Performing Muslim Womanhood: Muslim Business Women Moderating Islamic Practices in Contemporary Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Islam is increasing its influence in contemporary Indonesia. What impact does this have on women's economic activity? In Indonesia there is a strong expectation that women should work. Working outside of the home, however, frequently poses a challenge for Muslim women, especially wives. The growing influence of Islamist (women's) groups in Indonesia strengthens conservative Islamic values to some extent. Nevertheless, a growing number of Muslim women in Indonesia are working to earn an income to meet their household's needs. As traditional Islamic teaching prescribes that men should be the main breadwinners for their family, and Indonesian Family Law (1974) also stipulates that husbands are the head of the household, economically successful married women have been put into an awkward position. In view of this development, this article explores how Indonesian middle-class Muslim women have been negotiating between their Islamic values and economic necessity. The article shows that the need to generate an income has led to working Muslim women moderating their Islamic values, enabling them to justify extending their responsibilities into the public domain. We argue that working Muslim women are playing a key role in moderating Islamic theological interpretations and perceptions of Islamic womanhood in contemporary Indonesia.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic participation
• womanhood
• Islam
• Indonesia
• Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT)
• small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. However, political participation of Traditionalist Islamist women is higher than women from moderate Islamic groups. See Blackburn (2008).

2. The NU (www.nu.or.id) and Muhammadiyah (www.muhammadiyah.or.id) are the biggest Islamic organizations in Indonesia and were created during the colonial period. The NU is regarded as a Traditionalist Muslim organization that strictly follows the four schools of Islamic law, but it tends to be accommodating towards other religious traditions. Its following is strong in rural areas. The Muhammadiyah is regarded as a Modernist Muslim organization that seeks to purify religious practice from local traditions and develop it with more rational and modern religiosity. Its following is strong in urban areas. Both the NU and the Muhammadiyah hold generally moderate views of Islam.

3. The growing middle class in Indonesia is also represented by groups (hijabers) of young women who wear fashionable long Muslim veils, called hijab.

4. This article will use standard Indonesian forms of Islamic expressions.

5. However, we do not intend to argue that Islamic womanhood is limited to working women. We accept that young women's employment opportunities are limited in Indonesia and marriage provides a pretext for educated unemployment (Naafs 2012).

6. This programme was introduced into the school curriculum for PKK in 1957. It is no surprise that the notion that a woman's role is to be a housewife is strong, since this curriculum has been nationally implemented in all public schools beginning at primary school level. The PKK abbreviation was applied to the Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Welfare Programme), which was no longer only a subject taught in schools but also a movement supported by government offices from the village to the national level. In the Reformation period the name of the PKK was changed to Pemberdayaan dan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (Family Welfare Empowerment), to highlight the advocacy of this movement or programme.

7. The government has a target of having 30% of the House of Representatives members being women.

8. Studies criticizing the conservative understanding of women's roles have increased with the presence of female Islamic NGOs, such as Rahima (Hidayah 2012).

9. Muslims may look beyond the MUI or Indonesian Islamic organizations to seek alternative fatwas, religious guidance, and fiqh opinions from anyone, including Internet sources known jokingly as kyai Google (kyai is a title given to an Islamic scholar) (Hosen 2008). New types of religious authorities may provide women with an opportunity to opening up new interpretations and even challenge traditional ideas, such as views on polygamous marriages and the possibility for women to seek a career. Online discussions and forums are becoming an important source of negotiation for various views on gender relations (Piela 2010).

10. Rinaldo (2006) finds that different types of organizations, such as the liberal Rahima and the conservative PKS, have created distinct conceptions of Islamic womanhood based on their different understandings of Islam and gender.

11. The DD (www.dompetdhuafa.org) is a community-based Islamic charity in Indonesia, established in Jakarta in July 1993 by young journalists from an Islamic newspaper called Republika, Erie Sudewo and Parni Hadi. Dompet means ‘wallet' and dhuafa means ‘the poor', so the name means a wallet for the poor. Republika itself is part of the movement of Indonesian Muslim intellectuals called Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia (Indonesian Muslim Intellectual Association), and is a part of the political Islam of the New Order regime. The DD is among the leading Islamic charitable organizations undertaking Islamic philanthropic programmes in Indonesia.

12. Website: http://www.bmtberingharjo.com/pages-99-About%20Us.html (accessed October 7, 2014).

13. Islamic devotional activities such as voluntary or obligatory pilgrimages (umrah and hajj) cost USD 3219 per person in 2014 in Indonesia.

14. A similar argument was used by Islamic groups, including the NU, to disapprove of Megawati Sukarnoputri becoming the first female president of Indonesia in 1999. See Robinson (2008) for details.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge funding support from the University of New South Wales Canberra to enable an Asia Pacific Seminar Series titled Narratives of Muslim Womanhood: Contemporary Analysis, co-hosted with the Centre for Muslim States and Societies, the University of Western Australia and held at UNSW Canberra in December 2013.