The development of the Pergerakan Kaum Ibu UMNO, 1945-1972

Abstract

Within traditional Malay society, its religion and its custom, women were clearly subordinate to men, their prime function the fulfilment of their roles as wives and mothers, as supporters and nurturers. Despite this prescription, they played a vital and essential role in subsistence agriculture and small commerce. Their participation in economic life provided them with avenues of influence in decision-making, but, with the exception of a few aristocratic women, this influence was generally indirect and informal. The reinstatement of British rule in Malaya following World War Two, and the subsequent involvement of Malay women as well as men in national political life, suggests a dramatic change in the role of women. They attended rallies and demonstrations; they made speeches; they joined political organisations; later they voted and sought election to public office. Concurrently, women in increasing numbers enjoyed the availability of formal schooling; a growing number moved from unpaid rural work to paid employment in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. But these changes - political, educational and economic - were changes which affected most Malay men as they did women; they did not necessarily demand a change in the role of women vis-a-vis men. To what extent did change in fact occur in the role of women involved particularly in political life? Had traditional attitudes towards the role of women been replaced by new values? Or was tradition, instead, sufficiently flexible to accommodate the participation of women in a non-traditional setting, without necessitating essential changes in their role? To examine these questions, this thesis focuses on the Pergerakan Kaum Ibu UMNO, the largest women's political organisation in Malaya. The Kaum Ibu began as a number of small independent women's associations in 1945. They confederated as state organisations affiliated with the United Malays National Organisation in 1947; in 1949, they reconstituted as the women's section of the party. From 1949, this section expanded and consolidated, to become a mass women's organisation of significant political importance to the party. The section and its members appeared far removed from the women of traditional Malay society a quarter of a century earlier. However, by examining the status of the section, its interests, its activities and its attitudes to the role of women within the party and within society, the thesis argues that in fact essential change had not occurred, and that the Kaum Ibu provided a continuum from traditional life to involvement in contemporary political processes. Show more