Common Layers of Oppression: Post-Colonial Feminist Theory Across Borders

Contemporary feminist activism is greatly influenced by group identity politics, be that imagined or experienced groups, such as "women", "people of color", or "the Third World." In order to examine the relationship between such theoretical definitions and lived experiences on the one hand, and contemporary post-colonial feminist theory and praxis on the other, we must look at the history of the feminist movement, the processes of colonization and other forms of oppression, the definition of "Third World" or "colonized", and the experiences of women of color the world over. These experiences, and our understanding of them, are tinted by many illusory borders, from the delineations created by definitions of group labels to the arbitrary boundaries between the First and the Third Worlds. These borders also include the margins between forces such as tradition and globalization, which often act in opposition to each other, and forces like racism and exoticism, which closely looked at prove to be two sides of the same coin.

Post Colonial Feminist Theory

The first waves of feminism arose from the perspective of white middle class women in the First World, who were "stuck at home," had relatively easy access to education and economic resources in comparison to their colored sisters, and did not experience racial oppression. Their perspective did not leave space or allow for the consideration of the very different reality of women of color who worked outside the home in blue collar jobs due to often excruciating economic needs, and suffered disadvantages not only as women, but as people of color. Since then, many different theories and interpretations of feminism have emerged as the voices of other women have risen to tell their own diverse experiences.

One of the issues brought up by the newer generations of diverse feminists is that of accessibility. Earlier versions of feminism did not only come to particular conclusions due to particular experiences, but were also expressed in more or less exclusive intellectual or elitist circles, and through an obscure academic language. The former were unapproachable and the latter incomprehensible for many women. The language of academic feminism has the perspective of middle-class white women of the First World embedded in it. As argued by Bushra Rehman and Daisy Hernandez, editors of Colonize This!, its use as the teaching language of feminism is a form of colonization - perpetuated by privileged feminists (xxii).

A second related issue is that of scope. Contemporary feminism has moved beyond the over-simplified concept of ending sexist oppression and focusing only on gender issues as if they existed in a vacuum, unrelated to other forms of oppression. The feminist movement as a whole has come to be aware of the fact that sexist oppression is inexorably related to economic, racial, heterosexist, colonial, and all other forms of oppression - what sociologist Patricia Hill Collins termed the "interlocking matrix of oppression." Furthermore, we have realized that it is therefore impossible to end one form of oppression without ending the others. Therefore, the battle we engage on must reach far beyond and within gender issues. Feminism has those expanded to a plight for ending all sorts of oppression. In doing so, the movement has not simply set out to do more than what it had originally set out to do: it has accepted the fact that what it had originally set out to do requires more than originally thought.

Thirdly, feminists of color brought up hermeneutic and epistemological issues. For example, in Feminism Without Borders, Chandra Taipade Mohanty proposes that an all-important first step in the revision of earlier versions of feminism is to redefine concepts of traditional feminist theory in the light of Third World women's experiences. Concepts that require revision include, for example, the motto of "the personal is political" and the notion of the personal versus public spheres. She points out, for example, that many political issues have a more direct impact in the lives of many Third World women, and therefore become more relevant - making the political personal. The process also works the other way: many, if not all, aspects of their personal lives are politicized. As women of color, their access to education and health care, their ability to raise their children, the neighborhoods they live in, are all political issues - making everything political. On the same subject, Mohanty points out that the recent proletariatization of Third World women (often employed as domestic servants or in multinational factories in places where, until very recently, they used to stay at home), has blurred the traditional lines of men outside in the public sphere and women inside in the personal sphere in many regions of the world. In order to analyze the issues of these women, and incorporate their realities to general concepts of feminism, the personal vs public sphere paradigm needs to be reexamined.

Finally, once the issue of multiple voices, unique experiences, and infinitely subdividable groups is raised, the question of internal division, as well as the loss of focus and power-in-numbers, follows right at its heels. Because many of the original principles of the feminist movement were in direct opposition with traditional customs, believes, choices, expectations, and lifestyles of women in cultural groups other than First World, middle-class, white women, feminists from those groups were put in difficult positions. As the authors of Colonize This! point out, "the academic feminists didn't teach us how to talk with women in our families (...) In rejecting their life choices as women, we lost a part of ourselves and our own history" (xxii). The authors featured in this collection of articles represent, through post-colonial feminism, a theory and practice which "allows women to retain their culture, to have pride in their traditions, and to still vocalize gender issues of their community."[1] It is this negotiating of multiple worlds, this choosing between multiple identities, that the members of the Combahee River Collective also experienced and refer to in their statement. It is important to appreciate diversity while maintaining unity. Running the risk of negatively defining ourselves through common enemies, perhaps it is necessary to engage in strategic essentialism in order to achieve common goals. By acknowledging and accommodating multiple perspectives, feminism can foster truthful and harmonious theory and praxis.

This overview of some of the changes in contemporary post-colonial feminism versus previous waves of feminism is not intended, however, to discredit the accomplishments of previous generations of feminism. Newer challenges and expansions arise only from and through the knowledge and experience inherited from earlier stages in the movement. Without belittling the many previous victories of the feminist movement, post-colonial feminism encourages a bigger picture of the complex matrix of multiple layers of oppression. Bushra Rehman guides her readers' point of view into this particular zoomed-out perspective when she asks: "What kind of feminist victory is it when we liberate women by killing their men and any woman or child who happens to be where a bomb hits?" (xvii).

Colonialism

Part of the work taken up by third wave feminists has to do with reclaiming and redefining terminology as actions of resistance capable of eliciting change. For example, the authors of Colonize This! rewrite the definition of "to colonize" from "to create a settlement" into "to strip a people of their culture, language, land, family structure, who they are as a person and as a people" (xxii). Colonization takes many forms: from the literal appropriation of lands to cultural globalization, from political manipulation and armed intervention to modern versions of economic enslavement.

Post-colonialist praxis involves breaking free from a number of aspects of a colonialist world-view which are part of our present. Racism, condescension, and exoticism are all aspects of one such continuum. Somehow even as we as a society slowly become aware of and leave behind notions of racism, we swing to the other side of the coin: feeling passionately enthralled by Eurocentric and stereotypical images of "the other". Although coated in apparent acceptance, exoticism is also racist. Overcoming racist oppressive systems must be based in respect and not divert into exoticism. In our modern multicultural yet xenophobic, diverse yet tokenistic societies, it is also difficult to avoid the pitfall of condescending attitudes towards all that non-Western. One such example is the patronizing concept of "saving Muslim women". In her article "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?", Abu-Lughod does an excellent job at pointing out the ludicrousness of considering veiling as something imposed when many women chose it for very culturally valid reasons, while ignoring "the tyranny" of our own fashion. High heels and plastic surgery are just two common examples of potentially unhealthy choices Western women make under cultural influences/impositions. In the same manner, we don't consider our women oppressed because dress code does not "allow" them to wear pants to a fancy wedding, or shorts to the opera. We are quick to critique others' cultural norms, but, like fish in water, we are often unaware of our traditions - which unequivocally results in double standards.

Third World

Today's feminists' concept of the colonized and the Third World is exemplified in Mohanty's clearly extended definition of Third World women, which includes not just women from or residing in Third World countries, but colored or minority women in the First World too. This assertion makes the politically loaded point that some people in the First Word live under Third World circumstances and experience oppression such as that experienced by inhabitants of the Third World. This perception fractures the concept of an idealized, united, perfect First World, with no suffering, distinctly separate from the Third World.

Mohanty's definition of Third World women is ambitious. What type of political struggles are shared by women in India, Africa, and Latinoamerica, as well as African-American or Native-American women in the U.S., and immigrant women in Europe? If we are to consider women from Third World countries as well as minority women in First World countries as a single group in contrast to white middle and upper class women in the First World, we most clearly distinguish what sort of oppression do the former groups of women suffer that the latter don't?

I propose that we examine the two "worlds" being contrasted, the First World, and the Third World, what defines them, and how they related to each other. This most be done through careful analysis of the history of colonialism (from European colonization of Latinoamerica and Africa, and the practice of slavery, to the more recent political control of U.S. territories and oppressive economic globalization structures), and how it affected and still affects women. When looking at the issue based on socio-historical context, and not on geographic position, we can come to the conclusion that the key to identifying Third World women is to ask whether the oppression they suffer is a direct result of colonialism or not. Based on this definition we assume that being from the Third World makes someone "colonized" not by birth right, but by heritage, history, and experience. This, of course, also includes the diasporas of Third World immigrants, and often their offspring.

This amplified definition of "Third World women" implies that they suffer certain types of oppression derived from the processes of colonization, regardless of where they live, and regardless of whether the direct oppressor are foreign or fellow citizens. This is due to the fact that the histories of Third World countries, at least from the Age of Discovery on, are inexorably tied to the actions of the First World. For instance, political situations in the Third World (governments, upheavals, dictators, democracy) are all influenced if not determined by the powers of the First World, through coercion and/or by force. Particular groups and leaders are often directly supported by First World governments by means of diplomacy, money, or weapons; while, just as often, other groups and leaders are directly opposed − or even deposed by the militaries of First World countries. Furthermore, the economic situation of Third World countries is a direct result of the economic policies of the First World − from industrialization and the expropriation of raw materials, to the World Bank loans and regulations, capitalism, the exportation of cheap labor, etc. The countries of the Third World are not only economically dependant on First World policies, they have often been deprived of their sovereignty, and with it the ability of writing their own histories. This is not to say that Third World countries have no power potential to build their own presents and lead their own futures, but in recent history that has often not been the case due to external control, manipulation, and influence. Therefore, the oppression colonized peoples suffer in the Third World itself are a direct result of First World policies, and the oppression and challenges colonized people suffer as immigrants or minorities in the First World are parallel to those Third Nations face in the world.

Women of Color Experiences

In her article, "browngirlworld," Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha refers to the run-away-from-home reality that many women of color face the world over. That is not to say that middle/upper class white households in the First World are ideal havens, but lower socio-economic status is associated with higher occurrence of many difficult situations at home, such as alcoholism and abuse. These are problems that women of color experience often several times in their lifetimes, through several generations of the same families, in the inner cities of the First World as much as in the villages of the Third.

Tokenism is another issue contemporary women of color experience in a variety of geographic locations. The term in itself refers to a false appearance of inclusive practice through policies that result in a limited inclusion of members of a minority group. These policies are perceived as no more than symbolic gestures designed to achieve only minimal compliance towards the goals of equality.

Another common experience for women of color is that of immigration and the related xenophobia. Be it immigration from the Third World to First World countries, other developing countries, or from rural to urban areas, the experience of relocation in pursue of a better future is share by women of color from many different backgrounds. Self-imposed exile is more than often caused by situations created and sustained in the colonized world by the variety of above illustrated colonizing powers and processes. Each of these diverse experiences entail particular challenges and consequences, from the abandonment of rural production and overpopulation of cities, to the exploitation of immigrant populations as scapegoats blamed for social problems by xenophobic reactionary elements of the communities flooded by immigrants. On top of that we have the particularly difficult situation of illegal immigrants, whose undocumented status renders them invisible, overlooked, disregarded, or outright ignored.

Conclusion

It is important for women around the world to be aware of the First World / Third World history of oppression and current neocolonial dynamics. Regardless of our location, we are all deeply involved in the historical, colonialist, and socio-political situations that have shaped the present world - and all the interlocking forms of oppression at play in it. Being conscious of that, the activism we engage in as feminists must arise from a balanced point of view that does not stem from cultural relativism (which erases all responsibility and interconnectedness), nor does it stem from assumptions that other women would chose to live by our principles if given the option. We must be weary of the fact that we still often slip into colonial feminism, for example, when generalizing, when engaging in exoticism or condescension, or when teaching and writing from an academic-centrist perspective. Finally, as feminists seeking to resist and eradicate oppression, we must acknowledge the differences, but also the similar living conditions, experiences, and colonization that women of color experience regardless of their location on either side of the First World / Third World divide, and learn to work together towards common goals.

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila. "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?" American Anthropologist 104.3 (2002) : 783-790.

Collins, Patricia. :Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568 (2000). 41-53.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism Without Borders. Dunham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Moraga, Cherrie. Foreword. Colonize This! Ed. Bushra Rehman and Daisy Hernandez. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2002. xi-xv

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. "browngirlworld: queergirlofcolor organizing, sistahood, hearbreak." Colonize This! Ed. Bushra Rehman and Daisy Hernandez. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2002. 3-16.

Rehman, Bushra and Daisy Hernandez, ed. Colonize This! Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2002.

Eisenstein, Zillah. "The Combahee River Collective Statement". Home Girls, A Black Feminist Anthology. Ed. Barbara Smith. New York, NY: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Inc. 1983 (1978)

[1] Citation of Susan Darraj's words, as quoted by Cherrie Moraga in the foreword to Colonize This!