The faces of young Muslim women in contemporary Indonesia
Abdullah Faqih
In her book, Pious Girls, Annisa Beta challenges a common notion about young, middle-class Muslim women in Indonesia: that their lives aren’t inherently political. Through extensive research in various urban areas in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Tasikmalaya, Beta demonstrates quite the opposite: that,
‘Young Muslim women in the hijabers community are just a group of trendy and fashion-loving women. They enjoy socialising with their peers at religious gatherings and happen to have businesses in the creative industry. There is nothing special about their middle-class lives. Talking about them is insignificant because they do not contribute meaningfully to the formation of contemporary Indonesian social and political.’
Beta reveals new characteristics of contemporary young Muslim women in Indonesia. These women are pious and loyal to traditional Islamic gender ideology. They also enjoy engaging in business and are tied to neoliberal capitalist ideas, have a modern urban middle-class lifestyle, and, most importantly, are innovative and visionary. These characteristics make them significant as influential figures in the overall social, political, and economic life of the country.
This book contrasts liberal feminist views on the role of Muslim women with those of Indonesia’s religious authorities. The former envision empowered Muslim women challenging patriarchal values, including through entrepreneurship. The latter believe this conflicts with pious women’s domestic and family duties. But as Beta shows, young Muslim women in Indonesia can transcend false dichotomies: they can be productive and creative in line with feminist thinking, but also pious. Their agency in this didn’t come about suddenly; it is closely linked to Indonesia's social and political history.
The book traces how the New Order regime (1966-1998) idealised women’s position as mothers, wives and guardians of family harmony through its concept of ‘women’s nature’ or ‘kodrat wanita.’ Islamic organisations didn’t necessarily object to those aspirations – but women were a core part of their political resistance to the regime. During that time, several Islamic organisations actively resisted the New Order regime, one form of protest being against the hijab ban in schools in the 1980s.
After the New Order fell, women’s groups within the large Muslim organisations Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, played key roles in defining pious femininity in Indonesia. Women were active in social and educational initiatives, and they helped develop fatwas. The end of New Order regime opened the door for Muslim women to actively participate in politics – to be pious and political at once. However, the expectation for them to be pious women with domestic responsibilities did not disappear, and the state continued to perpetuate the notion of ‘kodrat wanita’ through organisations such as Dharma Wanita and the Family Welfare Empowerment (Program Kesejahteraan Keluarga, PKK).
Beta emphasises that today, in addition to formal and official government channels, religious study groups (pengajian or majelis taklim) serve as important informal channels for political participation and citizenship for Muslim women. These groups disseminate Islamic teachings and connect Muslim women to the transnational Muslim community (ummah). They not only make pengajian attractive to young women but also collaborate with humanitarian organisations, such as Aksi Cepat Tanggap (ACT), to involve women in humanitarian causes like the Rohingya refugee crisis. These pengajian are crucial for accommodating Muslim women who are not affiliated with political parties or other Islamic organisations.
On image
Beta discusses the visuality of young Muslim women on Instagram: how their aesthetics intersect with their ethics, practices and piety. Social media has become a primary medium for young Muslim women to share and learn from each other's self-transformation experiences. It is also a means to transmit, interpret, and circulate Islamic teachings. Instagram accounts such as Dunia Jilbab and Hijabers Community play a crucial role in this process. The author conducts a meticulous visual analysis to uncover the visual activism of young Muslim women on Instagram.
These Instagram accounts present a soft and sweet feminine image, prominently featuring pastel colours like pink, green, and blue in their content. They post group selfies and adorable illustrations as a representation of feminine values. Besides portraying a pleasant image of young Muslim women, they build interactions with their followers, encouraging them to explore Islam together. They motivate their followers to constantly improve themselves through content that includes motivational quotes, excerpts from the Quran, and virtuous messages about how to dress as a good Muslim woman.
Not simply accepting the ideal image of Muslim women promoted by Dunia Jilbab and Hijabers Community, young Muslim women also engage in conversations and negotiations about their visuality. They acknowledge the importance of dressing in a Sharia-compliant manner by wearing long gowns and wide hijabs. However, there are times when they feel it is important to present a more youthful and trendier image appropriate for their age. This means they always have the choice to portray themselves rather than being trapped in a hegemonic, rigid visual regime. This is part of their freedom to interpret the 'correct' teachings of Islam. This practice challenges and responds to Western and New Order stereotypes that view the hijab as a barrier to women’s empowerment and the subjectivity of Muslim women.
In Chapter 3, Beta discusses the self-transformation of Muslim women. She analyses a book titled Kutinggalkan Dia karena Dia dan Gue Jomblo, Masbuloh? and a YouTube film uploaded by Ukhti Sally titled ‘From Jilbab to Akhirat.’ Both depict Muslim women's journeys to becoming pious. These real-life stories contain 'truths' that resonate closely with their audience. Influenced by the thoughts of Saba Mahmood and miriam cooke, Beta highlights the importance of the body as a means of self-formation for pious Muslim women.
Young women train their bodies and souls to become pious Muslims by wearing the hijab, adjusting and negotiating with the label of being a 'good Muslim woman.' Wearing the hijab is also their effort to build a cosmopolitan consciousness as part of the transnational Muslim community. This is also intended to critique Western feminists and neo-orientalists who perceive hijab-wearing Muslim women as indifferent, poor, uneducated, domestic, and victims of oppression in need of rescue.
In the fourth chapter, Beta discusses how Muslim women figures who own fashion businesses integrate with the idea of neoliberal capitalism while simultaneously being pious. Compared to other types of work, entrepreneurship and receiving foreign investment are crucial. Business is seen as part of worship and a means to draw closer to God while also offering a flexibility that enables them to fulfil their kodrat as good wives and mothers. They emphasise the importance of being knowledgeable Muslim women, working hard, and dedicating themselves to building fashion businesses. These characteristics may not appear inherently political, however, the way they see their business activities as contributing to society and welfare needs to be considered as a serious political practice. Their work is also related to the Indonesian government's mission to ambitiously develop Indonesia as the centre of the global Muslim fashion industry. Young Muslim women play a crucial role in driving the creative economic industry in Indonesia and defining how this industry should be run. They demonstrate a compatibility between the values present in Islamic teachings and the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Nevertheless, it also remains true that they consider the central role in their lives of their husbands, as their protectors from 'danger' if they become too successful in business and forget their 'nature' as pious women in line with dominant Islamic corridors.
In the West, it’s common for Muslim women to be seen in binary - as either victims or heroes. Beta’s book provides a useful correction to that simplistic view. Such a view fails to truly explain the experiences of Muslim women. In Beta’s research, young Muslim women are less interested in developmentalist feminist views that only imagine educated women postponing marriage and pregnancy. Instead, they encourage each other to be pious wives and mothers and to serve their husbands and families. This ideal image may be considered conservative when viewed through a Western lens. However, in their own context they are in fact 'progressive'. They actively negotiate with patriarchy and religious authorities using digital tools and business activities. They do all this through informal means - pengajian, publishing books, releasing films, and posting content on social media - offering an invitation to young Muslim women to imagine how they should feel, dress, do business, criticise the government, and envision their future.
Annisa R. Beta, Pious Girls, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon., 2024.
Abdullah Faqih (faqihism@gmail.com) is a researcher based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He earned a BA in Sociology from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, with his final thesis focusing on transman Muslims. He works with Anotasi.org.
