Marching, Soe Tjen

Dr. Soe Tjen Marching is an independent scholar and freelance journalist who has published on gender issues and taught at several universities in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Discrepancy Between the Public and the Private Selves of Indonesian Women

2007 0-7734-5435-7
This study investigates Indonesian women’s public and private representations of identity in the New Order period, in the form of published autobiographies and unpublished diaries collected during fieldwork. During the New Order era (1967-1998), the government tried to indoctrinate the conservative ideas about gender using various channels. While autobiographies published in New Order Indonesia did not have the freedom to challenge the authoritative eye, those women who did publish such works are still seen as exerting their own individuality and criticizing, however indirectly, the social conditions surrounding them. In the unpublished diaries considered, though the authors are more vocal in their transgression, the reflection of patriarchal values in Indonesia can still be discovered.