Keywords
gender
literature
male gaze
post-Reform Indonesian novels
How to Cite
Abstract
This study examines the ethics of representing women in post-Reform Indonesian novels (2000–2025), focusing on how narrative voice, visual framing, and authorial position shape female subjectivity. Using qualitative textual analysis, the study applies Stuart Hall’s theory of representation alongside Laura Mulvey’s male gaze and Mieke Bal’s concepts of focalization and narrative perspective to a selected corpus of novels by male and female authors. The findings show that gender bias cannot be explained solely by the author’s gender. Male-authored works often objectify or constrain female characters, yet female-authored texts may also reproduce patriarchal norms through internalized gender expectations, limited agency, and normative femininity. The study is limited by its selective corpus and interpretive focus, which do not represent all post-Reform Indonesian fiction or reader responses. It contributes to Indonesian literary and gender studies by shifting attention from the presence of women to the ethics of how women are represented. Its novelty lies in combining representational ethics, narrative perspective, and gendered visual analysis across works by authors of different genders
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