| Scope and Method of Study. The general objective of this study is to analyze factors hypothesized to affect the number of Indonesian women representatives. These are electoral system, religious, cultural structure and modernization and its effect on public opinion regarding to the women representation. The data were obtained several different Indonesian government websites, International women organization websites and survey data from International Foundation for Election System in 2003. To examine the relation between supports for women in Indonesian politics, the cross tabulation, regression and average of multivariate method are employed.;Findings and Conclusions. Indonesian women has higher number in legislatives in the authoritarian government under Soeharto era because in that system, the autocratic government simply deciding that women's representation should be at a certain level and then making it happen. Along with this argument, the expectation from the relation between parties and support for women depends on the ideology of each party. Nationalist parties are expected to promote more women representatives than Islamic parties. This is because the Nationalist ideology is more secular and modernizing while the Islamic ideology tends to rely on religious limitations on women's activities. The district magnitude does not have a significant relation with support to women. Instead, the size of the party plays major role in increasing the number of women in legislative since larger parties elect more women, smaller parties fewer; regardless of ideology. In regard to the relation between Islam and support toward women, it is difficult to conclude that women are treated in an inferior manner due to Islam in Indonesia. Finally, it appears that education become a key factor in improving the status of women in the future. |
