Life of Javanese women in literature text and the real world

Abstract

This study explores Javanese women in real life and in old and new Indonesian literary texts. History records how unequal the roles of Javanese women and men are in real life. The method used is structural hermeneutics. The question is how is the relationship between women and men in Javanese society embodied in life and literary texts? Gender and ethnographic approaches with content analysis were used to analyse literary texts as data sources. The main data is in the form of sentence excerpts taken from the text. The view-note-and-engage technique was adopted in data collection. Secondary data were taken from middle-class and upper-class women with in-depth interviews. All data were triangulated with the interpretation of Javanese cultural experts. The results show that women in literature and life play the role of queens such as Ratu Shima, Ratu Kencanawungu, but there are also women who are still confined because of the hegemony of male power such as the character Rapiah in the novel Salah Asuhan. There are also women who play a greater role in the socio-economic field. However, they have not been able to achieve full gender equality. The implication of this research is the need for women to make new history by seizing the role of equality needed in an egalitarian life, by achieving achievements in education, work, and the need for social care for other women and their families .