearing a mini-skirt, you would get a bit turned on”. Women, he said, “must adjust to their surrounding environment so that they don’t provoke people to commit unwanted acts”.

By Zely Ariane, in Jakarta

International Women’s Day is still much less known among Indonesian women than May Day is among Indonesian workers. This is not surprising because the struggle for the liberation of women developed only several years after reformasi - the movement that toppled the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. Then there was a mushrooming of different kinds of women’s organisations, communities, non-government organisations (NGOs), research institutions and legal aid that openly advocated women’s social and political rights.

By Kathy Newnam

[This article is based on a speech delivered to the International Women’s Day protest in Brisbane Square held on March 5. The rally of around 100 people marked the 100th year of IWD.]

We are protesting today to mark International Women’s Day. Today we speak out and resist the attempts to coopt and corporatise this day of struggle and the attempts to hide and subvert the history of the women’s liberation movement.

By Zoe Kenny

The story of women in Indonesia is inseparable from the development of the Indonesian nation itself. Indonesia was swept up in the global wave of anti-colonial national liberation movements in the mid-20th century, declaring its independence in 1945 after almost 350 years of Dutch colonial rule. The key leader of Indonesia’s national liberation struggle, Sukarno, went on to became the country’s first president.

Perempuan Mahardhika (Free Women) National Network Statement,  March 8, 2010

Women are not just housewives. They are not second-class citizens. History shows that in the beginning, the world progressed because humanity (men and women) succeeded in managing nature by creating, using and modernising the tools of labour, resulting in abundant production (surplus). This was done in a way that was equitable — there were none that had more than others; there was no domination by one gender over the other.

By Kathy Newnam

Queensland’s anti-abortion laws were dealt a sharp blow on October 14 when a Cairns couple were acquitted on charges brought under those laws. For almost two years, the political and legal establishment had tried to have the couple condemned, yet it took the 12 working people on the jury less than an hour to conclude they had no case to answer.

By Kathy Newnam

On October 12 a couple in Cairns will face trial under Queensland’s anti-abortions laws, with the prospect of years in prison if the charges are upheld. The case represents one of the most severe attacks on abortion rights in this country for decades.

By Virginia Brown

The ongoing socialist revolution in Cuba is an inspiring example of what can be achieved for women’s rights when the capitalist agenda no longer dictates. From 1959, when the Cuba Revolution achieved political victory over the US-backed Batista dictatorship, women have both defeated preconceptions that they can’t be revolutionary leaders, and helped their country lead the world in the areas of feminism, environmental sustainability, political participation, health and education.