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This article explores male perceptions and attitudes toward violence against women in Indonesia. It analyzes interview data from Indonesian men collected as part of a large multimethod Australian government-funded project on masculinities and violence in two Asian countries. Reluctance to talk about violence against women was evident, and the accounts of those men who did respond referred to three justificatory discourses: denial, blaming the victim, and exonerating the male perpetrator. The findings support continuation of government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects aimed at both empowering women and reeducating men., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

In this article, we address the experiences of female sex workers in urban Australia through analysis of interviews using a feminist approach. Although many previous studies have been conducted, our focus was on the voices of sex workers in an area that was rapidly gentrifying, leading to local community tensions. Intensive analysis of interview transcripts was employed to derive thematic codes for understanding how the women viewed and managed everyday risk in sex work. They were well aware of the health risks associated with sex work. For women working on premises, domain separation between sex work and other life domains was an important management strategy for maintaining self-esteem. For women working on the street, instincts honed by years of dangerous work provided a measure of safety. Our findings have implications for health and other agencies dealing with sex workers in situations in which community pressure is exerted to move sex workers away from the area.

This paper reports on data from a 2009-2010 project on masculinity and violence, part of which was conducted in Indonesia. The data here come from semi-structured interviews with 86 men in five cities, with minor reference to survey findings. Using a Foucauldian interpretive framework, we focus primarily on how these Indonesian men view police intervention in comparison to resolving the problem of violence within their community through mediation. The issue here is that while community mediation approaches are regarded positively, at present, it only seems to be religious leaders who are trusted to resolve conflicts effectively through this approach. Suspicion of mediation interventions and other measures that are tied to the authority of the state means that the promise of service-oriented policing reforms may not be effectively implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In qualitative interviews conducted during 2009/2010, 86 male interviewees frequently "explained" violence between men in Indonesia as resulting from low socioeconomic status. This paper is not about how violence actually happens, but about how it is explained by Indonesian men. We unpack the discursive assertions of interviewees, and first explore the cultural utility and validity of the "hydraulic pressure" model of male violence found popular in the Indonesian mass media. While some men used this simple model of explosive violence caused by pressure, others acknowledged the active choice of men in marginal economic circumstances to use violence. We then consider this range of explanations for the link between socioeconomic disadvantage and male violence through the lens of Messerschmidt's "compensatory" thesis on violence and masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]