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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 a feature of feminist critique for some time. This is not the case all over the world. A country like Indonesia is at a 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 different context. So what is the current role of women’s writing in their respective canons? In her 1995 interview I am a Woman Writer, I am a Western Writer, author Ursula Le Guin discusses this issue, 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 literature. Together, Le Guin and Budianta 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 representation of women in the recording of literary history. Both stress the way that male writers are more widely recognized and canonized than their female counterparts. Furthermore, in the instances when female writers have entered the literary ‘mainstream’, there is resistance. Le Guin (p.197) is emphatic in her reaction: “It just seems so damn silly to me to leave out half our writers. Nearly half of our fiction has been written by women. Often while they were alive these women were beloved and popular, respected, but as soon as they died the lid went on.” Budianta’s tone is more studied, academic, as she points out that the minimization of women’s writing in literary history has always been a reflection of women’s value in wider society. As such, “…there is no such thing as a golden age for women writers. They rise and then they fall.” In contrast to male authors, the status of women’s writing is never permanent, but requires effort to maintain.

Another issue brought up by both Le Guin and Budianta is the underrepresentation of women in the structures which manage the literary field. The older, more established Western publishing industry is deeply male-dominated. 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 concrete examples 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.” 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 culture as the root of this gender bias. Budianta points out that traditionally, the activities of Indonesian women were restricted to the private sphere, while literature was governed by men – those who could engage in public life, in the workplace, in politics. In this way, men became the gatekeepers of the book as a medium.

With the problems exposed, Le Guin moves on to explore several key feminist responses to the literary tradition. Speaking primarily of women writers of the 21st century, like Virginia Woolf and herself, Le Guin outlines two early approaches: those who imitate men’s writing to become more canonical, to those who passionately defend l’écriture feminine. Of her own generation she says: “We’re learning how to write as women. A lot of us feel that we've found our voices.” (p. 197) For them, the challenge now has less to do with the formation of a women’s tradition, but with inserting this writing into the mainstream. The situation is different for Indonesian women’s writing, however. In her interview, Budianta spends some time speaking of a new crop of Indonesian women writers who are exploring female sexuality and experience for the first time. In 2016, Indonesian women are only beginning to make the transition from object to subject. In this way, the state of feminist literary 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, 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, and the first novel by a female author to be included in the National Library was only written in 1930. 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 than 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 a dictatorship, one of the things which makes Indonesia’s literary history so distinct to America’s is its experience with censorship. During Soeharto’s presidency, censorship was mostly focussed on restricting political and ideological language. Coming out from under this media environment, Indonesia experienced a period of significant growth and prosperity. 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 and the more conservative majority. The obstacles that face Western writers are more subtle. In America, Le Guin is certain that things are changing, but it’s not so much about who is writing and what is being written as much as who is reading. It’s about fighting the assumption that “If it's about men everybody wants it; if it's about women it's only for women.”

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 tradition, 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 but also a stronger tradition of feminist criticism. For Indonesian writers, history presents less resistance. The key challenge instead, lies in overcoming contemporary political and religious censorship.


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