Sayembara Sebagai Bentuk Resistensi Perempuan dalam Menolak Hegemoni Laki-Laki dalam Cerita Rakyat Roro Jonggrang, Roro Mendut, dan Sangkuriang

This paper briefly shares some insights in the matters of resistance toward patriarchic hegemony in three Indonesian folktales; Roro Jonggrang, Roro Mendut, and Sangkuriang. Spivak’s subalternity is used to carve out the critical reading on the three stories. The three stories tell women’s resistances toward men’s hegemonic dominions in patriarchic societies. The findings of the discussion show that woman characters in the three stories come from certain social stratum in their own societies who have their own subjectification and identification. “Sayembara” which was tactically created by those women characters is a means of their alternative weapon to resist men’s dominion and power. The catharsis of the three folktales shows that the three woman characters find their dead or evanescent as the consequences of their being rebel. The images of women in the three stories based on various versions of the folktales are rebellion and subversive.