Being a woman is political. Being a Muslim woman in a Muslim majority country is political by design. Indonesia’s so called Population Control Program since Suharto era, has never been about a balance or care. It’s always been about creating workers, but that part is silent.
The State calls it Planned Family or Keluarga Berencana (KB), which literally translates to family planning, but it’s rooted in a deeper cultural norm: the belief that a woman’s worth is defined by her reproductive system. Using children as a tool for controlling society to keep worshiping capitalism, especially when framed with religion, is truly something else.
KB or Keluarga Berencana has been in place since Suharto’s regime, with the aim of controlling population growth, sure, but in reality, it’s become a method of controlling women’s bodies and choices, placing the burden of family planning solely on women while leaving men out of the conversation.
Keluarga Berencana is the state’s answer to reducing population, but it’s never about women’s health or autonomy. The pressure is always on women. We bear the burden of family planning. While men are pampered from birth, they are taught they can be useless and still be praised as providers, they live in confusion, torn between worshiping their mother and controlling their wife. And that confusion is seen as a kind of depth.
Be serious.
KB is never about family wellness at this point, really, it’s about state sanctioned reproductive exploitation.
Meanwhile, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia, or MUI (the Indonesian Ulema Council) declared vasectomy haram or forbidden, but the system is fine with women enduring hormonal side effects, mental breakdowns, chronic pain, without real options or informed consent.
The MUI has a significant influence over public policy in Indonesia, including ruling on issues like contraception. Their stance on reproductive health is often based on disturbing interpretations of Islamic law. ‘Why disturbing?’ You might ask, because it’s never rooted in justice and equity that Islam is always about, which affects women disproportionately.
The MUI’s declaration that vasectomy is haram is just one example of how religious authorities used to uphold the burden on women, while men are allowed to avoid responsibility.
Men won’t even wear condoms. Vasectomy is branded as haram, yet they scream emasculation, divine order, fitrah. They want all the pleasure, but none of the consequences.
KB has shoved pills, injections, implants, coils and even post birth IUDs into women’s bodies. Say no and you are a bad wife. Ungrateful. Selfish. If you refuse you risk abandonment, polygamy, or worse: being blamed for your husband’s infidelity. Even some see KB as haram too. Women are expected to just pop out children every year, can you imagine? Meanwhile, the state and religious bodies stay silent.
But ask a man to make a tiny sacrifice, and suddenly they remember rights.
No one called it a violation when women were forced to carry babies from sexual assault to birth. No one called it coercion when women were shamed into natural births they didn’t want because their husbands wouldn’t pay for caesarean. No one defended women when they were pushed out of work, isolated from education, and told they could only be treated by unavailable women doctors.
Women are expected to bleed, break, and beg for every crumb of support. And then stay cheerful, stay pure, stay desirable.If welfare aid or bansos has always had conditions, why is this one too far? Is it because it’s finally aimed at men?
Men are not sacred. Their bodies are not above responsibility. Vasectomy is safer, simpler and often reversible. It’s minimal, it’s maintenance, it’s bare minimum. This is not oppression at all. This is fairness, and it feels threatening because men have never had to face it.
The ulamas cheerlead the state when women are overworked, unsupported, and overburdened. But when men are asked to carry just 1% of that, they cry foul.
“Banyak anak, banyak rejeki,” (“Many children, many blessings,”) they say. But it’s not ‘rejeki‘ if the children grow up stunted now, is it? It’s not ‘berkah,’ if the mother is mentally destroyed. It’s not ‘qodrat,’ if it was forced.
This is not God’s will. This is man made, power wrapped in holy clothes sold to women as ‘qodrat.’
So what now? Where do we go from here? Well, here’s my proposal.
Step one, educate. Speak up about reproductive health and rights. Share knowledge about vasectomy and the options available to both men and women. Tell the truth about the risks, the benefits, the lived reality. Build spaces where women can talk without fear, without punishment, without shame.
Step two, support one another. My God, this is supposed to be really easy, but in practice, for some reason it’s so hard, because the more you hold yourself back from speaking up, the heavier it gets, and punching down seems easier. That’s what I’ve been observing my whole life. Because, wow, women can be really mean to each other.
But you know what? We women in Indonesia really need to feel less alone. We need community. We need to know that others are fighting the same fight. Uplift each other. Educate the men around you, if you have extra energy, because honestly I don’t.
But if you’re willing, educate the men around you; your brothers, your fathers, your husbands, but most importantly, hold them accountable. Push them to face their privilege and do better – And that I have energy for; Holding them accountable.
Step three, take action. Support groups and movements that are fighting for Reproductive Justice. Use every tool, online and offline, to push back. Don’t wait for the state to care. Don’t wait for religious leaders to wake up. We are the revolution. We have to act like it.
Step four, reclaim the deen as your own, reclaim Islam as your own. Strip away the lies that have been layered onto Islam. This faith was never meant to chain you down. Learn to see it through salvation, solace, empowerment, and self determination. Not guilt. Not fear. Not shame. Keep evolving. Keep growing. Keep seeking knowledge. Let the deen connect you to your truth. I share my own journey of reclaiming Islam in a podcast called The Undying Soul. It’s in Bahasa Indonesia for now, but I am working on the international version. You can support it and get early access on my Patreon.
And finally, step five, live unapologetically. This system wants us obedient. It wants us hidden, broken, ashamed. But we have to refuse. We have to refuse. We refuse their laws, their fatwas, their guilt traps. We are not bodies to breed for the state. We are not walking wombs. We are not sexual property. We are whole. We are powerful.
We were never created to obey men or put them on a pedestal. We were created to worship Allah alone, to walk this earth with dignity, autonomy and divine purpose.
Submission is for the Creator, not the created.We were created to walk this earth free
