While researching more for research unit, I found a zine and an article that intrigued me. The article on Vice Indonesia, titled ‘Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Portraits of Women Defining Their Own Femininity’ (you can access it here–it’s fully in English!). The article writes about Anak Perempuan (means ‘daughter’ in English), a photo book by photographer Nadia Rompas unpacks intergenerational femininity, gender stereotypes, and identity. In the series of photography, stated by the article, ‘mom is someone who hangs over their daughters’ lives regardless of whether she’s physically present. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s frustrating, like when your mom has very different ideas about how you should dress, who you should date, where you should work‘.
What intrigued me are the stories of two women my age, who dress drastically different at home with their family and outside because of the social pressure their mom put on them.
This article attracted me a lot since I have the same experience (and it’s kind of the same with a girl named Katy in the article). My mom works as a teacher at Islamic university, her students are obliged to wear hijab and modest clothes (you have to cover up and not allowed to wear tight attire that exposes your body shape) and she’s one of the people who enforced the regulation. Naturally, she wanted me to do the same. So every time I need to go to her campus or hanging out with her friends, I compelled to wear hijab or pashmina and long sleeves. This is like having two identities because of the social pressure from the mom.
I am thinking of making this into my 500 words essay and try to find more information regarding the topic.
Another interesting thing that I found is Buah Zine, a digital zine by Teta, an Indonesian diaspora who lives in the US.
The zine featured interviews of people with Indonesian heritage who lives and/or grew up abroad. Their stories are interesting, and I saw the pattern for Indonesians who live/have lived abroad from Buah and Anak Perempuan: they seem to be more carefree on self-expression. Now the question is, should I go deeper on this for my research?