Communism and women's same-sex practises in post-Suharto Indonesia

The Indonesian Communist Organization Gerwani was banned in 1966. It had been associated with sexual perversions during the 1 October 1965 putsch in which senior figures within the Indonesian army were killed. These accusations helped fuel the massacre of over a million people and brought General Suharto to power. Yet in many ways Gerwani's ideology was puritanical and geared towards strengthening the monogamous family unit. It breached traditional gender ideology only in its insistence that women should be political actors and militant mothers. More recently, the organization has been accused of 'promoting lesbianism', when it in fact has never discussed the issue. This paper analyses Gerwani's ideology to explore the link between political activism and sexuality. The women's organization can be regarded as one of the forces of 'modernity' which stimulated homophobia. It is suggested that Gerwani's political activism was considered such a breach of traditional gender ideologies that it triggered a fear of social disorder in which women would be free from male heterosexual control - either as loose, perverted women who were seen as liable to castrate generals, or as lesbians.