Gender Unfairness Faced by the Women Characters in Abidah El Khalieqy’s Novel “Perempuan Berkalung Sorban�

Lembar Pengesahan tidak disertai tanda tangan dosen pembimbingThe experience of living in a pesantren has inspired Abidah El Khalieqy to tell about gender construction of people who live in the environment of a pesantren in her novel Perempuan Berkalung Sorban. This novel tells about how women in Javanese Moslem society live inside and around a pesantren suffering from gender unfairness. The study tries to find out how gender unfairness is reflected in the novel Perempuan Berkalung Sorban by analyzing the characters and it is found that the women characters; Annisa, Kalsum, Umi and Hajjah Mutmainah have to face gender unfairness committed by men and women which manifested in stereotypes, subordination, marginalization, violence and overburdens. The gender unfairness happens because of patriarchy twisting the interpretations of Al’Quran. It is suggested that people should not twist or manipulate religious teaching for particular group’s interest and teaching material used in Indonesian schools must be evaluated to teach the young generation to engraft fairness beyond sexes and gender