Gerakan Perempuan Tanpa Label: Menemukan Feminis Subaltern di Indonesia Pra-Reformasi

Titiek Kartika Hendrastiti (Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Bengkulu)
Sulistyowati Irianto (Faculty of Law Indonesia University)

Jurnal Perempuan
Vol. 30 No. 1 (2025): Melawan Lupa, Merawat Resistensi: Politik Tubuh, Agensi, dan Ingatan Gerakan P

This article revisits the struggles of grassroots women during Indonesia’s New Order regime to highlight forms of feminist agency that were never formally labeled as “feminist.” Building on long-term fieldwork and reflections with rural women’s communities, it challenges elite-centered feminist historiography that privileges urban, middle-class, donor-supported organizations. Instead, it foregrounds the lived practices of subaltern women - defending communal land, sustaining livelihoods, and navigating the state ideology of Ibuisme Negara through everyday strategies of survival and resistance. These often-silent yet powerful acts demonstrate that feminism in Indonesia has always been broader than its official archives. By recovering and centering their narratives, this article offers a feminist historiography that is more inclusive, decolonial, and rooted in local agency - recognizing “unlabeled feminisms” as foundational to both past struggles and future movements.