The stigmatisation of widows and divorcees (janda) in Indonesian society

Urban evictions, public housing and the gendered rationalisation of kampung life in Jakarta

“…During Suharto's New Order era (1966–1998), state‐engineered projects concerning female respectability projected a particular vision of women's roles accordingly as, first and foremost, wives and mothers. The figure of the ibu, the ‘faithful wife, dutiful housewife and loving mother – a paragon of virtue’ (Parker and Creese, : 2) underpinned this. This state gender ideology was concretised in initiatives such as the Dharma Wanita state‐sanctioned organisations for civil servant's wives, as well as within laws such as the 1974 Marriage Law in which men are designated as heads of households.…”

“…Core to these state ideals are notions of female respectability obtained via marriage, motherhood and women's roles as housewives; investing women with a respectability that is easily transgressed by factors such as divorce, widowhood or the engagement in socially proscribed behaviours such as drinking alcohol, spending considerable amounts of time away from the home, or other ‘inappropriate’ and unfeminine behaviours (Beazley, : 1669; Parker and Creese, ). State Ibuism effectively underpinned a vision for a gender order in which men and women's roles within society could be aligned to the developmental needs of the New Order regime.…”

Mother’s tongue and father’s culture; A late nineteenth-century Javanese versification of Master Zhu’s Household Rules ("Zhuzi Zhijia geyan")

“…As Jordan explains, this expression refers in traditional Chinese literature to "extra-familial female troublemakers", namely Buddhist nuns (ní), Taoist nuns (dào), and female fortune-tellers (guà), whereas the "six kinds of old women" are brokers (yá), match-makers (méi), spirit mediums (shi), women who pray in exchange for money (qián), herbalists (yào), and midwives (wen), see https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/chtxts/JuBorluEnglish.html. 94 The stigma of the janda in contemporary Indonesian society is the topic of a special issue of the journal Indonesia and the Malay World, co-edited by Lyn Parker and Helen Creese (2016). 95 See https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/chtxts/JuBorlu.html.…”

Don't call me ibu: challenges of belonging for childless transnational Indonesian women

“…Unlike ibu, the term janda has not played an overt role in Indonesian state ideology. It is a much more colloquial concept (Parker and Creese 2016), but one that is widespread and that seriously undermines women's reputations. Janda are seen to be no longer protected (or controlled) by male influence and hence at liberty to pursue their own gratification (Mahy et al 2016).…”