Women's Oppression, Racism, Colonialism, and Feminism

Feminism and Racism: Living Up to the Feminist Label

"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 prosecute 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 about how racism and the political, economic, and cultural effects of a lingering colonialism shape the way in which women experience oppression.

Referring to oneself as a feminist is perfectly appropriate when sincerity and a focused understanding of what feminism means to contemporary society are 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 clichéd issues like equal pay for equal work and a woman'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 at a women's conference in Canada, 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. 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 alike (113).

Bell Hooks: Feminism Is for Everybody

In her book Feminism Is for Everybody: 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 fail to see the connection between racism, colonialism, and oppression.

Hooks admits that there was a lot of "anti-male sentiment" among the early feminist activists. They were understandably incensed and frustrated, and so they responded in anger — anger that 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 occupied with civil rights and Black liberation — while Native American women worked on indigenous rights — the movement against sexism was largely a white women's movement, Hooks explains. In time, "lifestyle feminism" came to the forefront of gender equality issues; that is, there could be "as many versions of feminism as there were women." That evolution embraced Black and Native American women, and it meant that denying women their reproductive rights was "a form of sexist oppression" (Hooks).

Chandra Mohanty: Feminism Without Borders

The continuing discussion of what feminism means — and what it should stand for — is explored in Chandra Mohanty's book Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Mohanty is careful to define "Western feminism" not as a "monolith" or a specific movement, but rather as discourse on Third World women from the perspective of the West (Mohanty, 2003). She also takes great pains to describe "colonization," noting that it is an overused term with many meanings. 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 and feminist struggles. This is a key point in the entire discourse on the oppression of women — one that, as Ruparelia insists, is not consistently ingrained in feminist writings and attitudes.

Moreover, Mohanty explains that Western feminist 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 clarifying feminist writings is that feminist scholars, including Mohanty herself, 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 also understand that it is not just economic and social hegemony that impacts 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," thereby controlling her sexual and reproductive rights (Mohanty, 24).

Professor Sylvia Walby, quoted in a 2003 article by Mohanty, argues that Mohanty has made 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).

Mohanty's search for "a more universal truth" is presented through the "power of argument," 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 "early childhood education" (Mohanty, 504).

The writers who urged Mohanty to stick with safe subjects appear to be clones of the white women who attacked Ruparelia at 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 feminist subjects such as colonialism, racism, and oppression? That, of course, is a rhetorical question — but a valid one in the context of this research.

Kimberle Crenshaw: Race, Gender, and Intersectional Oppression

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 reproduced in antidiscrimination law and in feminist theory (Crenshaw, 1993). 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. And because of this catch-22 for Black women, legal and social doctrines tend to be defined by "white women's and Black men's experiences" — which on closer inspection is simply oppression dressed in different clothes (Crenshaw, 385).

Crenshaw also points to the public controversy surrounding the film The Color Purple, which portrayed domestic abuse in Black families. That film seemed to some observers to "confirm the negative stereotypes of Black men," and the resulting debate "overshadowed the issue of sexism and patriarchy in the Black community" (Crenshaw, 392). Reading Crenshaw's blunt statement — that "Black women are theoretically erased" — should serve as a wake-up call to women of all ethnicities, feminist or not, to 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. 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. Yet realistically, mainly volunteer-run organizations for battered women do not have the resources to address all the pressing issues that Black women face. 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). What Crenshaw implies, though, is how a woman might 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.

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). The LAPD refused to release these data, citing concern that the statistics might allow "opponents" to "dismiss domestic violence as a minority problem" — and hence, it was treated as not pressing enough to require immediate 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 well as any white person, a white man in particular. So, that's a lot for a woman to overcome…" (Ronai, et al., 2014).

Consider the case of Regina McKnight: after giving birth to a stillborn infant, she was accused and convicted of murder because she had snorted cocaine during pregnancy. In South Carolina, a law concerning "viable fetuses" holds that if a mother is believed to have engaged in activities that could harm the fetus, she faces a prison term if the baby dies (Martinot, 2007). 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 determined to make an example of McKnight, she became the first woman in the United States sent to prison 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). The fact that McKnight was homeless, exposed to the elements, and suffering from malnutrition while performing underpaid agricultural labor did not matter to the prosecutors; what mattered was that McKnight apparently used cocaine in an "unguarded moment" (Martinot, 80). Is it possible that back-breaking work in hostile environments negatively impacted the fetus? Certainly it is — but in South Carolina, right-wing, racially biased politics frequently wins the day.

Conclusion

In the Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations is trying to accomplish what amounts to an immensely difficult task. The background to this formal report notes that in the 1989 session, the Committee discussed the "high incidence of violence against women" and asked all UN members to submit information on this problem in their respective countries. The Committee adopted Recommendation 19, which requires UN members to send reports containing "statistical data on the incidence of violence against women," including what services are being offered to women who are oppressed and subjected to violence. This is laudable — but realistically, is it reducing the oppression of women?

The evidence presented in this paper shows that women can suffer from oppression in a number of different ways, and that racism and colonialism are alive and well, albeit less blatantly obvious than they once were. This paper also demonstrates that feminists do not all agree on issues that are pivotal to women. Although that is not a new problem, it endures — and perhaps always will. What is clear, however, is that any feminism worthy of the name must actively confront racism, colonialism, and structural domination, rather than confining itself to the safer, narrower debates that have historically defined mainstream feminist discourse.