Clothing as a Propaganda Tool for Indonesian Women on the Home Front during the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-140-1_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Propaganda; monpe; home front; Indonesian women; Japanese occupation

Abstract

During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, the Japanese military government produced numerous propaganda aimed at Indonesian citizens to spread the ideology of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. One prominent example was the propaganda through traditional Japanese clothing called monpe for Indonesian women. Monpe is an old-style Japanese loose trouser typically worn by female agricultural workers. In Indonesia, the monpe not only displayed the power and influence of the Japanese military government over Indonesian women but also symbolized the gender role of Indonesian women as the home front desired by the Japanese military government at that time. This research analyzes the correlation between the monpe and the role of Indonesian women on the home front. Furthermore, this study investigates the monpe-wearing policy in Japan at the same time the Japanese military government adopted the identical policy in Indonesia. This paper applies the qualitative-descriptive method, in which data was obtained from magazines and propaganda newspapers published by the Japanese military government and books printed in Japan during the same period. Based on the data, it is noteworthy that monpe not only eased women undertaking domestic and regular jobs but also served as a uniform for Indonesian women defending their homes from airstrikes, practicing self-defense, and other beneficial purposes. Thus, the conclusion is that the monpe served as a propaganda tool to construct the ideal women that the Japanese military government desired: women who actively participated on the home front in wartime.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Alifia Masitha Dewi
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/07
TI  - Clothing as a Propaganda Tool for Indonesian Women on the Home Front during the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Language, Linguistics, and Literature (COLALITE 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 49
EP  - 57
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-140-1_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-140-1_6
ID  - Dewi2023
ER  -