In this context too, it could be argued that decision-making by many women was heavily circumscribed by men. Geertz and Koentjaraningrat described these and other effects of this delegation as female dominance in domestic spheres. At the level of personal experience many men could happily delegate this power in the knowledge that their wives were careful managers. However personal experiences of these kinds generally have some structural basis and ideological supports. But the nature of this relationship between politics and gender was best explained by a masters and managers model.
Hierarchy is an unmistakable feature of Javanese society.
It embraces all areas of social life including relations between men, women and children within families, and in public life. Certainly the majority of Indonesia's kampung women did not accept their subordination as inactive victims. As I have described earlier, within the PKK and in their communities they devised a range of tactics to deflect the most negative effects of state ideological programs without drawing attention to themselves. Having witnessed the brutal manner in which the Suharto Regime dealt with those who opposed it in any form, their forms of resistance to State-imposed ideologies and programs were decidedly low key and unorganised. In retrospect the responses from 'inward-looking' PKK leaders and their auxiliary members must be seen as extremely effective in ensuring communal, familial and individual survival under a harsh regime.