In "The White Women's Burden,” Josephine Butler Campaign Against Contagious Disease is dissected throughout this reading as a means of exemplifying the rise of imperial feminism and the attitudes of the early British suffragist who bore its “imaginative, no no less hegemonic feminist world order” (301). In this way, Burton uses Butlers campaign and its intersection with the British Empires agenda for India to show how integral Indian women were for British women’s progress. While, Burton sights that the intensions of Butler’s ideologies and purpose for working “behalf of Indian women” came from genuine misperspections about what women were robbed of in Indian cultures, just as we saw in last weeks reading there were an ulterior benefits to …show more content…
the great British feminist suffragist movement in combatting India women’s ‘issues’ (298, 300). To this point, Burton notes how “Butler tended to view empire as a field of opportunity for English women, a place for them to exercise their philanthropic skills among deserving natives” (299). Burton’s work served, this week as a starting point on the discussion of western feminism and its imperialist roots within the contemporary concept of a “global sisterhood” Meanwhile, Jayawardena focuses the attention of her work in The White Woman’’s Other Burden on the women who took their work outside the sphere of the ‘home,’ trying to sift out the political activist in women of South Asia in an effort to better understand the practicability of the notioned “global sisterhood,” brought to fruition in Burton’s work (11).
While this work reflects much more on the European women who found themselves in British India with the vigor to bring political and social change to women in what is now modern day India, pakestan and shri lanka, Jayawardena widens our scope of the women who we identify as western feminist as a development in 19th and 20th century South Asia. I appreciated the detailed accounts of that these readings brought to Josephine Butler, as well as early Christian missionaries, and utilitarian activist such as Mary Carpenter and Annette Ackroyds. Through these specific examples, a the concept of a "global sisterhood" is commonly supported, but distinguishably executed. This is still true today when looking at contemporary missionary and feminist quest to improve the lives of women, globally. However, this concept of a "global sisterhood" to suggest the formation of an international feminist platform, finds its roots in imperialism and western ideologies that cannot be escaped. These readings, in conversation provide light on the history of global feminism and the empire as of way helping us understand the historical issues that keep the formation of solidarity between women around the world in a singular movement hard to
achieve.
Each chapter contains numerous sources which complement the aforementioned themes, to create a new study on cultural history in general but women specifically. Her approach is reminiscent of Foucault, with a poststructural outlook on social definitions and similar ideas on sexuality and agency. Power cannot be absolute and is difficult to control, however Victorian men and women were able to grasp command of the sexual narrative. She includes the inequalities of class and gender, incorporating socioeconomic rhetic into the
Throughout the course of history, nations have invested time and manpower into the colonizing and modernizing of more rural governments. Imperialism has spread across the globe, from the British East India Company to France’s occupation of Northern Africa. After their founding in 1776, the United States of America largely stayed out of this trend until The Spanish-American War of 1898. Following the war, the annexation and colonization of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines ultimately set a precedent for a foreign policy of U.S. imperialism.
Lugones, María C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman (1983) “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman’s Voice’.” Women’s Studies International Forum, 6 (6): 573-581..
Ihara Saikaku’s Life of a Sensuous Woman written in the 17th century and Mary Woolstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman written in the 18th century are powerful literary works that advocated feminism during the time when women were oppressed members of our societies. These two works have a century old age difference and the authors of both works have made a distinctive attempt to shed a light towards the issues that nobody considered significant during that time. Despite these differences between the two texts, they both skillfully manage to present revolutionary ways women can liberate themselves from oppression laden upon them by the society since the beginning of humanity.
In the analysis of the issue in question, I have considered Mary Wollstonecraft’s Text, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As an equivocal for liberties for humanity, Wollstonecraft was a feminist who championed for women rights of her time. Having witnessed devastating results or men’s improvidence, Wollstonecraft embraced an independent life, educated herself, and ultimately earned a living as a writer, teacher, and governess. In her book, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she created a scandal perhaps to her unconventional lifestyle. The book is a manifesto of women rights arguing passionately for educating women. Sensualist and tyrants appear right in their endeavor to hold women in darkness to serve as slaves and their plaything. Anyone with a keen interest in women rights movement will surely welcome her inexpensive edition, a landmark documen...
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
In her essay, Lauren Onkey reveals how colonialism and nationalism victimize women in the past. Traditionally, woman is considered inferior and weaker whereas man is superior and powerful. This sexist characterization of gender is based on the assumption of sexual dominance. During the period of colonization, Colonial power deliberately describes the colonies as feminine “to justify its ‘civilizing’ mission” (160). Since then, woman becomes the symbol and property of nation. Thence, the nation assumes the right to ‘supervise’ her behavior. Richard Kearney suggests “the symbol of woman as nation as a somewhat benevolent response to colonial conquest” (160). The ‘elevation’ of woman as a symbol and property of nation is problematic at least to women because it makes self-determination inapplicable to women. In Ireland specifically, women’s issues are defined as trivial compared to the more important issues of nationalism. The Field Day group which is supposed to “rethink ideas about the nation, literature, politics and culture” fails to include the issues of women in its agenda. Onkey argues that Field Day simply ignores the creative works produced by women and topics of women, sexuality and gender are absent in most literary discourse. Female writers are also marginalized since “of over 300 writers included covering 1500 years, only 39 are women” (162).
Lugones, Maria C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman. Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for “The Woman’s Voice.” Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company: California. 1986. 19-31.
Lee, H. & Shimizu, C. (2004). Sex acts: Two meditations on race and sexuality. Signs: Journal
Feminists are accused of taking the perspective of a woman who is a product of Western ideology. Which is to say that feminists ‘assume that all women have similar attributes and experiences and ignore the impact of other variables such as race, class, wealth, and sexual preferences on the position of women’(Chalesworth in Nayak 2013, 86). That in doing so, they have effectively excluded other women of different culture, class, and religion. What I would like to emphasize here is that in pursuing equality, feminists have become the very ‘”elite” they criticizes. Feminists’ claims for human rights are Western based, as simultaneously feminists are claiming that human rights are
The Colonial era spans nearly two hundred years with each settlement in the New World containing distinctive characteristics. Location in the new world is one factor that shaped women’s lives but religion and economics also played a massive role. These roles however were constantly changing and often contradicting. Since there is numerous factors that contributed to the shaping of women’s private and public roles in the seventeenth and eighteenth century it is impossible to categories all colonial woman in one group. Some historians refer to this period as the golden age of women; however, I tend to see this period as oppressive, with only few examples of women exercising social and public powers.
10) Smith, Bonnie G., ed. Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Vol. 4. N.p.: Xford UP, 2008. Print. 2710 Pages.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been widely recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman in society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women characters in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a woman during the time of the Restoration Era and give authors and essayists of the modern day, such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a platform to become powerful, influential writers of the future.
In the “White Man’s Burden”, Rudyard Kipling claims that it is the duty or burden of the white men to civilize the non-whites, to educate them and to religiously lift them (lecture notes, 2/8). Kipling is specifically talking about the colonized non-whites (lecture notes, 2/8). The idea that the newly colonized non-whites were lacking and needing help from a greater society was common among American whites at this time (lecture notes, 2/8). Rudyard uses the whites’ public feelings towards the issue and writes “The White Man’s Burden” in an attempt to move the whites to help the non-whites because he thinks it is a very beneficial movement for the U.S.
This essay will aim to discuss the relationship between Western Feminisms and International Feminisms as explored by various non-Western Feminists. It will aim to investigate the origins of this 'relationship ', the complexities/complications within it, evaluate how effective both paradigms are in the third wave and ultimately what is still needed to be done to create a transnational, intersectional feminist movement irrespective of the backgrounds of all women.