Sirikit Syah
There is always a change in how people perceive or give meaning to sexuality and morality from time to time. Norms is not only different from place to place, but time to time. What is considered obscene in one place, it is not in some other place. Baywatch is okay in America and Japan, but not in Malaysia and Brunei. Showing part of breasts or legs was obscene in Indonesia in the 60s, but you can see half-naked women in movies magazines. People accept it as the new normality.
In 2001, China was shocked by Wei Hui’s Shanghai Baby, a very controversial novel that the Chinese Government claims as ‘giving a shame to China’. Not only the book was banned, but the author was forced to leave the country. The book received acclamation in the US and UK, the author gets rich and famous.
I would rather compare Ayu with Wei Hui, than to Nh Dini in her era, because Dini’s struggle was ‘mind rebellion’. Now, our woman writer’s fight is physical: for power (even Djenar’s character, a woman, physically beats her man who disappoints her in a public toilet, and Ayu’s character asks to be raped).
Nowadays writers also tend to celebrate homosexualism, infidelity and free sex. Ironically, they promote and defend this in the name of freedom of expression, human rights, gender equality and woman empowerment. Which, of course, is misleading to younger generation.
In the 70s-80s, there was very little number of women’s works of literature published in Indonesia. Nh Dini was the only novelist, whose works were often discussed by some critics. There were La Rose, Titis Basino, and others too, but the “strength” of Nh Dini was significantly above others. During that era, when people talked about Dini, they talked about her works. Her themes on women’s liberation were noted as the beginning of feminism movement in Indonesian literature[1]. At that era, there were woman authors, who wrote “sweet” novels quite productively, such as Marga T and Mira W. Their books sold well, but they were never discussed in literary forums.
Todays is different. Many woman writers appear at the same time. They are young, some of them publish their books while they are 19 or 21. They have similar focus, even similar taste. Their style –with some exception- reminds me of Motinggo Busye the first episode of his authorship (Busye episode 2 is different, he becomes religious). Reading the works of famous woman writers now, we cannot compare them with Nh Dini, but rather to Motinggo Busye episode 1. The similarities range from the metropolitant setting, upper class society, to sexual exploitation.
It was started with Saman
In 1997, the world of Indonesian literature was shaken by the birth of Ayu Utami and her spectacularly acclaimed novel, Saman. Every ‘guru’ of literature praised her (except Pramoedya Ananta Ananta Toer, who said, “I can’t read novel, which writer can’t even use punctuation correctly”). Language skill, the basic requirement for any author, according to Pram, is lacking in Ayu’s. But other critics praised her new style of narration, her unusually courageous choice of words, and the moral that her novel brings, which breaks the boredoom of classical themes traditionally chosen by Indonesian woman writers during her era. She was noted as introducing a new approach of writing novel (using two angles), despite the fact that it was already used by Mariane Katoppo in her Raumanen (in the 80s), and my short story “Pilihan” (Harga Perempuan, 1999). But outside some “indecent”[2] words that Ayu uses, Saman is a good reading, with very important messages on gender issue, woman struggle for equality, and a smart touch on Indonesian politics.
I consider Saman is quite masculine. It’s beyond feminism. The theme is new and “brave”, with sub-themes of ‘oil rig workers’, ‘an activist priest’, ‘liberated women’, Ayu, then, is classified as a ‘feminist’, who expresses her “sexual liberation” through her novel[3].
However, I myself feel disapproval in parts where Ayu expose and explore her sexual exclamations explicitly. It is rather difficult for me to accept the fact that such ‘obscene’ expressions come from a woman’s thought. I might be considered old-fashioned, but in my opinion, in literature, there are many better ways to express your thoughts. That’s why they call it ‘literature’. Literature is a matter of the beauty of language, besides the novelty and intelligence of ideas. It is not a biology lesson, which uses explicit terms to refer human vital organs, nor a product of pornography publication, which uses ‘vulgar’ words to express sexual feeling and thoughts.
Ayu, Dee and Djenar
After Ayu, who has many followers, there is Dee with her Supernova. Dee is best in words, very poetical, romantic, and far from being ‘masculine’. Since she dares writing with a subject of science, there are some factual mistakes in her story, where she is mostly criticized (even attacked). But she has a good story and great characters. The woman character in Supernova is ‘mysterious’ and Dee manages to keep the suspense to the last pages. Her character (Supernova) also shows her empowerment, if empowerment is the true goal of feminist writers, but she still cares for beautiful yet painful marital betrayal. Very realistic. Very feminin.
This differs with the women in Saman, who speak and act ‘in manly manner’, be it in social political course or in human and sexual relations. Djenar characters, mostly “I”, criticize everybody, mainly men, and then take revenge to those who hurt her with the same or more violent acts.
There has never been a ‘flood’ of women’s works in Indonesia like this before. After Ayu, Dee, and now Ayu Maesa Djenar, whom mass media call ‘smell-good literature’ (‘sastra wangi’), dozens of young woman writers start publishing. Djenar becomes the darling of mass media, even though it is her life style that is mostly covered, not her works. Her settings are Jakarta’s night life, unhappy marriages, and her themes are not far from sex.
Herlinatiens published her first novel when she was 19, and the shock was: she talks about lesbianism. Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian, her novel, contains the struggle of existence and the appeals of lesbians. But perhaps because she has no experience nor thorough observation on lesbianism, there are some inconsisteny in her novel. Sometimes she says that lesbianism is “God will”, sometimes ‘lesbianism is human choice’. In the first part of her novel, she undermines marriage institution, but in the later parts, she makes her characters (lesbian couple) fight for the legallization of marriage of lesbian couple.
The opennes on sexual course that we experience now is not less controversial than that during Lady Chatterley’s Lover era. Lady Chatterely (D.H. Lawrence) was forbidden in its own country and published many years later in foreign country. Shanghai Baby was published in America and Wei Hui cannot go home to China. Indonesian writers are luckier, there is never a ban on sexual-contained books. The government likes to ban or censor political-contained books. Sex books are free to get in Indonesia, freer than many other liberal countries I have visited, while political novel is hard to publish until recently.
More interesting to me is the fact that man authors are not interested in sexual subject, more particularly sexual exploitation. There is no more ‘Motinggo Busye’ in Indonesian man authors nowadays. Seno Gumira, Veven Wardana, Afrizal Malna, Budi Darma, even Hamsad Rangkuti, write about women too, or man-woman relations; but they are far from ‘playing vagina’, ‘sucking penis’, ‘sodomy’, ‘the joy of being rape’, etc, that are easy to find in women’s works. A woman writer degrades sexual relation with the term ‘perkelaminan’ (meaning ‘vagina meets penis’, or ‘vagina meets vagina’, or ‘penis meets penis’, it depends). They rarely use the terms ‘bercinta’ (making love), nor ‘bersetubuh’ (having sex) anymore. It is now ‘have my vagina/penis’.
Feminism or Masculinism?
There are many strong woman authors that are missed by media spotlights and critics attentions. Oka Rusmini (Bali) and Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim and Zoya Herawati (East Java) have characters, who are strong women. Many times their characters have to loose their battles due to tradition (Balinese in Oka’s) or in religious and social setting (Ratna’s), and politics (Zoya’s). I’d like to compare their characters with Pramoedya’s (Bumi Manusia and Gadis Pantai, for instance). The women here are victims of situation and condition, tradition, culture, religion, economy. But see how strong and courageous they are. When they loose, they loose with dignity, and survive gracefully.
Pramoedya is a feminist, because her woman characters are strong and powerful, not in physical term but in mental and spiritual, and far from the spirit of sexual exploitation. Compare him with the ‘beautiful and modern’ young woman writer that we discuss earlier. They mostly use their bodies and sexualities, not their minds, to win their battles. Their bodies are weapons for their battles. It’s a proof of existence. It’s a powerful thing for bargain and negotiation. And yet, after sacrificing their bodies, they mostly loose in the end. It is indeed not easy to write about woman wins in the end. Reality doesn’t say so. Smart authors, therefore, emphasize on how women behave/react to the situation. Pramoedya portraits the winning men in their their ‘fake’ championship as cowards, irresponsible, and –deepn inside we feel- loosers!
What is expressed and fought by many woman writers now is not anymore an equality of educational, job, and political chances. In their works, woman writers claim that “we are better than men”, “we are stronger”, “we are smarter”. Isn’t that the character of man (masculine) to always want to beat their opposite sex?
2004
[1] Pramoedya Ananta Toers’s works are also very “feminist”, but perhaps his being a man makes this fact unnoted. Indonesia were waiting for woman authors writing for themselves.
[2] According to normal standard.
[3] Afterwards, she publishes essays which justify why she is not interested in marriage. Her essays emphasize her position as the figure of sexual liberation movement among young modern and increasingly independent Indonesian women.
