Postcolonial feminism
[2] Postcolonial feminism argues that by using the term "woman" as a universal group, women are then only defined by their gender and not by social class, race, ethnicity, or sexual preference.
When first-wave feminism originated in the late nineteenth century, it arose as a movement among white, middle-class women in the global North who were reasonably able to access both resources and education.
[8] However, first-wave feminism did succeed in getting votes for women and also, in certain countries, changing laws relating to divorce and care and maintenance of children.
It scored remarkable victories relating to Equal Pay and the removal of gender based discriminatory practices.
Many of the first key theorists of postcolonial feminism hail from India and were inspired by their direct experiences with the effects that colonization had left in their society.
The concept of colonization occupies many different spaces within postcolonial feminist theory; it can refer to the literal act of acquiring lands or to forms of social, discursive, political, and economic enslavement in a society.
[14] Chandra Talpade Mohanty, a principal theorist within the movement, addresses this issue in her seminal essay "Under Western Eyes".
[1] In this essay, Mohanty asserts that Western feminists write about Third World women as a composite, singular construction that is arbitrary and limiting.
The most prominent point that Crowley makes in her article is that ethnography can be essential to problem solving, and that freedom does not mean the same thing to all the women of the world.
[16] The aim of the postcolonial feminist critique to traditional Western feminism is to strive to understand the simultaneous engagement in more than one distinct but intertwined emancipatory battle.
[13] The intent of postcolonial feminism is to reduce homogenizing language coupled with an overall strategy to incorporate all women into the theoretical milieu.
Brina Bose highlights the ongoing process of "alienation and alliance" from other theorists in regards to postcolonial feminism; she emphasizes, "...the obvious danger both in 'speaking for' the silent/silenced as well as in searching for retaliatory power in elusive connections..."[20] There is a tendency throughout many different academic fields and policy strategies to use Western models of societies as a framework for the rest of the world.
This critique is supported in other scholarly work including that of Sushmita Chatterjee who describes the complications of adding feminism as a "Western ideological construct to save brown women from their inherently oppressive cultural patriarchy.
"[6] The postcolonial feminist movements look at the gendered history of colonialism and how that continues to affect the status of women today.
As a result, traditional practices and roles taken up by women, sometimes seen as distasteful by Western standards, could be considered a form of rebellion against colonial rule.
These can include: "migration, slavery, oppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place and responses to the influential discourses of imperial Europe.
"[22] Ania Loomba critiques the terminology of 'postcolonial' by arguing the fact that 'post' implicitly implies the aftermath of colonization; she poses the question, "when exactly then, does the 'postcolonial' begin?
"[23] Postcolonial feminists see the parallels between recently decolonized nations[24] and the state of women within patriarchy taking "perspective of a socially marginalized subgroup in their relationship to the dominant culture.
[26] Postcolonial feminism attempts to avoid speaking as if women were a homogeneous population with no differences in race, sexual preference, class, or even age.
[27] Vera C. Mackie describes the history of feminist rights and women's activism in Japan from the late nineteenth century to present day.
She also goes on to write about how these rights apply to women in the global South as well but that depending on their country and culture, each individual's experience and needs are unique.
Postcolonial framework attempts to shed light on these women as "full moral agents" who willingly uphold their cultural practices as a resistance to Western imperialism.
Postcolonial and feminist theorists state that women are oppressed by both patriarchy and the colonial power, and that this is an ongoing process in many countries even after they achieved independence.
"[37] Writers that are usually identified with the topic of double colonization and critique on Western feminism are for example Hazel V. Carby and Chandra Talpade Mohanty.
", an essay composed by Carby, harshly critiques Western feminists who she accuses of being prejudiced and oppressors of black women rather than supporters.
[39] Other themes include the impact of mass migration to metropolitan urban centers, economic terrorism, and how to decolonize the imagination from the multiple binds of writing as a woman of color.
[40] Pivotal novels include Nawal El Saadawi's The Fall of the Iman about the lynching of women,[41] Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun about two sisters in pre and post war Nigeria,[42] and Giannina Braschi's United States of Banana about Puerto Rican independence.
[43][44] Other major works of postcolonial feminist literature include novels by Maryse Condé, Fatou Diome, and Marie Ndiaye,[39] poetry by Cherríe Moraga, Giannina Braschi, and Sandra Cisneros, and the autobiography of Audre Lorde (Zami: A New Spelling of My Name).
[45] Maria Lugones’ “Toward a Decolonial Feminism” is another piece of postcolonial feminist literature that explores gender norms in relation to the Indigenous people of the United States and the oppression that came with Christianity and the bourgeoisie.
This criticism claims that postcolonial feminism is divisive, arguing that the overall feminist movement will be stronger if women can present a united front.
