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FANTASIZING THE FEMININE IN INDONESIA. Edited by Laurie J. Sears. Durham (North Carolina): Duke University Press. 1996, xvi, 350 pp. (Photographs, tables.) US$49.95, cloth, ISBN 08223-1684-6; US$17.95, paper, ISBN 0-8223-1696-x.
THE ESSAYS in this volume are the products of a workshop on "Perspectives on Gender in Indonesia," held at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1991. The collection's fourteen articles are divided into two parts ("Structures of Control" and "Contested Representations"), with an introduction by the editor, Laurie Sears. Among the contributors are a number of familiar figures in Indonesian studies as well as, quite happily, some lesser-known Indonesian scholars.
Essays in part 1 address the issue of state-imposed definitions of women's roles. A number of the articles, including those by Sylvia Tiwon and Ann Stoler, argue that marginal women are viewed as dangerous, a threat to the state, and therefore in need of control. In her essay on state and sexuality, Julia Suryakusuma coins the expression "State Ibuism" to refer to government efforts to limit the definition of women to that of wife, mother, and servant...