Racism, Feminism, Colonialism and Women's Oppression

Women's Oppression, Racism, Colonialism And Feminism

"The Committee is concerned that women's access to justice is limited, in particular because of women's lack of information on their rights, lack of legal aid, the insufficient understanding of the convention by the judiciary and the lengthy legal processes which are not understood by women. The Committee is concerned that physical and psychological violence cases are particularly difficult to be prosecuted in the legal system…"

(Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women / United Nations General Assembly, Sixty-second session)

This paper reviews and critiques the available literature on women's oppression, racism, colonialism and feminism. Delving into these subjects opens the door to knowledge as regards how racism and the political, economic and cultural effects of a lingering colonialism shape the way in which women experience oppression.

Feminism and Racism -- Living up to the Feminist Label

Referring to one's self as a feminist is perfectly appropriate when sincerity and a focused view of what feminism means to contemporary society is in place. However, there are imposing responsibilities associated with the label of feminism in the 21st century, and one of those responsibilities is to look at the bigger feminist picture, well beyond cliched issues like equal pay for equal work and a women's right to choose. To wit, feminism in a worldly context implies being mindful of how racism is linked to oppression. Indeed, understanding what racism does to a marginalized person should not be a subject shrouded in mystery and confusion for alert women who identify themselves as feminists.

That said, when Professor Rakhi Ruparelia recently presented a lecture to a group of Caucasian men and women in Canada -- a woman's conference -- she was treated with "open hostility" by several of the "feminists" in attendance (Ruparelia, 2014). Admitting in her peer-reviewed piece that she was "…the lone racialized woman in the room," she was nonetheless taken aback when several women became "agitated" and launched an aggressive attack on the legitimacy of her remarks. Ruparelia has come to accept that when she speaks of racism in a feminist context, there is resistance, and that is unfortunate but it sets the table for her main theme: If feminism does not "aggressively attempt to undermine racism and colonialism," it is of "little import" (Ruparelia, 83). Moreover, Ruparelia, an attorney, argues that systems of "domination" will persist unless and until there is a fuller understanding of the ways in which racism, sexism, colonialism, classism and heterosexism operate "in tandem" with oppression (Ruparelia, 85).

Ruparelia concludes her essay with the thought that feminist scholarship that is tight-lipped when it comes to racism, colonialism, and oppression is in effect denying the existence of these "structures of domination" in the lives of racialized and white women (113).

Noted Authors -- Bell Hooks -- Feminism is for Everybody

In her book, Feminism is for Everyone: Passionate Politics, Bell Hooks wastes little time offering her definition of feminism: "Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression" (Hooks, 2014). She explains that this particular definition works for her because it does not suggest "…that men were the enemy." Hence, it is not men that are the problem for women necessarily, rather it is "sexist thinking and action"; and, based on Ruparelia's argument, the problem is also linked to women who identify as feminists but don't see the link between racism, colonialism and oppression.

Meanwhile Hooks admits that there was a lot of "anti-male sentiment" among the early feminist activists; they understandably were incensed and frustrated so they responded in anger, and that anger fed the first feminist movement. As time moved on, feminists realized that women could be just as sexist as men, and so the feminist focus "shifted to an all-out effort to create gender justice" (Hooks). Because most of the early feminists were Caucasian, and black women were busy dealing with civil rights and black liberation -- and Native American women worked on indigenous rights -- the movement against sexism was largely a white women's movement, Hooks continues. In time, Hooks explains that "lifestyle feminism" came into the forefront of gender equality issues; that is, there could be "as many versions of feminism as there were women." And that evolution embraced black and Native American women, and it meant that denying women their reproductive rights was "…a form of sexist oppression" (Hooks).

Noted Authors -- Chandra Mohanty -- Feminism Without Borders

The continuing discussion on what feminism means -- and what it should stand for -- is explored in Chandra Mohanty's book, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing theory, Practicing Solidarity, she is careful to define "Western feminism" -- not as a "monolith" or a specific movement. Rather, this branch of feminism should be viewed as discourse on Third World women from the perspective of the West (Mohanty, 2003). She also takes great pains to describe "colonization"; it is an overused term that has many meanings, Mohanty explains. Essentially colonization applies to "…structural domination and a suppression -- often violent -- of the heterogeneity of the subject(s) in question" (Mohanty, 18). In other words colonization relates to cultures unfairly dominated in ongoing social / feminist struggles. This is a key point in the entire discourse on the oppression of women, one in which as Ruparelia insists, is not consistently ingrained in feminist writings and attitudes.

Moreover, Mohanty explains that western feminine scholarship is not just presenting "knowledge" about the subject at hand; rather, it is "purposeful" and "ideological" and it is in reality an "intervention into particular hegemonic discourses" (18). The point of going to lengths to clarify feminist writings is that feminist scholars (including Mohanty) who write about colonialism and Third World hegemony are really writing about "power" (19). But they should not generalize when using "Third World" women as a theme, unless the feminist writer is alluding to the "…international male conspiracy" (19). Specifically, Mohanty believes that Western feminists should explain that a Third World woman leads "…an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (she is sexually constrained) and on her being…ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family oriented, victimized" (22).

In covering issues concerning Third World women, Western feminist writers must be sure to understand that it isn't just economic and social hegemony that impact the Third World woman; it is "male sexual politics" through genital mutilation (Mohanty, 24). Indeed in Africa and the Middle East this unconscionable practice is widespread and is intended to "mutilate the sexual pleasure and satisfaction of women" -- basically controlling her sexual rights and her reproductive rights (through anti-abortions policies) (Mohanty, 24).

Professor Sylvia Walby argues (quoted in a 2003 article by Mohanty) that in fact what Mohanty has done is make pivotal points that needed to be made in this context: "Mohanty is claiming, via a complex and subtle argument, that she is right and that (much) white Western feminism is not merely different, but wrong" (Mohanty, 2002). Commenting on Mohanty's pursuit of a better definition of white Western feminism, Walby insists that Mohanty is "not content… [or] comfortable" with white feminists' perspectives."Not a bit of it," Walby remarks (Mohanty, 502).

In fact, Mohanty's search for "a more universal truth" is presented through the "power of argument" -- and a strong argument at that, Walby explains (Mohanty, 502). Mohanty goes on in this 2002 piece to point out that in 1986 she wrote "…mainly to challenge the false universality of Eurocentric discourses, but was told by some feminist writers that she should "not dabble in 'feminist theory'"; instead, she was urged to keep her focus on her work with "early childhood education" (Mohanty, 504).

The writers that urged Mohanty to stick with safe subjects (and not rock the boat) appear to be clones of the white women that attacked Ruparelia in that women's conference in Canada. How many pseudo-feminists are out there preaching safe sermons, believing they are feminists because they are liberals, and eschewing the more meaningful feminine subjects such as colonialism, racism, and oppression? That, of course, is a rhetorical question, but a valid one in the context of this research.

Noted Authors -- Sylvia Walby -- Gender Transformations

Any narrative that inspects the various aspects of feminism should seek to explain where feminism came from as well as in what direction it should be going. In that regard, the book Gender Transformations by Professor Sylvia Walby reviews some of the positives from the feminist movement. She gives credit to the "first-wave feminism" movement for helping women have access to educational opportunities and for "the winning of political citizenship" (Walby, 2003). Indeed women today in the UK and in other Western democracies have benefitted from the feminist movement through increased opportunities in education and in paid employment. However, those positives have been "tempered by…the poor conditions of nearly half of employed women," Walby insists. Too many women are offered only part-time work, and are oppressed by the "tenacity of occupational and industrial segregation" (Walby, 2).

Indeed there has been a "dramatic closing of the gap in educational qualifications of young men and women" in university experiences, Walby goes on, which is not a revelation at all, but is pertinent nonetheless in this context. And while the wage gap has narrowed when it comes to males and females in full time employment, it hasn't closed at all for women working part time (Walby, 2).

The author relates that women have become more independent and are not as quick to tie the knot as in the past, which could suggest the influence of feminism, although that may be a stretch. To wit, the percentage of married women in the UK (ages 18-49) has declined from 74% in 1979, to just 57% in 1994 (Walby, 2). As to the number of households headed by a "lone parent" -- nine out of ten times that lone parent is a woman shouldering the tasks of raising children and bringing home the bacon -- shot up from 8% to 23% in 1994. That data simply suggests that women are tougher than they were in earlier eras, but it does not broach the topic of oppression and racism, Still, Walby hits closer to the mark vis-a-vis feminism when she explains that women are still "…significantly underrepresented in the state and many forms of public life," including Parliament, law enforcement positions, and "influential non-governmental bodies" (3). After the 1992 election in the UK, women only made up 9.2% of Parliament; hence, they are still outside looking in as far as being able to create legislation that addresses racism, oppression, and colonialism.

Since Walby's book was published 11 years ago, a check with the British Parliament website shows that as of 2010, there were 143 women in Parliament. There are 1,495 seats in Parliament (845 Lords Temporal and Spiritual and 650 Members of Parliament) (www.parliament.uk). In total 369 women have served in Parliament since 1918; that means that 92% of members of Parliament since 1918 have been males, and 8% have been females. Hence, such a dramatic imbalance in gender representation makes it tough for a female elected official in Parliament to push for social change, which is what women must do at every turn in every context, if a more focused discussion on racism, bigotry, and the oppression of women is to take place.

Noted Authors -- Kimberle W. Crenshaw -- Back Feminism

UCLA law professor Kimberle W. Crenshaw writes that because race and gender tend to be treated as "…mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis," this problem is repeated in antidiscrimination law and in feminist theory (Crenshaw, 1993). Granted, this book is twenty years old, but what Crenshaw has to say is powerful. She asserts that because race and gender in the 1990s were separated as being mutually exclusive, "Black women are theoretically erased…and it becomes more apparent how dominant conceptions of discrimination condition us to think about subordination as disadvantage occurring along a single categorical axis" (Crenshaw, 383).

The bottom line for Crenshaw is that Black women are subjected to discrimination because they are women, and also because of the color of their skin; this is not a profoundly original observation, but it is worthy in this research. And because of this catch-22 for black women, unfortunately legal and social doctrines tend to be defined by "…white women's and Black men's experiences," which on investigation is oppression dressed in different clothes (Crenshaw, 385).

On page 392 Crenshaw points to the public controversy from the movie The Color Purple, which portrayed domestic abuse in Black families. That film, to some, seemed to "…confirm the negative stereotypes of Black men." And the resulting loud debate, in effect, "overshadowed the issue of sexism and patriarchy in the Black community," which is part of what the professor was arguing earlier. Reading Crenshaw's blunt narrative -- that "Black women are theoretically erased" -- should be a wake-up call to women of all ethnicities (feminist or not) to at least understand that oppression at this level carries a heavy burden.

In a more contemporary essay, Crenshaw discusses the gender and class oppression that women of color experience when they find themselves in battered women's shelters. In fact the physical assaults that forced many Black women into these shelters "…is merely the most immediate manifestation of the subordination they experience" (Crenshaw, 2009).

She makes the point that these shelters should also "…confront the other multilayered and routinized forms of domination" these women endure. But realistically, there is no way that mainly volunteer organizations for battered women have the resources to attack all the pressing issues that Black women are confronted with. Yes, Black women who are abused by their partners are often burdened by "poverty, child care responsibilities, and the lack of job skills" (Crenshaw, 363). But what Crenshaw could have theorized is how a woman might be able to scratch and claw her way out of the quadruple jeopardy staring her in the face: being Black, poor, battered, and a woman in a marginalized subculture.

Life is not always a walk in the park for a researcher who in good faith attempt to obtain statistics on domestic violence. Crenshaw, a professor and an attorney, asked the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for statistics on the rate of domestic violence interventions "by precinct" since these data could provide "a rough picture of domestic abuse arrests by racial group" (Crenshaw, 365). But the LAPD refused to release these data; Crenshaw was told that these statistics might allow "opponents" to "dismiss domestic violence as a minority problem," and hence, this was seen as not a pressing issue that needed immediacy in terms of action (365). This is an illustration of how women of color can be "erased by the strategic silences of antiracism and feminism," Crenshaw concluded (365).

"Being a woman, trying to prove [she] can do as good as a man, and then trying to prove that [she] can do as any white person, a white man in particular. So, that's a lot for a woman to overcome…" (Ronai, et al., 2014).

The Oppression of Black Women comes in many Forms

Imagine you are a black woman and after giving birth to a stillborn infant, you are accused (and convicted) of murder because you had snorted cocaine during pregnancy. This is the story of Regina McKnight, who is serving fourteen years in prison because in South Carolina they have a law called "viable fetuses" -- if the mother is believed to have been engaged in activities that potentially could harm the fetus, a prison term is in store for that woman if the baby dies (Martinot, 2007). .

Martinot explains that there was no "scientific research" that linked cocaine to the stillbirth, nor was there any proof presented by the state that cocaine actually caused McKnight's baby to be stillborn (80). But because the prosecutors were "hell-bent" on making an example out of McKnight, she became the first woman in the United States sent to jail for delivering a stillborn child. The author adroitly points out that the agenda in South Carolina was to use "…motherhood to control women and to mark the difference of race" (Martinot, 80). In other words, oppression based on a failed childbirth. The fact that McKnight was homeless, was exposed to the elements and suffering from malnutrition while conducting "underpaid agricultural labor" did not matter to the prosecutors in South Carolina; what mattered was that McKnight apparently took a "toke" of cocaine in an "unguarded moment" (Martinot, 80). Is it possible the back-breaking work in unfriendly, hostile work environments negatively impacted the fetus? Certainly it is, but in South Carolina right wing, racially biased politics usually wins the day. So McKnight grieves a lost mother (who was recently run over by a truck) and a stillborn baby while she rots in prison.

Colonialism -- Homi K. Bhabha -- Past and Present

Is McKnight another black person incarcerated because the scourge of colonialism hasn't really disappeared in 2014? In the Introduction to the book, Homi K. Bhabha, author David Huddart points out that while it is widely presumed that colonialism is something that is "locked in the past," Bhabha has used his considerable scholarship to explain that the "histories and cultures" from colonialism "constantly intrude on the present" (Huddart, 2006). And the point to be made is that bright, alert students and researchers in the present day should "…transform our understanding of cross-cultural relations" (Huddart, 1). The fact is that the colonial period is "ongoing"and"post-colonial perspectives contribute" to the reality that needs to be revealed today, according to Bhabha's scholarship (Huddart, 1).

Meanwhile, in his book, The Location of Culture, Bhabha, in his highly intellectual and sometimes esoteric narrative, explains that when discussing colonialism, the "articulation of forms of difference -- racial and sexual," become "crucial" in truly understanding colonialism (Bhabha, 2012). The author alludes to the United States ("American cultural colonialism") and the fear that Americans have had that their once-all-white culture will turn darker colors. Bhabha calls that the fear "miscegenation," and he believes authority figures in the U.S. have always felt they were 'under threat of races and cultures beyond the border or frontier (he refers to the discriminatory laws passed to limit Asians and others into the U.S.) (Bhabha, 99). And based on what happened to McKnight, it appears that discriminatory laws are still being legislated, particularly in southern states.

In Bhabha's narrative he rages against the typical "discourse" vis-a-vis colonialism. He finds it contemptible that in the discourse often heard, colonized peoples are seen as a population of "degenerate types on the basis of racial origin"; but on the other hand, seeing colonized peoples in that light helps states and leaders to "justify conquest" as well as justifying the system of administration of colonized cultures (Bhabha, 101). The conquest of peoples through colonialism produces a discourse in which the colonized are both the "other" and yet the colonized are also "entirely knowable and visible," as McKnight certainly is (Bhabha, 101).

Colonized people of color aren't being hounded by men with hoods riding horses and carrying torches and ropes for hanging "others." To the contrary, racism is not limited to "…the Klan, the birthers, the tea party or the Republican Party," according to Duke University sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Blake, 2014). It's the folks "…dressed in suits," not hoods, who maintain domination over folks of color, in particular, women of color (Blake, p. 2). Racism is not necessarily a personal thing, but rather it is a "…system of advantage based on race," and race "permeates every facet of our societal pores," according to Doreen E. Loury, director of Pan African Studies at Arcadia University (Blake, p. 4).

Women's Oppression -- Women of Color

The oppression of women is a timely topic being taught to future social workers, according to an article in Journal of Social Work Education. The author asserts that women of color are at a "critical juncture" because of the obvious twin barriers to a normal productive life -- racism and sexism (Morris, 1993). This article was published in 1993, but its message rings loud and clear over twenty years later. For example, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) had revised its curriculum polices so that students with a goal of becoming social workers would be sure to be taught content that was "…related to oppression and to the experiences, needs and responses" of women (and all people) that had been subjected to various forms of oppression (Morris, 1).

Echoing what feminist scholars reflected earlier in this paper, the writers assert that most textbooks have concepts that represent "…a Caucasian, middle-class perspective"; and moreover, most textbooks, the authors continue, address the needs of women of color from a "limited vantage point" (Morris, 2). In fact, besides being discriminated in two ways (race and sexism), women of color often suffer from economic discrimination and they face "social stigmatization" as well (Morris, 2). Add to that the fact that women of color -- reflected at length earlier in this paper -- are often single parents, breadwinners, and "family spokespersons" is of vital importance to a person seeking a career in social work (Morris, 3).

Second Wave of Feminism on Oppression and Violence -- Jude Irwin

"Intimate partner violence remains a serious, and contested, issue for women. Those who address intimate partner violence are faced with the challenge of negotiating theory and data from a variety of disciplines…" (Cermele, et al., 2010).

Meanwhile it is only in recent years that the powerful impact of patriarchal power on women has been investigated and discussed, according to Jude Irwin. In fact the theories about women's oppression did not see violence as fully implicated in the "production and maintenance of patriarchy" until the 1970s (Irwin, 2013). However in the 1970s the study of oppressive male violence against women played a more integral part in the feminist milieu Irwin explains on page 82. Anne Edwards wrote in 1987 that there were two "main sources of literature" that related to male violence and women's oppression (Irwin, 82).

There were the "classical texts" that focused on women's oppression under patriarch; these writings suggested that male dominance was dependent on "social, economic, political and ideological structures" and violence was not a central theme in those texts (Irwin, 82). Later, Irwin continues, male violence was seen as having a "much more central role" in women's oppression; that is, various forms of violence helped to "reinforce" the subjugation of women, and the violence visited on women (including rape) helped men have control of "women's sexuality for male pleasure…" (Irwin, 82).