Women and Patriarchy: When Will It End?

Abstract

This study aims to show the characterization of women in three short stories by Saut Situmorang: Barbara, Incest, and Bah. These three short stories are in a short story collection titled Khotbah Hari Minggu, published in 2021. The women characters in these three short stories represent women trapped in stigma, powerless against patriarchal culture, and becoming the victims of male rulers. This study uses the approach of sociology of literature, gender relations, and feminism as an analytical tool. The writer strengthens the woman's stigma as the weak gender and becomes the Victim of patriarchal culture. Moreover, these short stories could reveal and reinforce women's powerlessness due to negative stigma and patriarchal culture, which often represses them. As a result, the women characters in the three short stories suffer because of their social status as single women, sex workers, and perpetrators of incest. Two women characters end tragically and die because they cannot withstand the burden of stigma and patriarchal culture. In contrast, a woman character has an unclear fate because of the forbidden relationship with her elder brother and son. The three female characters in this collection of short stories present women as victims, helpless, and trapped in a thick stigma associated with patriarchal culture.