Indonesia’s path to democracy—the aspiration of the popular movements that led to the toppling of the authoritarian New Order 24 years ago—encompassed ideals of electoral democracy, social justice and equity, summed up in the catchcry of that euphoric moment: pemberdayaan (empowerment) (Manning and van Diermen 2000). This aspiration encompassed women’s rights and gender equity (Robinson and Bessell 2002).

Women’s activism was critical to the genesis of that revolutionary moment. Difficulties faced by households in meeting the needs of everyday life consequent on the 1997 Asian financial crisis sparked street protests against Suharto’s government, the first being Suara Ibu Peduli Demo Susu (Voices of Concerned Mothers Milk Demonstration), held at Jakarta’s iconic HI (Hotel Indonesia) roundabout in February 1998 (Oey- Gardiner 2002: 110). The reactive political theatre deployed by the failing regime included orchestrated rapes of Chinese women in Jakarta as part of a ‘shadow play’ scapegoating Indonesia’s Chinese for the economic chaos (ibid.); this had the unintended consequence of bringing violence against women—hitherto a rumbling complaint from women’s rights activists—into public view.

Interim president Habibie (1998–1999) directed the legislative changes that ushered in the central pillars of the move away from authoritarian rule: direct elections of legislatures and of the president (Hosen 2007); towards decentralising political authority to newly empowered district governments. Habibie decreed the formation of the National Commission on Violence against Women, Komnas Perempuan (Oey-Gardiner 2002: 111; Robinson 2009: 155; Yentriyani, this volume). These political and legal institutions, and a new institution established in 2001—the Constitutional Court, Mahkamah Konstitusi—have been crucial sites for contestations over gendered power in democratising Indonesia.

Gendered power—the sites of struggle

Sex/gender differences are strongly marked in all aspects of society (economics, politics, culture) and there is a tendency to frame issues of gender equity or social participation in terms of ‘status’ or ‘position’, using single indicators such as the number of women in parliament as opposed to the number of men. But of course, ‘status’ is inherently a synthesis of several factors or dimensions. ‘Gender relations are imbricated in the exercise of power in all social arenas’ (Robinson 2014: 107), and connected to power in ‘gender regimes’ understood as the overall patterning of gender relations in an institution, for example, school, nation state or clan (ibid.: 117).