Pretty women. Beauty, modernity and morality in Berastagi, North Sumatra

Abstract

This paper, based on 12 months of fieldwork in Tanah Karo, North Sumatra, analyses the role of beauty in the transformation of the ways in which young Christian Kato Barak women perceive and imagine gender. In a rural, patrilinear society that offers women only limited space for the pursuit of individual aspirations, media- and state-inspired ideals of modernity and of modern women as delicate, beautiful and feminine become an important discursive resource for pushing the boundaries of gendered agency somewhat further. While young women strive to become modern, ambitious and refined, men are perceived as the uncivilized, un-modern Other. Beauty; however, proves to be an inherently ambiguous topic: Being beautiful and delicate means at the same time the loss of physical strength and the ability to work hard, and, thereby, the loss of culturally well-accepted means of gaining status and respect.