Women, Islam and Modernity: Single Women, Sexuality and Reproductive Health in Contemporary Indonesia

In popular debates about reproductive and sexual rights, formal religions, especially Islam, are seen as barriers providing institutional and ideological resistance to women's realization of reproductive autonomy. This book challenges this simplified view of Islam. Based on original fieldwork in Eastern Indonesia, the book explores the complex factors which affect how young Indonesian women form their sexual subjectivity, discusses the conditions under which they repress or express their sexuality, and examines how the cultural context, including other factors besides Islam, influences the way in which young single women approach courtship, and issues of sexuality and reproductive health. It demonstrates that Islam is neither alone in trying to control female sexuality, nor entirely successful in doing so.

Linda Rae Bennett is a VicHealth Public Health Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society of La Trobe University.