It was a radical nationalist group founded on its anti-polygamy stance after the First Indonesian Women's Congress in 1928.
[1] The Socialist Party of Indonesia (PSI) maintained close links with Isteri-Sedar.
But after the 1955 elections, the PSI felt that Isteri-Sedar had failed to mobilize women voters for the party and thus the party decided to form a women's wing of its own, Gerakan Wanita Sosialis.
As Elizabeth Martyn describes, this was the first collective effort to organize around a formal agenda—marking the beginning of the women's movement in Indonesia.
[3] IS refused to join PPII due to disagreements over their approaches to issues of national independence, polygamy, prostitution, matrimonial legislation, and the like.