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Dr. L. Ayu Saraswati is professor in women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Hawai`i. She is the author and co-editor of five books, including Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia, which won 2013 National Women's Studies Association Gloria Anzaldúa book award, and Scarred: A Feminist Journey through Pain, which won 2024 Association of American Publishers PROSE book award for Biography/Autobiography. Her work has been included as one of Meridians journal’s most impactful works in the past twenty years, and mentioned in The Economist, Aljazeera, Deutsche Welle, Vogue Australia, SBS Radio Australia, among others. She is also an associate consultant at EVERYBODY Consulting, and acquisition editor at Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal.
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TMYS: How has your upbringing in Indonesia shaped your views on gender and feminism? Could you share a personal story from your childhood that may have helped you understand your feminine identity?
Dr. Saraswati:
Indonesia consists of more than 300 ethnic groups and culture. The culture that I grew up in was Javanese culture. The dominant idea of a good Javanese woman at the time was well-behaved/restrained, soft-spoken, and submissive. My parents tried to raise me as such. But I was nothing like that. They used the word ‘tomboy’ to describe me. I liked to climb trees (and based on my mom’s stories, apparently I often fell off from them). I walked home once with a nail on my foot that I somehow managed to accidentally step on, and wasn’t crying. Instead of lowering my gaze, I used to talk back when scolded. After my younger brother was born, I also noticed that they raised us differently. Whereas I was not supposed to eat too much to maintain the ideal slim figure, my brother could eat anything he wanted. While he was allowed to have a sleepover, I had to be home by eight. These differences were what then drove me to be interested in gender issues.
TMYS: What sparked your interest in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies? Who were your role models growing up, and how did they influence your path?
Dr. Saraswati:
We didn’t have Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) program in Indonesia back then. However, I had always observed that women and girls had more limitations in life than men and boys. So, when I went to college and took classes such as introduction to sociology, sociology of gender, and women and politics, I began to make connections between what happened in my life and the theories of gender. Then, I learned that there was such a thing called Women’s Studies. When I went to get a master’s degree in political science in the United States, I took a women’s studies graduate certificate. After that, I took a second master’s degree in Women’s Studies and a doctoral degree, also in Women’s Studies.
In thinking about a role mode, even though I didn’t have the word for it then, I think I’d call my late grandmother my feminist role model. She was a strong and outspoken woman. She was the brain in her family. She was the one running her family business, even though, of course, it wasn’t her who got the credit. She taught me to be brave and think courageously.
TMYS: How has the curriculum of and research under Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies changed since you began your career, and where do you see it heading in the future?
Dr. Saraswati:
When I was taking the degree, most departments at the time were still called Women’s Studies. Now, many of them have changed to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, or a variation of it. This shows the growth and emphasis in the field that no longer only focuses on women, but also gender and sexuality issues, of course. This is a good thing, because to achieve gender equality, we need to be inclusive of all genders, and understand the intersectionality of gender.
In the future, I hope that despite the backlash that women, people of all genders and marginalized sexualities are currently experiencing, and the closure of some WGSS departments across the country and in the world, we will be able to further the field. I hope to see more WGSS research that focus on disability, class, transnational, and technology/posthuman (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) issues.
TMYS: In your book “Scarred: A Feminist Journey Through Pain”, you posed the question, “How can we be more creative and courageous in carrying pain in our lives?” Please share your insights on how women, in particular, can navigate and transform the pain associated with gender stereotypes into a source of strength and empowerment in their lives?
Dr. Saraswati:
In my book, I pointed out four practices that we can do in our lives to turn pain into power. These practices can be useful for all genders. I talked about these practices in length in the book, each practice is discussed in one whole chapter. Very briefly, they are:
i) perceive in defiant ways. Instead of perceiving in docile ways, or the ways that we have been taught how to perceive that often make us feel pain, we need to perceive in ways that defy these docile perceptions, that challenge gender norms.
ii) work with the body and without the story. We need to get at the emotions that are buried deep within our body. There are techniques to do that, and one of them is to resurface these emotions by bypassing the mind/dropping the story.
iii) make time for feminist enchantment daily. Pain often makes us feel discouraged about life. We need to find ways to create magic in our lives that will allow us to feel reconnected with ourselves. In other words, yes, pain is an integral part of the living body. For as long as we live, we will feel pain. Hence, we need to figure out a way to live with pain in a way that is more life-sustaining and nourishing for us. Otherwise, pain will become too overwhelming and make us want to stop living.
iv) demand emotional contract. No matter how hard we work to change our perception, our body, and our everyday routine, we still need institutional and structural support to heal our pain. For example, we need accessible and affordable healthcare and mental healthcare for all.
TMYS: What are the challenges and opportunities that social media platforms present for feminist activism today? With the current trajectory of social media, what do you predict for the future of feminist activism online?
Dr. Saraswati:
Social media platforms allow people to broadcast their activism and campaigns across the globe, wherever that platforms are accessible. However, because these platforms operate with a neoliberal logic, we have to be mindful about how and what we post so that we are not being used by its neoliberal machines. In my book, Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Selfie, I talk about three things or the three Cs that we need to keep in mind when posting: Content, Context, and Collective.
For our activism to not be co-opted by the neoliberal values, we must ask, are we posting content that focus only on ourselves, or do we include our community/collective? Does the content invite others to do collective action, broadcast community events and programs, or simply project oneself as a successful neoliberal self(ie)?
For the context, we need to ask ourselves before we post: “When we tell a story about ourselves or anything at all, do we contextualize our posting within a larger context? Does the context we provide allow other people to understand how the ecology/structure/ideology works and therefore possibly evoke social change?”
Being mindful about the context means that we cannot just focus on the person or the “I,” but the “I” in the context.
Lastly, for our social media activism to be efficient, we must always consider the collective and ask, “Does this posting prioritize the collective? Is it ‘collectively oriented’? Does it aim to harness the power of the collective? Is it ‘socially responsible’? Does it work to connect with and support each other? Does it work toward ending systemic oppression?”
Thus far, we have seen the successes of some feminist activism that uses social media platform. I hope that we will all become more proficient in navigating this terrain of digital media in the future. I am intrigued to see how AI will shape activism then.
TMYS: Recent discussions suggest a shift away from traditional color stereotypes "blue is for men, pink is for women". For instance, social media trends show a growing acceptance of non-binary color choices. How do you see these changes impacting societal views on gender?
Dr. Saraswati:
Because these changes have only happened relatively recently, they are yet to become mainstreamed. There is a divide on this issue. Some people have been more open than others in embracing these shifts. This is why it’s important to make WGSS classes available at high school and college levels, as well as in public conversations. It takes time and some key reading materials to explain these issues well, in a way that people would see and understand better. I also hope that people who resist these changes can interrogate their own fear, or why they are resisting so much to these shifts, and why they are so invested in the gender binary system.
TMYS: How do stereotypes depicting women as passive and submissive contribute to gender inequalities in decision-making processes, both in personal relationships/ within family and in broader societal contexts? Please share a real life story in this context, if possible, from your professional space.
Dr. Saraswati:
These stereotypes are dangerous. First, they are not even accurate. Wherever I go, I see women who are strong and smart. They are outspoken, they are leaders, and they are brave. They make great decisions for their families and for themselves. Second, they make girls and women who are outspoken feel like they are alone, they are the odd ones in the group. They are not.
If you are a teacher, and I am one, just observe your classroom. I see women are thinking critically and writing brilliantly. As teachers, we also need to check our biases: Have we encouraged boys to speak up more than girls? Do we give more attention to certain gender more than others? What assumptions do we have about certain students because of their gender, class, and ethnicity? Do we create class assignments that encourage women to be leaders? We can always begin to challenge gender stereotypes and inequalities where we are.
TMYS: What advice would you give to emerging scholars in the field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, who aspire to make a difference at the grassroots? Please share one or more instances where your research or teachings have had a significant impact on international students, policies or practices, given the strong transnational focus in your work?
Dr. Saraswati:
Always remember that change takes time. Sometimes when we are working on an issue, it seems like nothing has changed, that our work hasn’t made a difference. But it will. A book that I published 11 years ago, Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia, have only become more accepted recently. It was about colorism and racism in transnational Indonesia. Although at the political level, I have yet to see significant changes. At the personal level, I have heard stories from women across the globe who shared that the book changed how they viewed themselves and made them more confident about their bodies. A woman pastor in Indonesia told me that she gave my book to her colleague, and the colleague included the teaching in her sermon. We need to remain hopeful that our work will create an impact in the world. Keep writing. Keep doing the work. Keep showing up.
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The interview was conducted by Joyashree Dey.
This interview is included in our book themed on Gender Stereotyping, available worldwide via Amazon.