Self Interpretation: The Identity of Women Legislators

There is an expansion of the meaning of women's personal identities in the process of transforming the contestation of political life in Indonesia. This research is able to interpret the role and position of women in determining the direction of changing women's identity. Methodologically, this research uses a Schutz phenomenological approach through in-depth interviews. Field research was carried out by taking research subjects, comprising eight female members of the legislature in the city of Surabaya. The results of the study revealed women's identity as a form of approved self-meaning: first, women’s identity as a female fighter. This identity offers a form of identity as part of tracking the struggle of gender fighters. The second is women’s identity as a people's fighters. The third is the identity of a great woman who has electability and credibility as people's representatives. The fourth is women’s identity as a superwoman. They stand to fight for their family’s welfare, a manifestation of the excessive burden of the domestic role that is their husband’s responsibility. The most powerful factors forming women's legal identity are family, political parties, community views and political interests. Many "women legislators" in Indonesia are still developing themselves and adapting to the modernization of political identity. In conclusion, the direction of identity change through self-definition is incompatible with the direction of progressive political change in political communication competence. The significance of this research will give an impact on the political system regarding the recruitment and regeneration process of legislative candidates in Indonesia in the future.


Introduction
In Indonesia, 30% quota for women representation in the legislature came into force after the issuance of Law No. 10 of 2008 which requires political parties to include the representation of 30% of women in the House of Representatives (DPR).Indeed, political parties must fulfill this condition to be able to participate in elections (Asmar et al., 2021).This certainly provides a new atmosphere for political parties and political contestation in Indonesia.Women are seen as actors changing the political culture: they would progressively transform the competitive way of doing politics and create a more consensual and pragmatic political arena (Wahyudi, 2018;Ford, 2018).Women's representation in parliament is an absolute requirement of public policy making culture that is sensitive to women's interests (Darbaidze, 2018).This is because in practical politics, patriarchal culture has grown and has been passed down from generation to generation (Kambarami, 2006).So, the representation of women in parliament is still covered by patriarchal culture.It has happened in several legislative councils in Indonesia (Hadiyono, 2015;Nurcahyo, 2016;Afrida, 2013;Raqim, Lestari, & Handoyo, 2017;Nurcahyo, 2016).
The strong patriarchal culture continues to influence the community to give preference to women candidates when running for election (Nimrah, Sakaria, Kunci, 2015).As representatives of the people, all actions and performance carried out by politicians are being the public spotlight (Butler et al., 2022).The tendency that can develop in the determination of 30% representation of women is worrying to many parties, both women activists, political observers and the community.Creating a good impression that appeals to the community is certainly done by women politicians, although not all people can finally judge it well.The performance of women politicians is still considered poor since it can not achieve the goal of 30% representation of women.Pessimistic responses still point to women legislators.Again, it is not easy for women politicians to be included in the public sphere.
Women's electability in parliament is also in doubt, in line with the gender stereotypes existence against women politicians (Blackman & Jackson, 2021).The meaning of women's representation in parliament has different journey values in every period because of the change in women's policies and political interests.The presence of women in parliament depends on the intervention of some parties that have various interests.As explained by I Made Kartika (2017), the representation of women politicians in Bali is very minimum.The number of women contesting the 2014 legislative elections is 168 or 37% of 460 candidates in the definitive list.Where as the results of legislative elections show the number of women elected as legislators was only five, representing 9.0% of the quota.The same thing was explained in the research conducted by Nelli (2015) in Riau City Legislative Council (DPRD) which stated that women legislative members in Riau Province were very sensitive and understood gender/women's issues.Since their number was still small, they were encountered with many obstacles in realizing gender equality (Nelli, 2015).Democratization opens up political space (which has been ideologized and depolized) to be easily accessed by more political actors.Through elections, women legislators fight for seats of power for their own, their families or groups.Vote rights float freely to be mobilized and contested in a party that fights in elections (Rai, 2017).
Ideology-based politics has been replaced by issue-based politics related to identity problems.Ideology determines the electoral strategy set by the party.The party system determines how women candidates are elected and prepared.Political parties have a considerable influence on the representation of women.The lack of party's women cadres forces the party to recruit women from outside the party.This discourse is a concern for the representation of women in parliament.The presence and role of women in politics is broadening and developing over time, in line with the actions and hard work of the party in fulfilling 30% representation of women in parliament.The role displayed by women politicians is represented as a counterweight to the masculine symbol that has been synonymous with the political stage.This is indicated by the existence of various policies regarding children and women produced by the constituents.The female legislators defend feminist interests more than their male colleagues but they only marginally respond to women's electoral preferences.Moreover, gender has its most visible effect within the party.
The introduction of quotas has helped overcome constraints on women's representation posed by economic underdevelopment, cultural influences, and even electoral systems.Women legislators create their self-image in such a way that society, parties and constituents believe in the abilities of politicians.The ability of women to handle multitasks and time-management, and no less importantly, familiarity with people around them, is the fact that women legislators have also performed various roles.The role that individuals display builds their identities.Therefore, identities are the traits and characters, social relations, roles, and social group memberships that define who one is.
This research aims to see how individuals construct identity within personal life stories (Carter, 2017).Identities can be focused on the past-what used to be true of one, the present-what is true of one now, or the future -the person one expects or wishes to become, the person one feels obligated to try to become, or the person one fears one may become.Identities are the sets of meanings people hold for themselves that define "what it means" to be who they are as persons, as role occupants, and as group members (Ghosh & Irum, 2022).Identity is difficult for every individual to understand and comprehend because it is very complex.So, it is difficult to describe and understand someone.Moreover, life in politics, which incidentally consists of various kinds of interests, brings the factor of identity as an important thing to study.Therefore, research on political identity expects that women legislative members always reflect themselves, and carry out self-awareness that identity is very important for political continuation in the future.
In integrating several parts of identity formation, identity is the product rather than the source of linguistic and other semiotic practices and therefore, it is a social and cultural rather than primarily internal psychological phenomenon (Cornelissen et al., 2021).Therefore, the informants in this study will try to rebuild the meaning of the identity they have, feel, and run.It is important to understand identity because the process of women politicians to become a legislative member requires them to succeeded in winning votes to sit in parliament.
Therefore, there are processes, stages, and various kinds of interests that must be passed.The interests and power of parties and political interests have blended their identity as women and as feminists.One of them is the power of political parties which are not infrequently changed into monsters of power that snatch away the identities of women legislators since they have to follow the party interests (Dolan et al., 2021).Yet it is vital that activism interacts with ideology.Party leaders generally want to maintain control over the nomination process in order to ensure loyalty and foster party discipline (Ascencio & Kerevel, 2021).
Identity is created by the party, in the form of structured saving in mind and action.These make the women legislatures forgot their duty as a woman and a feminist representative that fights for woman equality and commonwealth.Our findings suggest that positive gender identity may reduce perceived conflict between being a woman and being a leader and thereby increase women's well-being and cause them to construe leading as an attractive goal as opposed to a duty (Karelaia & Guillén, 2014).Feminists have contended that a necessary condition for the representation of women's interests is the presence of women in decisionmaking bodies (Karelaia & Guillén, 2014).Lack of awareness from gender perspective that causes women's representation in politics has not been felt, it is still full of criticism, doubt and even scorn of society.The more severe one perceives their experience of identity change to be, the greater their level of depression.
The identity issue is always related to awareness.The capacity for self-awareness is one source of the enormous complexity in human thought and action: people can represent the self abstractly, think about their thoughts and experience, and judge their ideas and actions in light of abstract goals and standards (Carver, 2003).Women legislator awareness in interpreting the role they carry can influence them in realizing their identity role.Identity may be in part intentional, in part habitual and less than fully conscious, in part an outcome of interactional negotiation, in part a construct of others' perceptions and representations, and in part an outcome of larger ideological processes and structures (Bucholtz & Hall, 2006).
Thus, identity is a cultural product in which social practices take place so complex, but often reduced as something that is certain, whole, stable, and single.Identity is a source of meaning and community experience.Some use identity to refer essentially to the culture of a people, need they draw no distinction between identity (Burke & Harrod, 2021).Among the class terms learned within a culture are symbols that are used to designate positionsthe relatively stable, morphological components of social structure that are termed roles (Stets & Burke, 2000).Women as legislator that serve community have done double role at once, running in public and domestic as well.
This research aims to understand the importance of personal identity and identification in Indonesia's social and political context.Researcher conducts indepth interviews with several elite female members of different commissions and factions.This personal experience-based work focuses on stories from women legislators in the 2014-2019 period.This research discusses how political and gender identity are involved and used in determining legislative members in Indonesia.Beneath the intense activities of women, identity is seen as something dynamic.Identity can often change and contain many contradictions.
As legislative members, women have hectic activities to carry out simultaneously, both domestically and publicly.In political life, identity becomes complicated.From a sociological perspective, identity is actively created by themselves.In a broader sense, it is divided into social groups and is based on several key variables such as classes and nationality.

Theoretical Framework
Theories that are considered relevant to become guidance in this research are the theory of the social construction of reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman which explains that basically humans produce themselves.Berger and Luckmann succeeded in formulating and making individuals aware of the nature of living in a society in a dialectical process involving three stages, namely what is called: externalization, objectivation, internalization.
Identity communication theory which understands how someone who is in a particular social system then constructs his identity, is explained through social identity communication theory as explained by Jung & Hecht (2004).Identity is a "code" that defines a woman's membership in a group of legislators.Identity can be formed by women interacting with other people in life.A woman gets views and reactions from others in social interaction and vice versa, and shows a sense of identity by expressing herself and responding to others.

Material and Methodology
This research uses a qualitative method and phenomenological approach.It aims to get the clearest picture of the phenomenon that is the object of this study.Phenomenology explains the social world which is based on daily experience that influences the main sociologists.
Schutz's phenomenology provides understanding of actions, speech and interactions as a prerequisite for anyone's social existence.Here, Schutz specifies more on how the formation of the everyday human world through intersubjective awareness (Schutz, 2016).
Thus, the scope of reflection about oneself is considerably wider-than that of thinking about oneself, since it includes facts about one's relations to others and about oneself which had previously remained unnoticed or had appeared irrelevant both introduction and the reading are organized under five principal heading: (1) the phenomenological foundation as derived from Husserl; (2) the structure and functioning of human consciousness the cognitive setting of the life world; (3) the character of the social action; (4) the character of the social world; (5) multiple provinces regarding the meaning and the character of phenomenological sociology (Schutz, 2016).This is in line with the purpose of this research which seeks, understands, and describes the meaning given by women legislators to their identity as members of the legislature through the division of labor and the role played by legislators as representatives of the people.
The data collection in this research is divided into two, the first is in-depth interviews and the second is observation.In-depth interviews were conducted on eight informants.Each of them was interviewed 2-3 times until they found recurring patterns, through ideas formed by experience, constructed by women legislative members.Next, researcher observed the activities of female legislative members in their constituents.Informants are classified based on age group, duration of work, origin of the commission, and background of the bearer party.This aligns with the experiences, events and role models possessed by legislative members, and the political nuances in the constituents in each period formed and created by the representation of women as shown by the table 1: In approaching informants, researchers first approached a number of familiar legislators, from whom the researchers gained access to meet other politicians.Second, the researchers accessed the informants through the chairman and deputy chairman of the legislative council in the city of Surabaya.Third, the researchers directly contacted the informants via social media.In making a personal approach to members of the legislative body, the researchers found that they are very open and helpful to the researchers.Data analysis was conducted using the valid data in this study which uses the method of triangulation of sources, namely by confirming and asking for informants' approval when the data has been concluded.This is very important in qualitative research.

Construction of personal identity and social identity
In this study, it was explained that the informants identified themselves as a woman who had won political contestation and had an influence on the voices of the people who voted for them.Activities and social classes of women have changed too.Legislative women have expanded their roles of being representatives of the people who have to stand the voices of the people, especially the people who have chosen them, who have helped them become women legislative members.Some of the roles and activities undertaken by women before becoming legislative members (table 2) are: Based on the table above, regarding the classification of occupational backgrounds, education and the informants' commission, there is correlation of these three things.The correlation includes the informants' education which is not in line with the focus of their commission in the legislature.This implies that before becoming women legislative members, the informants gave an idea of the extent to which women legislative members are transforming.As seen from the table above, it is not easy for women to compete in getting the most votes and being elected to the legislature.After being elected, they are placed in various commissions which do not align with the background of their work experience and competency.To carry out practical political duties during the first term of office, women legislators have no preference regarding political life.Only informant 4 from the PKS party went through a regeneration process before becoming a legislative member.Therefore, before nominating as a legislative candidate, informant 4 has been involved in the activities of political party, and got familiar with political life.Even so, life in parliament is still new except for the second, third, etc. terms of office.
In view of limited knowledge and experience as legislative members in the first term of office, all matters related to their work in parliament require the informants to consider the interests of many parties in making decisions.Therefore, political parties that have a longer history about women's representation play a strategic role in influencing any decision that is adjusted to the ideology of the political parties in what the informants refer to as "marwah" parties.The "marwah" parties become a reference for women legislative members to act and respond in making their political decisions.So, in every discussion and decision-making process, the sentences that are frequently spoken by the informants are: "..For decisions, let the party decides!We must obey the party!Whether we like it or not, we must follow the party's orders.We talked about it first in the faction.Our faction disapproves..." That does not accord with the party's spirit and there are many more sentences that are often brought up by the informants who show their identity as part of political parties.Those political parties are the first institution that must be obeyed by every legislative member, both male and female.This is because the parties give very large contributions to the informants to bring them to politics.For women legislators, the parties have a huge influence on guiding them out of patriarchy and helping them win votes.Not all female legislative members in practical politics behave and are present more actively.
There are some who tend to be passive and only accept everything that becomes a decision and part of the other.The informants often hold political negotiations but they eventually give up.So, being tired and passive is the character that they show more frequently.The final results are always based on the interests of political parties.The fact that legislative members prefer to be passive influences the women's electability in the lower house (Prihatini, 2019).The stigma of women legislators having the habit of 5D (datang/coming, duduk/sitting, diam/silent, dandan/makeup, and duit/money) is developing in the community through media framing.This leads to the public questioning the performance of women legislative members which is still not good, invisible, and far from women movement's expectation.But on the other hand, the people who have voted for women legislative members assume that there must be reciprocity from the elected legislative members by solving every problem they ask for help.As explained by informant 2: "I am considered as a god.People expect me to solve all their problems such as wanting their children to be enrolled in public school, not wanting to qualify for entering the state campus, or asking room at hospital for the accidental-victim family, etc.They surely contact me.All I can say is that they assume that I am be able to finish it all.In fact, sometimes there are problems that are not in accordance with my commission and I also have to solve them" Based on the interview, it can be seen that the people have already put their trust in the legislators.They also pin high hopes on women legislators.The community builds the relationship between themselves and the members of the legislative body as their "god".Hopes, beliefs, and judgments from the community to women legislative members influence women legislators in assessing who they are.Moreover, votes given to women legislators become a motive for women to run again.
Legislative members see the first term of office as a learning process where they find a new life.Furthermore, it creates an "addictive sensation" for women legislative members to seek another term of office due to the absence of regulations that restrict legislators to more than one term.Reflecting on the process that women go through as an elected legislative member, there is an unwitting change to the women legislators.It starts from the first and subsequent terms, down from before becoming an electoral candidate to nominating for election repeatedly.In the second term, each woman legislator of the legislative body had their own political interests and had at least been able to know their surroundings in their own way.This is a series of complex identity changes that are not realized by women legislators who are part of the communication experience through personal, group or cultural interactions.
It seems that personal identity was unconsciously forgotten, even though social and gender classes are clearly seen dominating and realized by women legislative members.This is because the change in women legislators' identity is a process that involves many parties, and is communication and interaction with various elements in parliament.Therefore, in every sense of selfmeaning that they identify, there are many roles that they perform.The average value for each identity is higher than the midpoint of the scale (which means that, on average, participants feel they have a good moral, are attractive, competitive, and intelligent.They are friends, workers, sons or daughters, and students to a relatively high level).This research found that the eight women legislative members interpreted themselves as women legislative members who were women fighters, had good competence, and served the people.Based on the table above, the personal identity of the women legislative members defines themselves in the following four things: Woman Fighter.Interpreted by one informant from PKS who has carried out the regeneration process.The informant understood the purpose of the women's presence in parliament.In this informant's view, the decisions that were made, regardless of whether they were women's programs or not had to be directed towards improving women's welfare.The main problem of life is always related to and in contact with women and children.So, the task carried out by this informant is to distort the opinions of several other legislative members.They ensured others to see that in every aspect of life, there are interests of women and children.Therefore, every decision taken is based on the welfare of women and children, for instance: education, clean water, etc.
It is said in Azizah (2017) that one of the empowerment of women is to eliminate negative stereotypes against women who build new role models.Affirmative action, which is accompanied by a 30% quota for women's representation, is aimed at increasing women's representation.The problem is that they are under-represented.This is in line with the findings of a research conducted in the American legislature by Albright (2017)  states that women in state legislatures not only advocate for women's rights, but for themselves.
People's Hero.The informant who interpreted herself as people's hero realized that legislative members were a representative of the people and had to struggle to help the people.This type of informant does not have a single focus objective to be achieved in the legislature, but she is more flexible and follows what generally applies.Financially, this type of informant has settled family backgrounds, and even she no longer has burdens in the family environment.So, being legislator is selfactualization and self-contribution for the community.As described in the DPRD's Code of Conduct (Pahlevi, 2021), one of legislators' duties is to provide services to constituents, by receiving, accommodating, absorbing and following up on complaints and aspirations of the community, in accordance with their duties, authorities and functions.
Competent.This type of informant interprets herself as a person who has the significant ability in the parliament (Regional Legislative Council/DPRD).Therefore, political position has always been the target of this informant.It is considered as a platform she will continue to improve and carry out political strategies in order to be able to occupy certain positions in parliament.The political career path is a reference for this type of informant.This is because she feels that she is capable and worthy of being a member of the DPRD who understands all the ins and outs of the DPRD.In addition, she can handle and communicate well, both in legislative forums and with constituents.This is because in the process of measuring the presence of women, they are always framed in feminine stereotypes.A study conducted by Hillary (2019) found that the media presented news that questioned women's competence as politicians.
Based on personal identity regarding self-meaning of the informant, the way women legislators considered themselves influence the behavior and way of communicating politics in each of their activities in the legislature.The way they see themselves is the result of a change in their identity, shifting from previous occupation into becoming legislators.They also believe that the nature of their experience of change is progressive.This happened due to tremendous changes in the members of the legislative body to become positive based on knowledge, experience, activities, positions and also finance.This made their social status changes as well.Changing identity affects their life, their family, and their environment, especially in "time" change.So far, their family is still very supportive, even though there is a decrease of family time.Yet, they get another value which was not experienced before sitting in the legislature.
Therefore, in the 2019 elections, all women legislative members will nominate again for legislative candidates for the 2019-2024 term.The process of identity change is influenced by the identity of the family, community, constituents and party atmosphere.In one term of office alone, women legislative members underwent four processes of identity change, namely before being legislator, legislative candidate, legislators and doubling legislators and candidates.While undergoing a change of identity, of course, they face many obstacles, for instance, when they are related to imperfect changes.Changes in political policy are very fluid, so that sometimes it is not as expected or can quickly change again.In addition, most participants felt that they experienced at least some major changes in the community and their role identity during the period of six months before the survey.

The role of women and becoming "Common" Woman
After the collapse of New Order government, the discourse on the role of women that must be fulfilled by political parties and parliament is important dimension for the country to control.The division of roles between men and women largely determines how they are represented in parliament.Consequently, men and women have clear roles that strengthen the construction of political identity.The role of women is needed to strengthen the position and competitiveness of men so that the productive potential of women can be utilized effectively in helping Indonesia's economic growth in the future.This means that women have the opportunity to gain their existence as women who are part of Indonesian citizens.
Biologically, women understand the feeling of going through the stages of monthly period, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding children.Women know how is the domestic realm such as nurturing, educating, washing, cooking, etc.All the things that every legislative woman does in a domestic domain often become a problem in real life that needs to be resolved.All matters in life have a correlation with how women are in the domestic realm.Therefore, women are more capable of feeling how the problems faced by the executive body to implement programs often become a topic of meetings at commissions A, B, C, D.
How the position of women legislative members changes from an object that feels every problem in the society into the subject that is required to be able to solve problems facing them while being an object.The identity of a woman has a biological role that is very thick with the domestic world.Therefore, women spend more time on staying in the domestic realm than men.They go through life cycles such as menstruation, pregnancy, delivering, and breastfeeding.Those are the biological process that women legislative members must go through.During 5-10 years of their presence in the legislature, women experience four processes (menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding).
For several other informants who have older children, they experienced the process of pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding when they were members of the legislative body.These biological processes influence the attitudes of the women legislators that can distinguish them from men.Interestingly, the subjective views of each woman legislative member show how women legislators still hold on tight to their nature and role of being women in the family to take care of the family including children as a housewife.This is often juxtaposed with the unprofessional performance of women in the legislature.Although domestic and public spaces are separated, women as legislators cannot escape from the domestic sphere and often bring it to parliament.This is also known as the "dual role" described in several commission meetings that they are often absent, late, or get out of the room to just pick up or communicate with their children.Even there are several children brought to parliament, waiting for their mothers to work.Communication using telephone or video call to their children is always carried out intensively in the middle of commission or faction meetings.They do so because the intensity of family time is very low.Thus, the process of roles division continues to run properly for both domestic and social roles.The condition of their children affects how they communicate in parliament.For instance, when the child of a woman legislative member is sick and wants to be close to his/her mother but the mother often prioritizes her role as the people's representative.Even there are many conditions that require them to carry out other domestic roles that are out of their control as a female legislative member.
By becoming a legislative member, women expect to have the same right as men since the political life is masculine.So, people often judge that the performance of women legislative members in the DPRD is poor and even questioned their work (Gehlen, 1977).Informant 3 is legally responsible for having the role of chairwoman of the commission where her task is to protect several members who come from different factions and are older than her.As a chair of the commission, her workload increases, yet her existence in parliament gets increasingly recognized.This can be taken into account in the second term and becomes political capital in the future because herability as a legislative member is well tested.Whereas, informant 3 is very close to the chairman of the DPRD.She often helps him and takes over his role.She also does not hesitate to bring her child when she has no one to take care of the child.Once she chaired a meeting of the commission to replace the commission chairman.While she chaired the meeting she occasionally asked permission to come out of the meeting room for a while to pick up her child.The notion of "normal" in the DPRD is that the biological, natural, dominating role and public role are parts that do not need to be covered and avoided.This is something "normal" for any woman in the legislative branch.
The lifestyle of women legislative members has indeed changed in line with the status of their involvement in politics.Their earnings double from those received from their previous job.They meet more followers and interact with various groups of individuals.This becomes a reinforcer and shifts their identity.Meeting and communicating with many people and solving every problem become the daily activity of women legislators.On the other hand, the changes in their lifestyle and social class often cause the media to frame women legislative members as hedonism women because they held a social gathering of one million price per month.They also use branded fashion (starting from make up, clothes, bags and other accessories) that they often use every time at the parliament.Sometimes, it becomes a kind of competition among them.Things related to the biological and psychological aspects of women were always carried over in working time.According to the informants, they tend to be "paper" (getting emotional).
This biological process makes their emotions more dominant than their mind so they rely more on feelings.This is influenced by the domestic condition which often requires them to give more care to the children and the relationship.The communication with their husbands influences how political communication is carried out by women legislative members in parliament.As described by Goffman, in carrying out their profession, women politicians try to present themselves by adjusting their settings, appearance and manner.There is a front stage and a back stage prepared for women politicians to do.The life of women politicians usually begins to change significantly after the announcement of the votes.Politicians create themselves in such a way that the people, parties and constituents believe in the communication skills of politicians.Social identification stems from the categorization of individuals, the distinctiveness and prestige of the group, the salience of outgroups, and the factors that traditionally are associated with group formation (Ashforth & Mael, 1989).Even so, the negative stigmas of the community still lead to institutions of representative institutions, especially to politicians including women politicians.Stigma directly affects the stigmatized via mechanisms of discrimination, expectancy confirmation, and automatic stereoty pe activation, and indirectly via threats to personal and social identity (Adler, 1987).
As representatives of the people, all actions and performance carried out by politicians are in the public spotlight.Creating a good impression that appeals to the community has certainly been done by women politicians, although not all people can finally judge it well.Women see themselves with full awareness understood by themselves.This understanding includes, understanding of their selves, self-analysis, and self-testing where awareness of understanding is the deepest part of the individual self which is called the intrapersonal component.
Women legislators describe their identity as women fighters who fight for women's aspirations by producing policies that are pro-women.But women legislators were not capable of identifying themselves separately according to their role.Women's identity is the same as a legislative member who is also an individual, social individual and profession.In understanding themselves, women legislators interact with partners, family, friends, the community, fellow legislative members (women and men), and the executive, and interact with the political system where there are social values.The descriptions indicate that women legislators, even though they are part of a social system, have their own unique nature of awareness, knowledge, and experience depending on their natural context and setting.As a person who has unique awareness, knowledge, and experience, women legislators always carry out the process of thinking when they are confronted with certain realities.This certainly makes women legislative members learn more from events that change their identity when they become legislative members.
In reality, women as a legislative member, of course, have several interests related to their duties as DPRD members.These interests are constituents' interests, people's interests, the party's interests, and, of course, personal interests.These interests come form the stronghold of legislative members in taking part in the political arena.These interests determine what role a woman will play as legislator.Due to a number of interests, women legislative members sometimes have difficulties determining their identities.
Identity is important for women legislative members to choose what actions they want to take (Raento, 2020).Although women legislators do not completely classify their identities, their duties and roles as legislative members are carried out in accordance with their provisions, although sometimes they clash with the culture and interests of their party or constituents.In carrying out their duties as legislative members, women are expected to serve as a solution bank to problems through various policies that will be produced.But as a woman, they are still trapped in a patriarchal culture and a system of capitalism created in the Old Order government.
A patriarchal system was established in which men controlled the labor of women and children in the family, and that in doing so learned the techniques of hierarchical organization and control (Hartmann et al., 1976).This also led to various conflicts in carrying out their role as women legislators.The roles that must be played by women legislators are so diverse.At the same time, sometimes the role must be displayed and sometimes it must be hid.Not all roles played by women legislative members are acceptable to the family, party, and the community.Some of the roles displayed are not in accordance with the culture and interests of the community.This has finally caused a problem to the women legislators' identity.These issues of self and social identity impinge upon a wide variety of responses at the perceptual, affective, and behavioral level (Shin & Hecht, 2017).
In society too, the reality of women does not have no consequences for the sexual division of roles with members of the sexed legislatureman.In every society, there is always a division of sexual work between women and men, so that different gender roles are known between women and men.The division of labor is strictly implemented by legislators but some is loose, depending on the environment.For example, biologically, women have reproductive organs for pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, then gender roles develop that the role of women is educators, caregivers and child caregivers.The logical consequence of this role is that women's job for the household is a basic duty and obligation of women which must be done by women even though they work in the public domain.
A division of labor places women in subordinate positions.Such a view is what ultimately leads to various problems and injustices of women, in various spaces.Based on the concepts and theories stated earlier, in order to understand the existence of women in a profession that is recognized as belonging to men, it can also find out how women perceive themselves in their environment, then the perspective of social phenomenology from Schutz Blumer defines symbolic interactionism as a perspective that seeks explanation for social life in the way in which participants define and interpret the situations they confront; collective activities, in this view, are formed through an on-going process of designation and definition that is continually modified by specific people as they adjust their actions to one another.
Phenomenology studies are methods and tools of science in understanding the realities of individual experiences subjectively.Phenomenology is the mundane way in which social agents constitute social reality through language, gesture, and all manner of symbolic social sign.Though phenomenology sometimes appears to assume the existence of a choosing and constituting agent prior to language (who poses as the sole source of its constituting acts), there is also a more radical use of the doctrine of constitution that takes the social agent as an object rather than the subject of constitutive acts (Butler, 1988).Researcher is not positioned herself as people who will prove the problem, but rather play a role in finding and understanding the problems contained in the reality under study.
The key to find the truth is on the subject being studied or the person whose problem is found.According to Alfred Shutz, the task of phenomenological analysis is to reconstruct the "real" world of human life in their own forms related to past and future motives.The reality of the world formed is intersubjective in the sense that community members share basic perceptions about the world they internalize through socialization and enable them to interact or communicate.Phenomenology believes that individuals involved in the communication process as people who have an awareness of their experiences so that they have the freedom to interpret the concepts contained in the reality of communication.
Based on that thought, phenomenological research on the reality of communication a theoretical approach is needed from the point of view of symbolic interactionism.
Symbolic interactionism dissects about thinking, meaning and symbols in social processes.According to this theory, humans are creative beings who construct meaning of symbols in social processes.Humans are able to understand the relevant situations and conditions to use these symbols in continuing social processes and social interactions.In the concept of symbolic interactionism, society is formed because individuals develop symbols and meanings to be exchanged in social interactions and processes.
The paradigm and theory proposed by the researcher is a subjective approach which is often referred to as humanistic study, and the approach assumes that knowledge does not have an objective and fixed nature, but rather it is interpretive.Humans who are the subjects in this study are unique individuals who create a contextual world.As individuals have meaning aimed at others, these actions also consider the behavior of others.Human behavior is considered 'voluntary' and actively constructs their environment.Reality becomes a creative process depending on the individual who constructs it.So the world and all aspects in it are basically structured by humans.It is humans who create structures and not structures that determine human behavior.
In the concept of symbolic interaction, society is formed because individuals creatively develop symbols and meanings to be later exchanged for social interactions and processes.Symbols and meanings exchanged in the interaction process are expected to have a good impression of those who accept the symbols and meanings.Therefore, each individual must pack these symbols and meanings well, so that they get a good impression, according to what role they want to display.Inspired by the symbolic interaction theory outlined above by George Herbert Mead, Goffman (1959Goffman ( ,1963Goffman ( ,1967) ) in his dramaturgical perspective states that: humans play roles and assume identities that are relevant to those roles, showing each other who and what they are and define the situations they enter and behaviors (Blumer, 1966).
Meanwhile, how a person who is in a particular social system then constructs his social identity is explained through social identity theory as explained by Hect and his colleagues.They explain that identity is incorporated in the following three cultural contexts: individual, communal and public.This identity theory is the main link between individuals and society and communication which is the chain that allows this relationship to occur.Identity is a "code" that is defined to the membership of a female legislative member in a group of legislative members.Identity can be formed when women legislators interact with other people in life.A woman legislative member gets views, reactions from others in social interactions, and this shows a sense of identity by expressing themselves, responding to others, and vice versa.
Realities of self, role and social are interpreted by women legislators who are different from one another, depending on how the individual concerned thinks creatively by reducing, adding, and producing meaning about the reality that is being confronted.Therefore, the reality of one legislative member with another will never be the same, even though the objects they face are the same.Every female legislative member experiences a process of unique thinking that occurs within herself, so that it will produce diversity in the formation of meaning which manifests in the results of the views and attitudes of the legislative members in looking at reality.The uniqueness of thinking as a process of forming meaning in an individual is determined by the internal factors of the individual concerned, such as the value system, beliefs, and attitudes.When individuals interact with other individuals, that's when each of them thinks to construct the meaning of the symbols exchanged between them.

Conclusion
Women legislators build their reality as representatives of the people as a whole.They have various roles to play, be they women legislators, party members, part of groups, and housewives.In understanding themselves, women legislators are classified into four categories, namely women fighters, people's fighters, and people who have good competence, and superwomen.The roles that are carried out are adjusted to the goals that they want to achieve when they become members of the legislature.In carrying out the roles, women legislators divide the domestic and public roles equally, even the time spent on the constituents is rather longer than at home.Role conflicts often occur when at the same time these roles must be carried out.This is felt by some informants who still have young children; so that their role in rising and educating children requires more time.

Table 2 .
The roles and activities informant which