A Paradox of Women’s Politicians in Muslim Patriarchy and Matrilineal Society, A Case study of West Sumatera Indonesia
Authors: Selinaswati Selinaswati 
Published: January 2019

This study is a cultural sociological inquiry regarding an ethnic group in West Sumatra Indonesia, the Minangkabau. Specifically, it compares electoral choices of female legislators in Minangkabau with the situation in Riau Province period 2004-2009, where there has been a long tradition of Minangkabau migration but where local norms have adapted to a more patriarchal Malay system. It is useful to compare Riau Province and West Sumatra because of the similarities in their general customs. Both societies belong to the Malay ethnic group, with Islam as the dominant religion in which 88% Muslim out of total population in Riau and 98% Muslim in West Sumatra. The population in Riau is 5,308,702 and West Sumatra is 5,400,000. A discourse related to offering opportunities to female representative is known as 30% quota for women as candidate legislator. The number of candidate legislator in Riau greater than West Sumatra, the ratio is 180:163 or 28%: 26%. However, the result is not parallel; for provincial board council level West Sumatra has six female representatives and Riau province has three only. This gap between the ideal of giving opportunities to women in parliament and the fact that this number is actually less than 13% has made me curious to investigate. It is hope that through this study there is gender awareness within decision makers. They will concern to women’s issue and accede to women more opportunities to do activities in public space especially political field.The hypothesis is about female quota as an affirmative action is weak in implementation and is ineffective in providing more opportunities to women legislators in either West Sumatra or Riau. Then, however, the matrilineal society of West Sumatra is more open for women to assume public responsibilities, including those in the political arena and in education, than is the case in the more patriarchal society of Riau. These hypotheses will be analyzed through some interview to the female representative in two provinces. It is also will be conducted interview to the people surround the female representative such scholars, family relative, and male legislators.There are 12 people who become respondent, some of them are male representatives, female representatives in every province, and their relatives. The data that collected by interview, as part of qualitative method, are used to gather descriptive and narrative facts from matrilineal and patriarchal society. It will be useful to analyze the hypothesis in this thesis. To analyze data of women’s strategies in political field; a paradox of women’s activists in Muslim patriarchy and matrilineal society, some steps will be accomplished such as tape recorded interview will be transcribed, coded, and compared with observation and then to be concluded. In detail; first collection of verbal data, second, reading of these data, third breaking data into some kinds of parts, fourth organization and expression of data from a disciplinary perspective, and fifth making a synthesis and summary of the data for purposes of communication to the scholarly community.