Women’s Resistance against Economic Inequality, State Violence and Corrupt Elites in Indonesia By Siti Yunia Mazdafiah and Amar Alfikar

A mother in a pink hijab is standing unfazed before a group of police officers in armored suits. She grips a bamboo pole with the red-and-white Indonesian flag fluttering at the top, waving in the breeze. She seems to be shouting at a line of police officers clad in black armor. Behind her, rainwater pools on the asphalt, and water drops splash into the air as a police baton clashes against the mother’s bamboo stick. A troop forms a wall meant to silence dissent. Yet she raised her voice higher, breaking the barricade of fear.

A photo of this mother went viral on the internet within hours, alongside other images that depict the ongoing public protests (Al Jazeera, 2025) in multiple cities in Indonesia since August 25, 2025. Her resistance became the face of public defiance and the reality on the ground that the Indonesians had been facing for years. For many, her courage encapsulated the anguish of the ordinary citizens who are squeezed between the soaring prices of commodities of daily needs, the rampant police brutalities, the corrupt lawmakers and elites who show no care for the people, and the widening canyon of economic inequality.

The public rage was triggered by the government official announcement of the lavish house allowance (Oktafian and Febrianna, 2025) for each of Indonesia’s parliament members, granting every lawmaker Rp50 million ($3,067) a month for housing, a perk analysts condemned as tone-deaf amid the nation’s economic struggles. This announcement is followed by out-of-touch commentaries and responses from several parliament members that show ignorance; one parliament member said that the critics of the allowance come from ‘foolish people.’ (Redaksi, 2025)

Though the act of protest had already been tense, it only intensified when, amidst the agitation, a police car ran over an online ojek driver (Reuters in Jakarta, 2025) named Affan, leaving behind a heartbroken mother who had lost her family’s breadwinner; his death soon came to embody the brutality of police violence. This sparked more rage and a national uproar. Unrest expanded in other cities, with each an evocation of the same general expression of anger. Tensions began to peak, clashes snowballed, and protestors were met with police violence. At least 3000+  people are arrested. (CNN, 2025) Rather than listening to the people’s needs and de-escalating the tension, President Prabowo instructed the military and police to ‘take firm action’ (Yuilyana, 2025) against demonstrations, which led to more repression, brutality, and intimidation toward the protestors. As of 2 September, it is reported that 20 people have been missing (The Jakarta Post, 2025), and at least 7 people have been killed. (Abdurrahman, 2025)

Yet the fire of what is happening from this public rage was not triggered by a single match. It is the culmination of wounds and pain of Indonesian people who have to endure state violence and inequality, accumulated by one tragedy after another. The police and military violence against civilians is not new. The case of Kanjuruhan stadium in 2022 (Tamsut, 2023) is still remembered as the memories of many, where police fired tear gas, causing the deaths of more than 130 football supporters. It is one of the darkest nights in Indonesia’s sporting history. In Semarang, a high school student was shot dead by a police officer (Zamzami, 2024), sparking another public rage toward unlawful killing by the police. Amnesty International Indonesia reported (Amnesty International Indonesia, 2025) that since the beginning of 2025, there have already been 104 human rights defenders—from journalists, indigenous communities, and environmental activists—who are the victims of state violence.

With violence continuing to loom, Indonesian people are also grappling with deepening economic inequality that suffocates them. Civilians find themselves forced to endure the tightening grip of daily survival. Taxes rise, yet parliamentarians are awarded with lavish allowances and extravagant facilities. Workers toil from dawn to dusk, only to find their wages insufficient against surging food and fuel prices. The economic turmoil also positions women breadwinners (who account for 14% of the Indonesian population) (Wafa, 2025) into more vulnerability. Outrage is accumulated, fermented, and ripened into the cries we see on the Indonesian streets today. 

However, this is not the first public rage. The political turmoil had already sparked as Indonesia witnessed the new presidency of Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander linked to past human rights allegations and the 1998 activist disappearances. The streets have carried the weight of protest since then. In February 2025, a movement of #IndonesiaGelap, or #DarkIndonesia, erupted across the country. People rallied against contentious policies like UU Minerba (Rachim, 2025) (mineral and coal mining law), the expanded powers under UU TNI (Mudhoffir and Qurrata A’yun, 2025) (military law), and the Efficient Expenditure instruction, as well as demanding agrarian reform, accessible education, and resolving human rights violations. (Tempo, 2025) As in so many past moments when people voiced their demands during protests, rather than listen and answer to the demands, the state’s response came through tear gas and batons.

Women’s Resistance against Power Abuses and Political Distress

The image of the mother in the pink hijab cannot be divorced from this historical continuum. She represents a moment and an act of resistance against all that goes wrong with a nation that she loves: injustices, power abuses, human rights violations, inequality, and state violence. Her courage also positions an act of solidarity and movement led by women who refuse to remain silent in the face of power’s excesses.

Indonesian women have been there in every historical moment, playing key roles in advocating, mobilizing, and documenting the voices and acts to fight against atrocities and injustices. When mass violence happened in 1998, which led to the fall of the 32-year military regime in the country, it marked a dark chapter for Indonesian women, as dozens of ethnic Chinese women fell victim to rape and sexual assault. (Anastasia et al., 2013) These atrocities galvanized women to organize and demand accountability, leading to the establishment of Komnas Perempuan (National Commission on Violence against Women) and making violence against women a central focus of the post-1998 women’s movement. They have been leading advocacies for law protections (Ady Thea DA, 2024), including the Sexual Violence Crime Law, Gender Equality Bill, Domestic Workers Protection Bill, Indigenous Customary Law Bill, and Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

In every public unrest, Indonesian women are not afraid to be at the frontlines when facing state repression and violence, confronting the apparatus as instruments of power and brutality wielded by the elites. In their raised fist and sharp voice lies the distilled demand of accountability: that those entrusted with governance must serve, not exploit; must protect, not persecute.

One cannot speak of Indonesian women’s resistance without mentioning Ibu Sumarsih, the mother of Wawan, a university student killed during the Semanggi shootings of 1998 (News Desk, 2024) when state troops fired upon unarmed civilians. Since then, Ibu Sumarsih has carried out her ritual of protest, which is known as Aksi Kamisan (Pandiangan, 2025), where she stands every Thursday in front of the State Palace, clad in her signature black t-shirt, holding an umbrella under Jakarta’s blistering sun or torrential rain.

For 18 years, 875 Thursdays, she has demanded justice for her son and for all victims of state violence. No government, no president, has fulfilled that demand. Promises came and went, like shadows passing at dusk. Yet Sumarsih remains. Her weekly protest and presence tell us a truth that is more profound than any politician’s speeches and promises: justice denied is injustice perpetuated. Her solitary figure each Thursday is a rebuke to the state’s amnesia. 

In Indonesia, there is this phrase, “The Power of Ibu-ibu,” or the power of the mothers, that reflects the courage and rage of mothers who are against all taboos and patriarchal pictures of what and how women and mothers should be. But these women break all the misogynistic portrayals of the power they are able to wield. These women are unashamed and unafraid to call out abuses. In 2016, nine women farmers cemented their feet (The Jakarta Post, 2016) to protest against cement company development that will exploit and destroy the environment and their homeland. Singing “Mother Earth has given, Mother Earth has been hurt, Mother Earth will seek justice,” these women resist against ecological destruction. (Gecko Project Investigations Limited, 2020)

These figures, Ibu Sumarsih and the mother with the pink hijab, carry the voices of both political and environmental struggle. Women who are often perceived only as the caretakers of domestic life, in reality, are the bamboo bearers,  fearless protestors that speak for millions of Indonesian people who are swamped with economic struggle, while their leaders are filled with extravagant lives. The women have broken the walls of confinement, shouting their grief, their fear, and their indignation into public defiance. Their agency has long contributed to building democracy. In their resistance lies a symbolic force: mothers cannot be easily vilified without the state revealing its cruelty, and yet their voices, when ignored, expose the cowardice of those in power. In the end, resistance is not chaos, and even if it is, it is needed when systemic injustices are left unchallenged. It is the conscience of the people making their suffering seen and their longing for justice heard. And in the figure of women, that conscience is clothed not in fear, but in unyielding courage.

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