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On female authorship in American and Indonesian literary history
Comparing interviews: with Ursula Le Guin and with Melani Budianta

In Western literary history, the exclusion and distortion of female authorship has been at the centre of feminist critique for some time. This is not the case all over the world, however. A developing country like Indonesia is at a wholly different juncture in the evolution of both their literary tradition and their experience of feminism. Without a history of suffrage but with more volatile political and religious tensions, equality in Indonesia is grounded in a separate context. Knowing this, what is the status of women’s writing in their respective canons today? Where does American feminist literary history diverge with that of Indonesia's? In her 1995 interview I am a Woman Writer, I am a Western Writer, author Ursula Le Guin discusses the role of gender in the Western canon, and shares her personal experiences dealing with the male-dominated literary establishment. Twenty years later, in an interview with Jurnal Perempuan (Women’s Journal), acclaimed Indonesian critic Melani Budianta examines similar questions in the context of Indonesian history. Together, Le Guin and Budianta's accounts each help chart the rise, fall and current position of female authorship in American and Indonesian literature.

To begin with, both Le Guin and Budianta express a similar discontent with the underrepresentation of women in the recording of literary history. Both stress the way that male writers have been more widely canonized than their female counterparts, with Budianta looking to mid 20th-century America as the time where women's voice in writing was especially suppressed. Le Guin presents the same point early in her interview, noting that until the 1980s, only "Austen, Bronte, Woolf, and maybe Plath" were ever considered on the mainstream literary stage. Furthermore, in the few instances when female writers have garnered attention for their work, the resistance was unrelenting. Le Guin (p.197) is emphatic in her reaction: “Often while they were alive these women were beloved and popular, respected, but as soon as they died the lid went on [...] The fact is, in the 1980s most of the great American novels were written by women. But ten years ago the literary establishment was fighting it. Some are still fighting it.” Le Guin's skepticism is clear, and reveals the systematic disadvantage female authors must overcome in order to be read, published and remembered. In contrast, Budianta’s tone when speaking on the same subject is more studied, academic, as she unpacks the underlying issues of class and gender bias. Speaking of literature's role as both a mirror and a window to society, she points out that the minimization of women’s writing has always been a reflection of their shifting cultural value, and as such, “…there is no such thing as a golden age for women writers. They rise and then they fall.” When pushed to the fore by the effort of feminist movements, for example, women writers are rediscovered and brought back into contemporary discourse. But they are also the first to be pushed back and forgotten. As a result, in contrast to male authors, the status of women’s writing is never permanent, but requires constant effort to maintain.

Another issue brought up by both Le Guin and Budianta is the absence of women in the professions and structures which manage the literary field. On this point, the older, more established Western publishing industry also means that is more deeply male-dominated than its Indonesian equivalent. Le Guin points out that though nearly half of American fiction has been written by women, power still lies with the male editors, publishers and critics. Using the example of literary prizes, she points out that “…writing in both poetry and fiction, is about fifty-fifty men and women, but prizes, grants, and awards are nowhere near fifty-fifty.” Here, again, stands another mechanism in "which privilege defends itself". (Le Guin, p. 200) In much the same way, Budianta laments the dominance of men in Indonesian editorship and academia. Where she does diverge from Le Guin, is her focus on cultural norms as the root of this gender asymmetry. Budianta points out that traditionally, the activities of Indonesian women were restricted to the private sphere, limiting them both physically and intellectually to the more domestic slices of life. Following this, Indonesian literature became a space mostly governed by men – those who could engage with and thus write about public life, the workplace, politics. In this way, men became the gatekeepers of the book as a medium.

At this point in her interview, Le Guin moves on to explore several key feminist responses to these far-reaching problems. Speaking primarily of women writers of the 20th century, like Virginia Woolf and herself, Le Guin outlines two early approaches to challenging the literary tradition: the first, to imitate men’s writing so that women's work could become 'more canonical', and the second, to passionately defend the value and as such the difference of l’écriture feminine. Of her own generation, who seem to lean towards the latter perspective, she says: “We’re learning how to write as women. A lot of us feel that we've found our voices.” (p. 197) With the progress of the feminists in the 1970s, the rise of technology and the proliferation of mass media, Le Guin seems to see the challenge now as less to do with contemplating the women’s tradition, and more with actively inserting this writing into the mainstream. While American readers and audiences are becoming more open by the decade, the situation is slightly different for Indonesian women’s writing. In her interview, Budianta spends some time speaking of a new crop of Indonesian women writers who are just beginning to explore female sexuality and experience for the first time. In 2016, Indonesian women are still in the middle of making the transition from object to subject. Young writers are just now breaking taboos and writing about the female experience away from the male gaze, moving from passive to active roles on both the page and the screen. In this way, the state of feminist critique in Indonesia today is perhaps more similar to that of 1970s America.

Another point of difference between American and Indonesian literature is the state of documentation of women’s writing. While Le Guin provides several examples of how feminists have uncovered and promoted women writers over the last fifteen years, often working on a case by case basis and mounting campaigns across the country, Budianta notes that there are many blind spots in Indonesian literary history. Much of the country’s more informal writing ephemera have never been archived, meaning that much of historical women's media, such as newsletters and journals have been lost. Going by what is present and accounted for in institutional collections, the first novel by a female author to be included in the National Library was only written in 1930. Hence, Budianta asserts that “It is now our task as literary critics to document and question these practices and attitudes.” That there are more successful women authors in Indonesia today than ever before, and more women in academia, are encouraging developments.

To round up her analysis of the current position of Indonesian women writers, Budianta also mentions the country’s political climate. Having spent most of the last 50 years under President Soeharto's (1921 – 2008) dictatorship, one of the things which makes Indonesia’s literary history so distinct to America’s is its experience with government censorship. During Soeharto’s presidency, which began in 1967 just decades after Indonesia's independence from Dutch colonization, censorship was mostly focussed on monitoring political and ideological language. Coming out from under this media environment in the 1990s, Indonesia experienced a period of significant growth and prosperity, both economically and socially. However, in the last ten years, new forces are coming into play: that of religious extremism and social censorship. Budianta notes that today, there is a tension between the more progressive urban population in Indonesia, who are more open to equality on every front, and the more conservative Muslim majority. In comparison, the obstacles that face Western writers today are more subtle. In America, Le Guin is certain that things are changing for better, but it’s not so much about who is writing and what is being written as much as who is reading. It’s about unraveling the assumption that “If it's about men everybody wants it; if it's about women it's only for women.” (p. 201)

In conclusion, though they speak from different times and of different cultures, Le Guin and Budianta are both feminists challenging a male-dominated literary tradition. They both speak of the rising status of women authors in literary discourse, and the feminist work needed to maintain this trend towards diversity and equality. Ultimately, what is clear is that the Western context is more developed in both directions – in that it has a more established male-dominated canon (making it in one way, more difficult to reform) but also a stronger tradition of feminist criticism and democracy (which at least provides the tools for change). For Indonesian writers, history presents less resistance. The key challenge instead, lies in overcoming the political and religious pressures of tomorrow.

References:
Walsh, W., Le Guin, U. (1995) I am a woman writer; I am a western writer: an interview with Ursula Le Guin. Kenyon Review 17(3/4).

Wijaksana M. (2016) Melani Budianta: Merekam Perempuan Penulis Dalam Sejarah Kesusastraan. [Online] Available at: http://www.jurnalperempuan.org/9/post/2016/03/melani-budianta-merekam-perempuan-penulis-dalam-sejarah-kesusastraan.html (Accessed 02/12/18).