Transformation of Women Politicians in Parliament

Abstract

Women’s representation in politics in Indonesia has been secured despite inequal percentage compared to the men. For instance, the results of the 2019 legislative elections for women only accounted for 20.5% or 118 seats of the 560 existing seats. On the other hand, it seems that the performance of women in parliament is also questionable. Thus, this research was conducted to find out and understand how was the performance of women politicians, their contribution to women empowerment and the obstacles they faced. This descriptive-explorative qualitative research was conducted in Ponorogo as a district in the former Residency of Madiun which always gets the highest number of women politicians in each elections until 2019. The research subjects were selected using purposive sampling toward women legislature members of DPRD Ponorogo. Meanwhile, the data was obtained through interviews, observation, and documentation. Furthermore, for the data analysis the author employed Harvard gender analysis and used data triangulation as one of the data verification techniques. The results of this study concluded that the performance of women legislative members was less satisfactory. This can be seen from 3 aspects; responsiveness, accountability and effectiveness. In addition, some obstacles they faced are (a) the strong patriarchal culture in the legislative environment, (b) weak coordination among women legislative members, (c) patterns of relationships that are built on a transactional basis, and (d) politically charged programs.

Women in local politics: Insights from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Indonesia

“…Aceh province is a religious area that applies Islamic sharia law that regulates the socio-political life of its people as one of the regions with special autonomy (Salim 2004, Abubakar 2021. Although Islamic tradition in Aceh restricts women from entering politics (Harber 2019, Elizarni 2020) because of the rational motives of value and rational aimed at female politicians they become legislators with the aim of channeling organizational talents, fighting for women's aspirations in increasing the expansion of women's access to public areas through local regulations, and improving the social and economic status of families (Elizabeth 2017, Muafiah 2019, Malik et al 2021). In addition, the presence of women in the realm of practical politics which is evidenced by the representation of women in parliament is an absolute condition for the creation of a culture of public policy making that is friendly and sensitive to the interests of the community.…”

“…If factors that influence the weakness of women's representation in fighting for women's rights in local politics were identified through several previous studies, it's due to the still strong patriarchal practice of some male parliamentarians (Elizabeth 2017, Harber 2019, Elizarni 2020. Then, the existence of factors that influence the work of women in parliament related to religion, traditions/culture and government policies is also a trigger for the lack of work of the role of parliamentary women in fighting for women's rights in Aceh (Elizabeth 2017, Harber 2019, Muafiah 2019, Elizarni 2020). In addition, the weak initiative of the women themselves in parliament is suspected to be one of the loopholes women do not do much, act and retire in parliament (Harber 2019, Muafiah 2019.…”

“…Then, the existence of factors that influence the work of women in parliament related to religion, traditions/culture and government policies is also a trigger for the lack of work of the role of parliamentary women in fighting for women's rights in Aceh (Elizabeth 2017, Harber 2019, Muafiah 2019, Elizarni 2020). In addition, the weak initiative of the women themselves in parliament is suspected to be one of the loopholes women do not do much, act and retire in parliament (Harber 2019, Muafiah 2019.…”