Synthesis: Womens Prime Obstacle

Throughout history women have been exposed to different types of oppression. During colonialism, women have been used by Nationalists as helpful comrades in order to obtain independence. Unfortunately, instead of showing their gratitude towards the contributions of women by emancipating them, nationalists placed them back to their cages. Similarly, international feminists are not sympathetic enough with women who belong to lower classes. These feminists accentuate all kinds of violence that lower class women encounter. Indeed, international feminists selfishly fight for their own limited rights without giving concern to the women who do not have any rights whatsoever. Hence, the purpose of this short paper is to show that international feminists harm women more than nationalists do.

In his essay Women, Gender and Anti-colonialism, Robert Young suggests that nationalism harms women in many ways. Indeed, nationalism discards womens role in anticolonial struggles and robs them of their rights. During colonialism, women supported nationalists struggles against colonizers by taking noticeable risks to resist the oppressor. For instance, they had to carry water and food to soldiers in isolated places, they organized armed rebellions, and they fought with men in wars. Unfortunately, there is no testimony of womens contribution in the anti-colonial movements. The efforts of great men who tried to free their nations were acknowledged while women were rarely even mentioned before 1974. Because colonized countries are patriarchal in nature, it is difficult for women to assert their presence and speak for their rights; consequently, women are not only defending their countries against colonial oppression, they are also searching for their own emancipation. Nevertheless, emancipation is not an easy achievement when the freedom given to women is

limited to helping nationalists gain control of their lands. When struggles for freedom ended in independence, all the promises that nationalists gave to women were deemed unimportant and of lesser urgency. More importantly, womens demands were not compatible with nationalist aims that comprised a return to the origins. Indeed, nationalists desired a culture that is not imposed by colonizers and encouraged the revival of a religion which ascends their faith. Hence, to nationalists, reform means to not include women in priorities but to give power to dominant forms of patriarchy, ignoring all the sacrifices and participation of women.

It is true that nationalism engendered many types of oppression against women; however, these types of oppression would not have damaged women greatly if women had been able to garner the support they needed from their own sisters. Indeed, the absence of tolerance among women renders defending their rights an impossible task to achieve. When womens movements lack consistency and strength, patriarchal systems do not concern themselves with these uncertain quests or contradictory demands. If international feminists rejected capitalism and aligned themselves with socialist feminists, women might have been taken more seriously. According to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, international feminisms alliance with capitalism damages the quest of the lower classes by faking the problems that women really suffer from (94). Indeed, upper class women have less harsh realities than lower classes women. Instead of investigating what lower class women need, upper class women are satisfied only with political rights, ignoring the fact that other women suffer from social and economical inequalities as well. An objective feminist should take into consideration women from different classes and different mentalities, not only the class they belong to. For instance, the upper class women in Morocco benefit from their right to education while rural women are barely able to sustain themselves. This neglect makes lower class women marginalized

three times over in the sense that they are ignored by upper class women, oppressed by nationalists and used as slaves by colonialism.

Thus, before even addressing nationalists and colonialists, feminists should first create a relationship based on tolerance and solidarity with their sisters. Without a consistent relationship between women of different classes, their aims would remain incomplete and unfocused. Indeed, establishing a dialogue with women belong to another class, may allow them all to achieve their diverse goals and obtain respectful lives.

Bibliography Young, J.C. Robert. Women, Gender, and Anti-colonialism. Postcolonialism: An Historical Perspective. Ed. USA: Blackwell, 2001. Spivak, Gayatri. Can the Subaltern Speak? Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. New York, Columbia University Press, 1994.