>Diane Monaco wrote:
> > Who started imperialism? Men! Women had nothing to do with it. Your
> > argument implies that if we get rid of the imperialism, women's
> > subordination ends. Women were dominated long before there was imperialism
> > or the development of capitalism. On the other hand, if feminism is
> > successful in eradicating male domination, then the imperialism will
> > disappear as its necessary preconditions of domination disappear.
>
>Martha Gimenez wrote:
>
>Imperialism is the outcome of many macro level processes and cannot be
>reduced to the intended result of "men's" behavior - most "men" (and
>"women") did not benefit and continue to suffer from its effects.
>
>Diane:
>
>Imperialism is the result of many macro variables all of which in
>some way men controlled at the time not women. Women had no say in
>its development. Women were out of the picture, so to speak, at
>every stage of its evolution.
White women actively participated in the work of imperialism in a variety of ways, and not simply as appendages to white males either. White women often created space for white female self-assertion in the Civilizing Mission, portraying themselves as liberators of colored women, who were ideologically cast as opposites of white women: passive victims of brown men's prejudice. A few white women resisted such a racist notion of female agency (white = active versus colored = passive), but most didn't question their imperial right to tutor women of color. For them, it was a "White Women's Burden," to paraphrase Kipling.
Take an example of missionary work:
***** Though missionary work was originally conceived as purely a male endeavour, by 1899 it was estimated that women missionaries outnumbered men in the 'foreign field' by over a thousand. This numerical ascendancy reflected the recruitment of single women as missionaries by the major missionary societies during the last three decades of the century. One writer calculated that in 1879 there were no more than 400 single women serving in the entire foreign mission field (covering the Protestant missions from Britain, the USA and Europe), yet in the seven years 1887-1894, the Church Missionary Society alone sent 214 women overseas as 'lady missionaries'....
...The idea of sending single women out as teachers to the 'East' does not seem to have come as a shock or generated much opposition, in part because the groundwork had already been laid. The work of wives in the mission field had developed and fleshed out the need of a separate sphere of women's work, while married and single women were continuing to expand and organize their religious philanthropy in Britain. Evangelical doctrine and the Woman Question were coming together in new formulations of the most appropriate roles form women and men, which, even at their most prescriptive, condoned an active Christian engagement for women that could extend well beyond the home...
...The recruitment of single women as lady missionaries by the major missionary societies marked the beginning of a process of incorporation and professionalization of women's work....
In the missionary text a mission of sisterhood was constructed, in which British women were cast as the saviours of Indian women, liberating them from the degradation of a vindictive Hindu culture and religion. As one missionary wife put it: 'The daughters of India are unwelcomed at their birth, untaught in childhood, enslaved when married, accursed as widows, and unlamented at their death'. Indian women were portrayed as innocent and passive victims of a merciless system which used and abused them as daughters and wives. In contrast, British women are portrayed as having the virtues and responsibilities of their free-born and independent situation. Not for them the walls of a domestic prison; rather they are portrayed as intelligent respected agents in their own right, as well as help-meets in male endeavours, secure in their own sphere of usefulness and purpose: women's work. It is in the setting up of this opposition of stereotypes that the 'mission' of English women to their Indian counterparts is constructed, and in emotional, graphic language they are urged to respond: 'Hear the wail of India's women! Millions, millions, to us cry. They to us for aid appealing..."Come to us!" with hands uplifted And with streaming eyes they plead.'
These contrasting stereotypes -- the passive, pitiable Indian woman and the active, independent British lady missionary -- were nevertheless brought together in a very close relation indeed. For it is as sisters that British ladies are urged to respond to India's call. The argument as to why British women should assume responsibility for this mission of enlightenment and rescue to Indian women started from a common basis. Both Indian and British women, by virtue of being women, are seen alike as innately religious, spiritual and moral, in ways that men (by implication and regardless of race) are not. However, at the same time as sisterhood is constructed on a shared womanly identity, a set of differences around axes of class, religion and race-nation were drawn, which break down this assumed identity into constituent parts, in keeping with the dichotomized stereotypes described above. British ladies were also accorded a superior gendered authority as better women. The endeavour women missionaries are involved in becomes not one simply to convert, educate or enlighten, but to impose/introduce a very specific set of gender roles and models belonging to Victorian middle-class culture. In the specific milieu of South India this meant transforming Indian women into good wives and mothers as well as active Christian workers, much in the image of their missionary teachers.
This ambition was reinforced by the explicit linkage made between the religious aims of the missionary movement and British imperial rule: 'This great empire has ... been delivered into our hands ... not, surely to gratify us, but to use our influence in elevating and enlightening the vast myriads of her people.' In particular, 'It is to alleviate that misery as God may enable us and bless our efforts, and to deliver our sisters out of it, that we English women are called and selected in the providence of God -- a wondrous honour [and] responsibility of the deepest solemnity.'
(Jane Haggis, "White Women and Colonialism: Towards a Non-Recuperative History," _Gender and Imperialism_, ed. Clare Midgley, Manchester: Machester UP, 1998: 51, 53, 55, 59-60) *****
It is time for white feminists to learn to reject the "White Women's Burden" that their foremothers constructed for themselves as they complemented white men in the work of empire-building.
Yoshie