Maskulinitas: culture, gender and politics in Indonesia (book review)

This volume will primarily attract scholars of Indonesia with an interest in gender. More specifically, it will be useful for those interested in contemporary cultural texts, since it concerns representations of masculinity and gender relations in some contemporary cultural and literary texts produced in Java. On page 13, the key objective of the study is stated: ‘to examine the ways in which cultural transformations and literary developments are constructing new Indonesian masculine identities, with or without recourse to traditional narratives’. At the very start of the book, we meet the revered, elderly, male Indonesian author, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, at the 1998 launch of new, young, female writer Ayu Utami's novel, Saman. This effectively creates the link in the sub-title of the book among culture, gender and politics in Indonesia, since 1998 marked the end of Suharto's ‘New Order’ regime. During the New Order regime, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was imprisoned, narrow gender roles were mandated, and the publication of novels with subversive themes was prohibited. With the fall of Suharto in 1998, the reform era was born, and with it came a flourishing of literary and cultural endeavours, many of which are mentioned by the author.