F aye Yik-Wei CHAN

Chinese women's emancipation

as reflected in two Peranakan journals

(c.1927-1942)

The first four decades of this century saw the Dutch Indies undergo modernization (to varying degrees) and sociopolitical change M. For the Peranakan Chinese (2) in the colony, it was an era of new experiences - better educational opportunities, increasing Western influences, improved communications with the rest of the world, the growing momentum of the Indonesian nationalist movement, mainfestations of Chinese nationalism in both China and the Overseas Chinese diaspora, and, in the process, the differentiation of mainstream Peranakan Chinese thinking in response to these transformations in their environment. This article focuses on the twenties and thirties: a twenty-year period in which the Peranakan Chinese press had especially thrived, because of the three main political groups (pro-China, pro-Dutch and pro-Indonesian) that aired their respective policies and played out their mutual disagreements in the pages of the major newspapers <3). Politics aside, the press was equally popular as a medium where social concerns of the time were avidly discussed. Peranakan Chinese attitudes were changing, and many individuals were eager to express their views on what was happening in their own society. Naturally, some attitudes were more impervious to change than others. In particular, ideas concerning the position of Peranakan women remained quite traditional among some sectors of their society. Hence, the polemics in the press concerning women's emancipation involved progressive and conservative elements, who argued over whether women should be allowed social and personal freedoms, and to what extent.

This article sets out to examine the ideas of female emancipation that were featured in the women's supplement of the Panorama weekly (1926-1931), and in the women's monthly Maandblad Istri (1935-1942), two periodicals that were representative of popular, yet moderately progressive, views on women in the Peranakan Chinese press during the 1920s and 1930s W. These

[Archipel 49 - Paris, 1995 - pp. 45-62.]