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Postcolonial Feminism. Aziz Nouhaidi

1. Postcolonial feminism seeks to correct Euro-American feminism's tendency to universalize women's experiences and ignore crucial differences in how gender oppression is experienced based on factors like race, class, ethnicity and culture. 2. It challenges the "white savior complex" narrative that positions Western women as needing to save non-Western women, which plays into colonial justifications for occupation. 3. Postcolonial feminism argues feminisms should emerge locally rather than being imposed externally, and recognizes different cultures may strive for gender equality in non-Western ways, like some Islamic feminists embracing veiling as empowering rather than oppressive.

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KHADIJA SALMAOUI
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135 views1 page

Postcolonial Feminism. Aziz Nouhaidi

1. Postcolonial feminism seeks to correct Euro-American feminism's tendency to universalize women's experiences and ignore crucial differences in how gender oppression is experienced based on factors like race, class, ethnicity and culture. 2. It challenges the "white savior complex" narrative that positions Western women as needing to save non-Western women, which plays into colonial justifications for occupation. 3. Postcolonial feminism argues feminisms should emerge locally rather than being imposed externally, and recognizes different cultures may strive for gender equality in non-Western ways, like some Islamic feminists embracing veiling as empowering rather than oppressive.

Uploaded by

KHADIJA SALMAOUI
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Prof.

Nouhaidi Postcolonial Feminism


(S 6)
1- Postcolonialism
2- Psotcolonial Feminism
“White men saving brown women from brown men” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
1- Postcolonialism
Directing question: State two main objectives of postcolonialism.
Postcolonial, as a term, suggests resistance to “colonial” power and its ideologies that continue to shape various
cultures. Postcolonial theory, therefore, focuses on subverting the colonizer’s discourse that attempts to distort
the realities of colonized people and which tries to inscribe inferiority on them in order to exercise total control
over their land. It is also concerned with the production of literature of colonized peoples that articulates their
identity and reclaims their past in the face of the one created by the colonizer. I n general, the task of a postcolonial
theorist is to insert the often ‘absent’ colonized subject into the dominant narratives in a way that resists the
authority of the colonizer.
2- Postcolonial Feminism
The Agony of Non-Western Women
Directing question: What is the agony of Non-Western Women?
In the Euro-American lens, women in the “East” are often perceived as victims of “backwards” religious
and patriarchal systems, helpless and unenlightened about the gravity of their plight. These women outside of
Euro-America are imagined to be in desperate need of the so-called civilizing forces of “equality,” “rights,” and
“secularism” that are deeply-seated in liberal Euro-American cultures.
Directing question: What does postcolonial feminism seek to correct?
Postcolonial feminism was born as a response to colonialism and Euro-American feminists’ emphasis on
the experiences of Western women and more importantly on sisterhood, which is one way Euro-American values
are imperialistically imposed on other cultures. Postcolonial feminism is an intervention into such problematic
frames of thought in hegemonic Euro-American feminism. The theory resists Euro-American feminists’ tendency
to universalize the forms of oppression they face in their own lives, a tendency which ignores the crucial
differences in the way women from various national, ethnic and religious backgrounds experience gender. Its
founders argue that by using the term "woman" as a universal group, women are then only defined by
their gender and not by social class, race or ethnicity. Postcolonial feminists believe feminisms should
emerge locally from regional knowledge instead of being imposed by Euro-America.

White Savior Complex


Directing question: How does the white savior complex intersect with plans of hegemony?
Postcolonial feminism reminds us “equality” looks different for a white, middle-class woman in the U.S.
and a native woman in India, and it denies the idea of universal oppressions. If Euro-American feminist
movements focus on the gender pay gap, unpaid domestic labor, or sexual harassment, these forms of oppressions
and subsequent resistance is not necessarily useful for women outside of Euro-America.
Postcolonial feminism provides a similar critique of white Euro-American attempts to “save” women
outside Euro-America, often called the “white savior complex.” This complex plays dangerously into the
historical rationale for the colonization of “Eastern” lands, i.e. educating “barbarians”. The white savior complex
is used by Euro-American politicians through the trope of the “third world woman,” who is oppressed by a
supposedly backward regime, as justification for war and occupation in non Euro-American countries.
One custom often appropriated as a sensational symbol of women’s “oppression” outside of Euro-
American countries is the veil. Although there is room for nuanced discussion about the patriarchal implications
of mandatory veiling in Saudi Arabia and Iran among women within these cultures, it is problematic to frame the
hijab as inherently oppressive or incompatible with equality. Islamic feminists, for example, strive for an equality
that encompasses ritual modesty as a way to feel empowered and closer to God.
Postcolonial feminism embraces the potential for diverse feminisms that seek to end the ramifications of
patriarchy, racism, and capitalism in their totality.

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