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women been replaced by new values?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
