Naturalization of patriarchy in the Himbara bureaucracy

Using Sara Mills’s feminist discourse analysis, this study seeks to examine how the “nama gadis ibu kandung” (mother’s maiden name) field on himbara bank account opening forms presupposes a particular model of female naming. This research applies a qualitative approach, using Sara Mills’s discourse analysis as its analytical tool, which seeks to dissect the positions of subject, object, and reader in discourse texts. The study presents findings showing that, through a sterile administrative discourse, the OJK and the banking sector act as subjects holding authority, systemically seeking to naturalize the position of women as passive objects. Women’s identities are reduced to a private and subordinating security-password variable. Meanwhile, prospective customers (readers), as the target of the discourse, are steered into accepting this practice as a normal banking procedure. The analysis shows that this term, presented as an effort to comply with the seemingly neutral know your customer (KYC) principle, institutionalizes a naming model that does not apply uniformly in Indonesia, and seeks to guide readers to accept this model as an obligation that must be obeyed.