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Postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism, sometimes also known as Third World feminism, is a form of feminist philosophy which centers around the idea that racism, colonialism, and the long lasting effects (economic, political, and cultural) of colonialism in the postcolonial setting, don't only involve non-white, non-western women.Weedon, C: "Key Issues in Postcolonial Feminism: A Western Perspective," 2002 Postcolonial feminists criticize Western feminists because they have a history of universalizing women's issues, and their discourses are often misunderstood to represent women globally. Thus, one of the central ideas in postcolonial feminism is that by using the term 'woman' as a universal group, they are then only defined by their gender and not by social classes and ethnic identities. Narayan, Uma. "Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism." Ed. Narayan and Harding. Decentering the Center. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000. 80-100 Also, it is believed by postcolonial feminists that mainstream Western feminists ignored the voices of non-white, non-western women for many years, thus creating resentment from feminists in developing nations.McEwan, C: "Postcolonialism, feminism and development: intersections and dilemmas," 2001
Postcolonialism can provide an outlet for citizens to discuss various experiences endured during colonialism. These can include: "migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place and responses to the influential discourses of imperial Europe."Kramarae and Spender: Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, Vol. 3, 2000 Postcolonial feminists see the parallels between recently decolonized nations and the state of women within patriarchy - both take the "perspective of a socially marginalized subgroup in their relationship to the dominant culture."Kramarae and Spender: Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, Vol. 3, 2000 Postcolonial feminists have had strong ties with black feminists because colonialism usually contains themes of racism. Both groups have struggled for recognition, not only by men in their own culture, but also by Western feminists.Weedon, C: "Key Issues in Postcolonial Feminism: A Western Perspective," 2002Postcolonial feminist authors
Postcolonial feminist authors include:- Gayatri Spivak, with her important "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988)
- Trinh T. Minh-ha, with her essay "Infinite Layers/Third World?" (1989), and her book "Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism" (1989)
- Chandra Talpade Mohanty, with her influential essay "Under Western Eyes" (1991)
- Uma Narayan, with her book Dislocating Cultures (1997) and her essay "Contesting Cultures" (1997)
- Kwok Pui-lan, with her book Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (2005)
- Sara Suleri, Boys Will Be Boys: A Daughter's Elegy (2003)
- Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India (1998)
- Kumkum Sangari, Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History (1989)
- Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (1995)
- Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza (1987) And the recopilations: This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color(1981) Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color(1990)
Postcolonial feminist quotes
Many feminists have contributed to postcolonial feminism by using written words to express their ideas and opinions - which have been of great importance to the postcolonial feminist movement.- ?"The juncture I am proposing, therefore, is extreme. It is a location wherein the praxis of U.S. third-world feminism links with the aims of white feminism, studies of race, ethnicity, and marginality, and with post-modern theories of culture as they crosscut and join together in new relationships through a shared comprehension of an emerging theory and method of oppositional consciousness." - Chela SandovalSandoval, Chela. "US Third World Feminism: the Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World." Genders 10 (1991): 1-24.
- ?"Given the significant dangers that varieties of cultural essentialism pose to feminist agendas, I believe that the development of a feminist perspective that is committed to antiessentialism both about 'women' and about 'cultures' is an urgent and important task for a postcolonial feminist perspective. Such a perspective must distinguish and extricate feminist projects of attending to differences among women from problematically essentialist colonial and postcolonial understandings of 'cultural difference' between Western culture and its 'Others.' - Uma NarayanNarayan, Uma. "Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism." Ed. Narayan and Harding. Decentering the Center. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000. 80-100
- ?"While a politics of inclusion is driven by an ambition for universal representation (of all women's interests), a politics of partiality does away with that ambition and accepts the principle that feminism can never ever be an encompassing political home for all women, not just because different groups of women have different and sometimes conflicting interests, but, more radically, because for many groups of 'other' women other interests, other identifications are sometimes more important and politically pressing than, or even incompatible with, those related to their being women." - Ien AngAng, Ien. "I'm a Feminist but..."Other" Women and Postnational Feminism." Ed. Caine and Pringle. Transitions: New Australian Feminisms. London: Allen & Unwin, 1995. 57-73
See also
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Postcolonial_feminism". The list of authors you can find on this page.