Money, Sex and Power

1. Gendered power and the development of colonialism Week 13 2013-4 Money, Sex and Power

2. Lecture outline • What is colonialism/imperialism and how does it relate to capitalism? • Different conceptualisations of colonialism and its relation to gendered power • Brief look at post-colonialism and the place of gender in post-colonial theory

3. What is colonialism? • Waylen distinguishes ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms of colonialism • Old colonialism – late 15th and 16th centuries • New colonialism – 17th and 18thcenturies

4. And imperialism? • Shift from indirect to direct political control by colonial state – 19thcentury • Imperialism and advanced capitalism – Lenin (Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, 1917 ), Wallerstein (The modern world system, 1974, 1980, 1989, 2011 ).

5. Political control Established: • as a political strategy - formalised rights of possession over territories in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean in order to establish geo-political strategic positions in the race for dominance against other powers. • for economic gain - established rights to extract and use raw materials and natural resources from colonies; this in order to facilitate development of capitalist industry at home and create markets for manufactured goods in colonies. Indian cotton industry a case in point.

6. Changes • Changes in land ownership • Commercialised agriculture • Taxation system introduced – wage labour, migration • Women lost control over land, capital, their own and others’ labour.

7. Example of disrupted gender relations due to changes Burma Independent women and equality between the sexes witnessed by British officials and settlers who saw it as backwardness and therefore set out to civilise them. Account provided by Fielding Hall – a political officer in the British colonial administration between 1887 and 1891. His book: A People at School ‘‘Men and women are not sufficiently differentiated yet in Burma. It is the mark of a young race. Ethnologists tell us that. In the earliest peoples the difference was very slight. As a race grows older the difference increases.’

8. Effect on women 4 major perspectives on colonial history: • Imperial history • Nationalist perspectives • Marxist and socialist perspectives • Post-colonial studies

9. Themes of literature • White western women’s involvement in imperialism • Effect of imperialism on women in Britain • Experiences of colonised women • Men and colonial masculinities • Colonialism and sexuality • Gendered discourses of colonialism

10. Analytical questions • How colonialism affected women and gender relations • The gendering of colonial processes • How women both supported and resisted colonialism • Waylen argues that key concepts for analysis of imperialism besides class and gender are: ‘race’ and ethnicity; slavery; migration; sexuality, reproduction and miscegenation; changes to family relations, work relations and relations of power

11. Gender and imperialism • Imperial history – history of imperialism written from point of view of colonisers • Excludes women and gender • Taken up by feminists and others looking at women’s position in the colonies • Can be part of discourse that represents women in colonies as ‘backward’ in comparison with US and West European women

12. Imperialism as progressive • Driving force of historical progress • Societies freed from traditional backwardness, become dynamic, modern • Modernisation theory • Oppression of women is part of ‘traditional backwardness’ • Modern capitalist liberal democracy will liberate women from feudal bonds • Colonised women have no agency

13. Nationalist perspectives • Experience of colonised people central • Imperial history racist and patronising, sees colonial power in positive light, devalues history and culture of colonised societies • Pre-colonial societies not backward at all, dynamic and developing economically before European intervention • Colonised peoples active agents of change in modernising world • Women involved in independence movements

14. Nationalist perspectives on women • Women’s position pre-colonialism no worse than under colonial rule • Colonial power destroyed bases of women’s power • Colonial powers didn’t liberate colonised women, inhibited indigenous processes of change • Women agents of social change

15. Re-assessment • In 1970s and 1980s re-assessment of nationalist period • UN conference on women, first one in 1975 • Nationalist struggles improved women’s situation • Focus on economic and political rights • Women’s personal position within family not addressed

16. Marxist/socialist perspectives • Different groups benefitted from capitalist imperialism • Upper and middle classes of indigenous population benefitted • Alliance between colonisers and this section of population • Subaltern status – lower class and other marginalised groups – resisted exploitation and oppression

17. Marxist analysis and women Colonialism erodes pre-capitalist sites of women’s power Introduces new forms of patriarchal control • Changes in sexuality, marriage, family • Forms of work, employment and labour • Land use, property rights and inheritance British rulers in India, together with Brahmin elites in Kerala, destroyed matrilineal kinship system (Maria Mies, Indian Women and Patriarchy, 1980)

18. Male alliances • Women active resisting colonialism • Hostility from male alliances of colonial authorities and indigenous elites • Waylen: ‘new’ customary laws aimed at controlling women • Collusion between 2 sources of male power • Construction of tradition, new forms of control over women (Sangari and Vaid (Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, 1990) )

19. Post-colonialism and gender Edward Said defined orientalism as a view which defined ‘the oriental’ and the Orient as: • A biological inferior that is culturally backward, peculiar, and unchanging – to be depicted in dominating and sexual terms • The feminine and weak Orient awaits the dominance of the West; it is a defenceless and unintelligent whole that exists for, and in terms of, its Western counterpart • He called into question the underlying assumptions that form the foundation of Orientalist thinking

20. Gender and colonialist discourse • Emerged from literary and cultural studies • Perspective of imperial history a form of colonial discourse, legitimates colonial rule • Colonial rule legitimated with reference to gender relations • Gender relations in colonies (and contemporary societies such as Afghanistan) used as signifier of backward society

21. How useful is post-colonial approach? • Waylen: legitimacy of colonialism problematic • Legitimated through construction of knowledge about the colonised by the coloniser • Power over had to be legitimised – minds of oppressed had to be colonised – persuasion important not only coercion

22. Post-colonial approach criticised • Midgley: must go beyond discourse analysis • Economic, political, military, social and administrative structures important • Need to avoid relativism and challenge imperial history perspective • Need to analyse material basis of power as well as language and symbols which legitimate power

23. Conclusions • Colonialism was gendered, affected indigenous gendered power relations • ‘Backwardness’ of indigenous peoples symbolised in gendered terms • Capitalist imperialism worsened women’s position • Post-colonialism gives voice to subaltern • Gender important symbolically and materially • Women active agents in bringing about social change