Muslim Indonesian Women

A woman quietly prays inside of my favorite mosque in Makassar--Masjid Raya.

Wow. One could probably write volumes about the above 3 words. Here, I will try to elucidate some of the aspects of this topic that will be most intriguing to those back home, especially those who have not yet visited a majority Muslim country. Although it is quite difficult, I am attempting to remember how I felt and what attitudes I held about Muslim women before coming to this country, and direct my writing toward an audience that holds similar stereotypes. Of course, as usual, the explanation is supplemented with a liberal supply of personal anecdotes and photos.

By the way, I want to acknowledge that this thing has not been update for like....well...FOREVER! My apologies, I actually wrote this about a month ago, and since then I have been struggling to upload it. If you want some more photos, try this link http://community.webshots.com/user/jstrahl07

This is a time-lapse of one of the major intersections in Jakarta, from 5 AM until 12 PM. Nothing to do with Muslim Indonesian women, but still really cool.

The Jilbab.

A jilbab is a headcovering worn by Muslim women. In my city of Makassar, I would estimate that 70 percent of women wear some form of headcovering, be it a simple scarf, a jilbab, or a full birka (in order from most liberal to most conservative—a birka only exposes a small slit through which the woman can see). A woman wearing a birka is a rare sight, I usually see about 1 per week. Interestingly, Jane, a Fulbright ETA who lives in my same city but near the beach in a more modern community, has seen less than five to ten birka-touting females in the span of eight months.

My first stereotype was violated right away. In Bandung, when we were at our teachers’ orientation, there was a young woman in her late 20s, wearing a tightly wound jilbab. However, she also wore sagging western-style tomboy jeans, carried a digital camera with her everywhere she went, relentlessly flirted with some of the boys, was quick to laugh, and talked the whole time about how much she wanted to travel the world. I found this a little strange, because her behavior and even her style matched that of an American woman of the same age…everything except the jilbab. At this point, I’m not sure what I expected from a jilbab-wearing woman other than for her to be different. Perhaps this is why the similarities were astounding to me.

Okay, I had heard that Makassar is a more conservative Muslim area of Indonesia, second only to the providence of Aceh in northwest Sumatra. I thought maybe my friend from Bandung was merely an eccentric exception to my stereotype of the quiet and reserved Muslim woman who chooses not to show the world her hair. When I arrived here, I was initially terrified to even TOUCH a woman who was blatantly Muslim (i.e. wearing a headcovering). Yet as time went on, I discovered that, just as in Christianity, there is a very wide spectrum of levels of faith. I realized that just because a woman wears a headcovering, does not necessarily designate her as a devout Muslim.

Even more noteworthy, whether or not one wears a jilbab is dependent on situations and one’s outlook on life. I learned that many of the jilbab-wearers that I know now did not wear jilbabs in the past, when they were in high school or university. They only decided to wear a jilbab when the “time became right” or they “came to terms with their faith.” It is definitely not a black and white cut and dry decision to wear a jilbab, more like a fluid style expression. For some, wearing a jilbab could be our equivalent of a man wearing a tie to work. For instance, at the Pesantren, women wear jilbabs tighter than American women from the 1980s wore spandex track suits. Not a single strand of hair is exposed. Conversely, at the mall, the same women wear headcovers that are nothing more than loosely wrapped scarves, showing half of their hair anyway.

A very happy student, and a teacher wearing a jilbab that may be a little too tightly wound...

The minaret and some beautiful tropical skies outside of Masjid Al-Markaz, Makassar, the largest mosque in eastern Indonesia.

Now here is where the topic becomes juicy. The jilbab is widely used as a tool of sexual attraction and suggestion. I learned this from talking to men, women, and…personal experience. The men I talked to say they just love it when they go to a woman’s house and she takes off her jilbab (a headcovering is usually not worn in a private area like a house). Initially, I scoffed at this, thinking “those poor guys, they are crazy about seeing some girl’s hair! Just her hair!” Well, that was in the first three months. As time wore on, and the realities of living in an all-male Islamic boarding school began to set in, I found myself seduced by any opportunity to see a woman who usually wears a jilbab in the rare “hair exposed” state. I know, I know, it sounds pitiful, but would breasts be as attractive if all women always walked around topless?

Women here are acutely aware of this. If we talk of making progress with a woman in terms of the commonly used middle-school ‘base’ system…first base is holding hands, second base is kissing, home run is…well you know, then seeing a woman without her jilbab on is the equivalent of stepping into the batter’s box. I don’t actually know this from personal experience, but I have a few remarkable stories. For instance, I met a tightly-jilbabed woman at a coffee shop in the mall. She made an appointment with me because she, not surprisingly, wanted to “practice her English.” After a well-orchestrated and predominately English speaking interaction, she casually asked if I wanted to wash my hair. I was a bit taken aback as hair washing is not a typical American custom while walking around the mall. However, because of incredibly inexpensive service costs (a haircut is 70 cents!!), the salon is a pervasive element of life in Indonesia, especially for women. I found this suggestion particularly strange for a woman who keeps her hair covered for 95 percent of the day, but oh well, that’s just another one of the countless inexplicable aspects of this country. I just accept things for what they are.

I decided I wasn’t in the mood for a hair wash that day, so I just waited. I am a professional waiter (see previous posts) so I was sure to have a book in hand, and her time in the enclosed hair-washing station just flew by. After emerging from behind the barrier (presumably constructed so that boys could not get sneak peeks of womens’ naked hair), she said “Oh Meester Jooooonn!” and casually flicked her EXPOSED hair at me, shaking her head like a supermodel on Fashion TV. I laughed at the absurdity of this situation, but also laughed a little at myself perhaps for actually being attracted to her hair, only because I was one of the privileged few to see it. Throughout the rest of the day, her headscarf was consistently “accidentally” falling down. Alhamdulillah!! Send this lovely Muslim hair temptress back from whence she came!! She is clearly aware of the power she is able to wield, and the male’s undeniable attraction to all that is mysterious and unknown regarding the female body. Luckily, as an American, I have spent the vast majority of my life seeing a lot of female hairstyles. So, compared to the typical Indonesian boy who attends my Pesantren, I have a better-established resistance to this seduction strategy.

A glimpse into a musholla, a small "on-the-go" style prayer room. This one happens to be located in one of my favorite restaurants.

Dowry and Arranged Marriages

When I was riding on the back of my new friend’s motorcycle, a 30 year old English teacher, and he asked me if I had ever kissed a girl then proceeded to giggle uncontrollably, I knew I was in a different world. Turns out, among the lower-income families of South Sulawesi, the 30, 35, 40 year old kissing virgin is a prevalent, shall we say…issue. South Sulawesi is Bugis territory, a region dominated for ages by the Buginese language and culture, famous for their expertise in boat building and brilliantly-constructed stilt houses. They also require rather steep dowries before any respectable girl is permitted to marry. Combine this aspect of their culture with the “hands off until marriage” Islamic religiosity that came later in the 17^th century, and you end up with a lot of poor, sexually frustrated men who have confided in me. They just plain can’t afford to “purchase” a wife. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Islam permits up to four wives, so the very rich men in town may own four houses on one street, with a different wife occupying each one. I was literally told that a marriage proposal involves a lot of monetary bargaining between the prospective husband and the woman’s parents. The parents demand 30 million rupiah, the suitor bids low at 15, they compromise somewhere between 20 and 25. Yowza!

My other teacher friend is in his mid-30s, and he doesn’t have this problem. He already has a wife and two daughters. Apparently, back in his day, he had a number of different girlfriends. Unfortunately, although he was quite fond of his girlfriend, he felt obligated to obey his parents when they chose to purchase his cousin for him as his wife! This is actually more desirable than marrying outside of your family. Hmm...

Okay, well I hope you enjoyed my brief analysis based on some of my limited experience. A few caveats: Islam in Indonesia is not exactly the same type of Islam we are used to hearing about in the Middle East, precisely because it mixes so differently with local beliefs on the many different islands in this astoundingly diverse nation. Likewise, these stories are not a representative sample of the whole of Indonesia. In metropolitan Jakarta, about 20 percent of women wear head coverings, Bali is a Hindu area so a head covering is a rare sight, and the eastern island of Flores is so strongly Christian that it bares more resemblance to areas of South America than to Makassar. Modernization and western beliefs have also played a significant role in further distorting the convergence of all these customs defined by culture and religion. This is manifest in the concept of “free sex,” a brand new term in the English language that most Indonesians believe they imported from America (even though I had no idea what exactly this meant the first time I heard it). Turns out, “free sex” in this country is sex before marriage that you don’t pay for (i.e. not a prostitute). The mere existence of this term is a testament to the fact that all of the above-mentioned rules are not zealously observed by all members of society. The precise frequency of this particular phenomenon is still under investigation…

Two different types of Muslim Indonesian women.