MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN IN INDRA TRANGGONO'S SHORT STORIES: A STUDY OF FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM

Abstract

This study aims to explain the forms, causal factors, and resistance to the marginalization of women in short stories by Indra Tranggono (Rain Women, Liang, Above Tanah Crack, Women Bulan Perak, and Sonya Rury) using a qualitative descriptive method with a feminist literary criticism approach, data were collected through reading and note-taking techniques and analyzed through data reduction, presentation, and drawing conclusions. The novelty of this study lies in the focus of its study which reveals how state repression (state-sponsored patriarchy) is symbiotic with domestic patriarchal power in contemporary literature, an area rarely explored simultaneously in previous feminist literary research. The results of the study show: (1) Marginalization predominantly occurs in control over reproduction and sexuality, confirming that women's bodies are reduced to objects of offspring and commodity satisfaction. (2) In contrast to previous research that focuses on the domestic realm, the dominant causal factors in Tranggono's short stories are five intersectional pillars: family, society, state, economy, and ideology, with the dominance of state apparatuses that abuse power and are paternalistic. (3) The response of the female characters is not only to survive, but also to actively resist (vigilantism, cultural, and symbolic). Analytically, these short stories represent how patriarchy does not work alone, but through power relations institutionalized by the state to control gender agencies. This research makes an important contribution to enriching the study of literary feminism by offering a model of intersectional reading between literary criticism and state criticism (state feminism criticism), showing that literature is not merely a mirror of oppression, but a space for political negotiation of gender ideology.