Chapter 8

Post-colonial F e m i n i s t Theory

Sara M i l l s

Before trying to encompass the concerns of p o s t - c o l o n i a l feminist theory, it is necessary first to describe_

mainstream p o s t - c o l o n i a l theory. P o s t - c o l o n i a l theory d e v e l o p e d , in essence, from the work o f the c o l o n i a l

d i s c o u r s e theorist Edward Said, particularly his books Orienta/ism ( 1 9 7 8 ) and Culture and imperialism ( I 993 ).

Said analysed the way that Europe in the nineteenth century represented many of the cu l t u re s w ith which it came

i nto co n tact thro u g h i m p erial pa�; h e r-gue4::t,4at t h e W est p r o d u ced t h e s e o ther c u l t u re s as n

a Oth er to a

We ste rn n o rm . F or ex a m p le t r a v e l l e r s . : hn holars'r�presented these o ther l

cu tu re s as n ot o n l y d 1 ff ercnl fr om

B ritish cu l tu r e , b ut al so a ne ati v ely di e . t. Thus, f or Said, oth er peo pl e s wer e d e s c ri b ed as lazy, degenerate,

u ncivilised, ba r ba ri c a.s., O t h er to t e · · ·. , hard-working British. Post-c o l o n i a l t h eo ry h as de v e lo p e d i n the last

ten ye a r s, b oth bu i l d i n g on S a id's w ork a n d r e a c t i n g to som e o f its globalising t e n d en c ies ( see A hmad 1993). It is

concer n e d to a na l yse and theorise the end u r ing im p ac t o f nineteenth-century E u r o p e a n colonia l is m , b o t h i n thos e

c ountri e s , s uch as India a nd A frica, whic h w ere c olo n ise d a n d i n t h o s e , s u c h as B r i t a i n and F ranc e, w hich

col o ni s e d . P o s t - c o l o n i a l theorist s consider t h a t t h ere were a range o f d if f ere n t c o l o n i a l a n d imperial relations

d u r i n g the n i n e t e e n t h ce n tu r y w hi c h s t i l l have a maj or effect o n th e way th a t c u ltur e s s ee the m sel ve s . I I t i s thi s

conce rn w i th t h e pres ent - da y legacy o f i mperial is m w hic h i s t h e f und a m e nt a l focus o f p o s t - c o l o n i a l t h eor y. W h i l s t

p ost - colon i a l t h eo ry c o v ers a v ery w ide range o f th e o r e t i c a l co nc e rn s , i t i s broadly focused not on l y on the an a lys i s

o r eco n o m ic an d poli tical st ru c t ures, b ut a l so o n the e x a m i na t i o n of t he d e velopm e nt of p arti c u lar stru c t u re s o f ' ·

t h i n.ki n g and be h aviou r . '

F emi n i s t p�st-colonial theorists are not a u n i 0 e d gr?up�wcver , they c a n b_e sai d to b e t h o se f cmi_nists w ho J1 a vc

reacted against the lack of a ddr e ss to g en d er i s s ue s 111 mainstream post-colonial theory and a l so against the

u niversalising t e n d e n cies w it h i n W este rn fe m i n ist t h o u g h t \ P o st - e �feminist t h e ory h as b e e n e x tre m el y

in fl u enti a l in the f oll o wi ng w ay s : firstl y , it h as b rought a b6 ut a w or l d i · o f m a i n s t re a m f e m i n ist theory; f eminist

t h eo ry has moved from a rather p a ro c hi a l c o n c e rn w i th white, 1111. e - c l as s E n g l i s h - s p e a k in g w o m en , to a focus on

w omen i n different n a tional and c u l tu ral c o n t e x ts . It h as a lso forced a

productive crisis in _mainstream white feminist t h i n k i n g , prompting&_e.s.Lcm...f.eminis.tsin_partic1tlar.JcL1mnlui_pout

who they arc spcakmg for when they speak o f ' w o m a n ' 9r 'women'; a n d it has. made them subject to scrutiny IJ1at

vcryact of 'speaking for' someone else. S e c o n d l y , i t has a l s o forced p o s t - c o l o n i a l theorists to address the q u e s t i o n

o f 'gender; although numerous productive a n a l y s e s have been carried. out on issues of 'race' and difference, the

question of gender in m a i n s t r e a m · o s t - c o l o n i a l theory has been rather neglected. Thirdly, and perhaps more

important , post-co orua feminist theory has begun to e esta rs e as a orm of a n a l y s i s in its own right; rather

than simply being seen as a critique of Western feminism or p o s t - c o l o n i a l theory, it has developed both a po�ition

from which to speak, and a set fil--issues te be addressed.

c c

l aim in this chapter to engage with some of the recent feminist theory which has been developed within the field

o r post-colonial theory, principally the work of Gayatri Spivak, Anne McClintock, Jenny Sharpe and Cheyla

Sandoval; my focus will be on two main areas: first, on assessing the gendered nature of colonialism and its

influence on present-day forms of thinking and behaviour, and second, on the worldly focus which forces an

imcrrogation ofthe nature of 'woman' and 'universal' statements about what women want.

Post-colonial Theory

ost-col�n 1 theory has been a rather�field: it examines those texts which represent the .

co ma imperial context, primarily those wntten in the nineteenth century by British m a l e s . These nmeteenth­

century writings arc supremely masculinist; thatis, the ideolo ical form of masculinit d ve o ed within the

colonial context can be considered to be extreme an excessivethus, British male explorers and administrators tend

to be re resented as adventurous, cmemononal, courageous, hard-working, patriotic and r e s i l i e n t . T h i s � ·

ype of mascuQ-y developed within the colonial context because of the need to appear as a colonial subject, as a

member o a ruling race. It was constructed on the basis of o osition to o eemin 1 weaker for ns of 'native'

m�1ity, such as(!!!e 'fem,� Punja 1, an a so 111 re at1011 to the forms of femininity available to British ·

women within the colomal context (Sinha 1 9 9 5 ) . Postcolonial theory has devoted itself a l m o s t exclusively to

charting the contours of this masculinity with little reference to the types of subject position mapped out for British

and 'native' women. 2 Curiously, p o s t - c o l o n i a l theory has also established itself as a 'man's' subject (despite the

presence of ionnidable feminist academics such as Gayatri Spivak and Anne McClintock), since in recent years it

has been the arena for dense and intense theoretical speculation, and this perceived 'seriousness' is often correlated

with male theoretical endeavours (Bhabha 1 9 9 4 ; Young 1 9 9 5 ; Ahmad 1 9 9 3 ; see W i l l i a m s 1 9 9 6 for a review). In

some senses it has superseded deconstruction as presenting itself as the 'serious' and 'difficult'
 ,. ; ' • I

'·'.: -,

. '
',

Figuring Colonial/Imperial 'Woman'

The colonial and imperial context was one which was sexuall coded and redolent �it�:�1,ings; the

exotic is a particular example of the way in which the co onial c01�t is imbued w i t h � - In the

nineteenth century, many paintings and novels were filled wit representations of compliant scxualiscd harems o f

naked or semi-naked women. Such women were located in an exotic locale (Turkey, I n d i a ) b u t were. generally

represented as Caucasian. This fantasy of �aally subm� but i�mg worn� one of th_e ways in wh_ich

Western male fa tasies dominated the representatmn of lliCOricnt (see Lewis l . In actuality, the colonial ·

sphere was one which was regar e y nus ma es as one where they could act out their sexual fantasies in a

way which was not always possible within the confines of Victorian moral constraints at Home. As Ronald Hyam

has examined, albeit in an enffrely uncritical way, Bnt1sh male col om al subjects took advantage of the

opportunities for sexual encounters which their position in the power hierarchy afforded them (Hymn 1990). They

often took indigenous women as 'concubines' or prostitutes, and some had homosexual relations with indigenous

males and boys. This sexualising of the imperial context was something which the c o l o n i a l authorities found i t

necessary to regulate and attempt to constrain, for several reasons: it was thought that sexual liaisons with 'natives' .

could lead to racial degeneration of the British, s i n c e the m i x i n g of 'bloods' was thought to taint the B r i t i s h

'pedigree' (Young 1 9 9 5 ) ; furthermore, sexual contact between the races was seen to set a bad example o f B r i t i s h

colonial behaviour and to compromise and possibly weaken the image of the colonisers.

Sexual matters f� to many of the structures of thinking which infonn the colonial period. Even the

colonial landscape was represented as a compliant'n!male bodya virgm territory opcnmg 1tseli up to imperial
 Pa�c IO I

penetration (McCJintock 1 9 9 5 ). Thus within the Victorian era: 'Africa and the Americas had become what can be

c a l l e d a porno-tropics for the European imaginationa fantastic magic lantern of the m i n d onto which Europe

projected its forbidden sexual desires and fears' (McClintock 1 9 9 5 : 22). Perhaps it should be more clearly stated

that the imperial zone was one where British male sexual fantasies were acted out, in a context where the

hierarchies or power allowed them to do s o . B r i t i s h females were represented as the innocent pure support for this

system and indigenous females were the object of these sexual fantasies.

M a n y critics have noted the way that, des itc the seeming absence of British women i n historical accounts of the

empire, they seem to figure in t symbolic productr_ of the ideological su qrt for em 're.; By this I mean that

although they do not figure as ag · e imperia project, they play an important part in the way_ that

the empire was maintained at an ideological level. As Edward Said has shown, written accounts of the colonised

countries by Bnush people played an impo11ant role in the maintenance and justification of colonial rule; the

symbolic figure of the sexually pure British woman took on a heightened significance within the colonial context,

and seemed to play sh ymg actions y t ie imperial authorities.Jenny Sharpe has focused particularly on

the figure of the' ' · · · e n ; analysing the historical accounts of the Indian Mutiny/Uprising of 1 8 5 7 ,

she shows that during this essentially political event where Indian soldiers in the British army rebelled against their

colonial masters and routed them from their houses, killing a large number of soldiers a�n civilians, the �ritish

represented this event in jerrns of the threat of dishonour for 'their' women and children The threat of being raped

by a 'native' was constructed as a fate worse than death, but the stress that was placed on his potential rape also

had the effect of locatin barbarism firm! on the 'native' side, and not on the side of the colonisets) This is an

impo an trope m colonial history and has resonances wit t e t reat o t e rape of white wome�y Black men in

Africa, which surfaced periodically at moments of politica l tension and u nrest . W hat S ha rp e show s is that this

figure o f the w hite woman at r isk i s u sed to mas k and p erhaps even j ustify the v io l ence .w hich i s . m et e d o u t to

in surge nts w i th in t he co l oni a l c ontext . As' s h e commen t s : the sa v a g ed rema m s [ of t s h women ] d i spla y
Bn 1 a
fan tasy of the na nv e ' s savagery tha t s creens the ba rbaris m of colonialis m ' (S ha rp e 1 9 9 3 : 2 3 3 ) . V ron W are shows

that draconian la w s were impose d upon the indi genous pop u la ti on .m I nd ia and in several other co un tries s u ch as

P apua N ew G uinea, supposed l y to protect white women from this threat and s he goes on to show that this fear of

ra p e by the 'native' has also la ed a ma.or role in the const ru ction o f c ertain fonns of racist t h o ug ht p revalent m

postco onial Britain (W are 1 9 9 2 : 5 ) .

A nne McC l i ntock has e xamined the inter l oc k ing n ature of ' racial' and s ex.ual pu rit y, centred ar ound the fi gure of

he white woman .
t A s I men t ioned abo v e, b ecause of 'scienti fi c' theories o f ra c i s m, w i t h i n the V ict o r ia n p eriod there
was a
 -
. . . . r interbreeding, which was seen as the

0
great fear of degeneration of the British race because of Q: u s c e g e n a t !QP , . t ial white woman was

1
� ��

�·nixing and polluting of 'blood' (se� Young l

_ 9 9 5 ) : The stereotype of the pm e, �� judged and against which _the

important a standard agau which the mixed iacc or 111d1gcnous woman co owmg way: COi · o l l m g

O
1

degree of 'progress o nus civilisation could e measure . c . mtoc put� m e • d ly perceived as the

WO
�
l ll::;Cn;
�' s�Se:X;t�la�lt�ly;_
�
., e�x;..atllf'i.1v1g"m;:;:;
�_. _ar;;te.;:n;;;1,
1 ty�an�d:f°h"b;;re;;e:;jd";;
n
i�g;--;ai"""vviril
1 n e
l race of �mpir�-b�rs O��rb:� t�at by the tum o f th e

paramount means tor eon troll mg t he h eal th and wea !.b-9.f.thc u1al�.1�perial �y � '.
l owcr' (McClintock
1
century, sexual punty emerged as the c on tr o ll in g me ta p hor f r ra
o . e on
c o mic an po rnca p · the idea of t h e
1995: 47). An a er as s own nes o · race an e ugen cs e re devclop�d to bolster . . .·

white race as being i n heren ly superio , E

t r n glish wom en ' ot only
n oli s e d th e g a dian
u r s o( the race m t h c i ;

rc,EEoductive capacity, but they also providcd s long as they w re of a e th e ri g h t c la s and breedmga guar nt e t iat
s a e

BMT1sfi-morals and' princip le s were a d h er ed t o in the settler community, a s well a s bemg ira�sm1tted to the n ext

g n ration' (Ware 1 9 9 2 : 38)Qi1

e e t h s way, white women were c
i o ns tr u ct ed a s being a n ess e n tial p rt a o f the. ·. ,­

id ological jus ification for th

e t e colonial e nt rprise e and they played a key role n t
i he m int a ena nc e of colonial ru l e . �

Another theorist who h s been i a n terested in the way th t political struggle a s ten d to ,be acted out on the .site of he t r:
ide o l o gic l r p esentatio
a e r n of w o men at a symbolic l vel is Lyn In e n es. She h a s e x p lor ed the f ct that th_1s proc�s�
a o f

symoohc reptescntacion occurs n o t si mp y within white c o l o

l n i a l texts, bu t a ls o in an t ic o lo n a l t xts written w t h 1 1 1
i e 1

the context of independence movem nts. She shows that in a n t - c o l o n i a l strugg e , most notably e i l s i n Irel n a d and

Africa. the qu st for e a post-colonial nat onal identity is achiev d throug i e h t he figu ri n g o f th e nat on as a Mo
i the r.

But the characteristics of t is h ' female' nat onal figure vary greatly from i c o t x n e t to c o tex : som
n t et im s th
e e f male
e

who embod es the post-colonial nati

i o n is repres n ed as a nurturing and of e t te n s uf e f ri ng o t e , try ng to
h r i ca r e f r and
o

protect her children, s o met mes as a strong and indepe

i n dent woman who, in som e s en e, s r en u o nc es h e r femi i n n ity

for the political struggle; and so me imes a t s a prostitute, since 't h e c ha g n e u n d e r i m p e r i a l i s m from a tradi io t na l

feudal or commu al cultur n e to a cap it al st, wage- abour economy i

i l s b st e i maged [by c ert a in w riters ] in t h e

cornmodification o f male-f ma e se ual r e l x el a i ns (I

t o ' nn e s 1994: 1 1 ).

As well as th e figure of he wh e w t it o ma n havi n g im p or ta nt symb o l c fu cti ns

i n o within t he m a n enance
i t o f col o nia l

ru e, l it is cl ear th at t h e d o me st i c s p her e, th a t pr vai te z o ne m os t associated wjth fe m a e l l ab o ur and m st o

drn act yised as a femmm

r e e wuc, wa_s a l s o a yjta) suppor t for m a int a inin g c ol onial d o m na i tio n. A nn e M(Clintock

h as a gued r th a t t e pr
h od uc tio n of d mes
o tic ity wit h n i the V icto r an pe
i rio d w a s n o t some thi ng which si mp y occurred
l

a t the· s ame t ime as h gh i i mp eri a lis m, but r a th e r i set rved an in eg al part n

t r i i t s producti o n. She
 .
Pauc
�·
103

a res ttul the obsessive clean l i n c s s of the Victorians, which centred on the management of women's Jabour w i t h i n

ic housdtold, produced a p a r t i c u l a r type of domesticity w h i c h was very labour-intensive. W i t h i n theVictorian

cried, the number of household tasks increased because o f t h i s concern with cleanliness, and within the colonial

phcrc, tht role of the British female was as a manager of numerous servants employed to maintain the colonial

ousehold as an epitome o f t h i s type o f 'civilised' d o m e s t i c management. McCJintock is thus able to tie in gender

ideologies and owcr hierarchies with those of im e r i a l i s m . She states that imperialism was 'a violent encoulitc�

wit 1 prc-aisting hierarchies of power that took shape not as 'an unfolding of its own inner destiny but as an

untid , opportunistic interfere nee with other re ·, wer' (McClintock 1 9 9 5 : 6). The operation of patriarchy

within omc context was one of those preexisting hierarchies of power. What she terms the 'cUIJ...ftt----

omcsticil , . �as a central feature of the assertion of colonial rule over other countries and in fac ritish co Joni

1 · mana em t became a central pait of the 'education' o ' · ' ubjects w· · ission s s e : t ie

mission s1ation became a threshold ms I t1on or transfom1in domestici rooted · Euro ean lass and ender

roles into domesticity as control mg a colonize pcop c' (McClintock 1 9 9 5 : 35 . The way homes were managed

� \Vllfim the colomaf context by British women was taken to be an cxe ar or the 'na 1 ', and there were

mmc�ous co1:du�t books �nd houscho.ld 1_n�nage�1 nt manuals to help. ac ieve is exemplary st�t�s. Th�se !exts
7
were influential m surveymg and constranung British females almost as much as they were m grvmg guidelines on

how servants should be controlled (see Mills 1 9 9 6 ) . The texts themselves openly draw attention to the fact that if

1 the colonial household i s managed.well, and presents itself as clean and well-organised, so will the rest of the

cmp1rc. illus, women's domestic labour (both that of the British woman and the female and male servants she

controlled) was an integral part of the underpinning of imperial ru l e . · .

·

Rajcswari Sunder Rajan has contributed to this debate on the role of the representation of women within the

colonial context in her focus on the image of Indian women, within both the colonial and the post-colonial context.

In t h e same way as many o f the critics in Sangari and Vaid's ( 1 9 9 6 ) collection of essays, Re-casting Women:

Essays in Colonial History; Rajan stresses that the parameters of post-colonial female subjcctivi arc mapped out

both by colonial and anticolonial forces, and that the boun anes an content o ermrumty, at a symbolic level, arc

often where issues relating to national identity are worked out. Thus, when there are discussions on how Indian

women are treated, this is often a question of national importance, concerning the way that present-day cultures

relate to tradition and to W cstcm influence. However, rather than seeing this as a restrictive process, as many

critics have, describing the state of agentlessness which indi enous females are attributed, Rajan sees that it is

. ---
possible to 'explore . . . the historica y v1ct1mized . . . female subject as the si t e
.
for the c o n s t i tu t i o n
 l \ i s.: · . ": : ' · · �

· , bi tivitics' (Rajan 1993: 1 1 ) . Rather than t a k i n g on board uncriticall� �he

.

colonial rcpresentatlmi, ·
"
f l
1
o a tcr�ll�e su Jee . J. . . k 'di I the traditional construction of the
of Indian fe m a l e s as passive v,cnms lack mg m agency, she see s to 1sp ace . . . . .

"sati" (the widow who dies upon her husband's funeral pyre) i n terms of one who chooses to �tc/ts. fot c�d to die,

first on to the questions of the embodied subject (the subject of pain) and then �n!o (precolonial) l i t e r a ry and .: . .

historical representations of the w i d o w who chooses to live' (Rajan I 993: 1 1 ) . l �ts does not t��a_n_ that s h e � 1 0 11 11 1.: s
1
the b u rn i n g of w i d o w s , b u t that she explores from a variety o f different perspcct�vcs th_e p o s s 1 b t l 1 � es ?f s�bJcct­
p o s i t i o n which arc mapped out for these women and with which they then negotiate. �1kc Gayatri Sp1vak_s more

recent work, Rajan is thus concerned to rethink agency p a r t i c u l a r l y as it relates to indigenous (c�ales (Sp1� ak

I 993b). Thus, w h i l s t much Western feminist theory has been concerned to be critical o f e s sentialism (tha t i s , t he i-"
n oti o n that there is an ess enc e of ' w o ma n ' w h i c h all w o men, re ga r dl e ss of na t iona l i t y and cultu�c, possess): pos t­

c o l o n i al fem ini st theory has been m o v i n g in a more pr od uc ti v e di r e c t ion. The c r iti qu e of cssentialism has in v olv e d

Wes t en, femin i s t s in the adop t ion of a po s iti o n whereby it is diffi c ult to p o si t agen c y or a vo ice from w h i c h to

SP.cak to/for o t h er wome n . I f the notio n of ' woman' is qu est i one d, the n t he fundame n tal base on which fe minism is

fo�ndcd s e em s to be uncl c rrn i ned. Post- c olonial femi nis m, b ec au s e of this concern to move away from a s i m p l i s t i c

W e st e r n i n d i v i dual i s · ·· hich does no t 'fit' m o d e ls o f i ndige n ou s fc1rialc b e haviou r , h�d lo

dcvc op new ways of de scri bi n g an d t he o rising ag enc y. Th ey arc also concerne to try o move away rom the

n o t i on, often implici�n Western feminist w r i t ings, th. at 'thi r d-w or ld ' women are a ll t h e same, tha t i s , that they s ha r e

s ome s ort of essenct\._Gayatri Spi va k has a rgu e d for t he adopt i on of a s tr ategi c essentialisrn, t ha t is , rather t ha n

as s um i ng t ha t one is a p a rt i cular type of subject and thu s a par t i cu l a r type of essence, she sugge sts t ha t there may

be certain c irc umstan c es, pa r ti c ul a r l y in resista n ce m o v e m e nts, where it i s n ec essary to adopt a part i c u l a r type of

role_ �nd h enc e subject-p�sition str�te�icall�.�espite the contrad i c t i ons inh e ren t in this pos i tion, it do c s e n t a i l a

p o s i t r o n o f agency; Spiv a k puts it: I don t '<vant a t h eo ry of essen c es ' what she wan t s rs a t h e ory of a g enc y and

strategy ( J 993b· 5).

B r i t i sh ten's I n volveme n t in Colon i a l ism

There has been a great deal of debat e withi n po s t - c o l onial fem i n ist t h e ory abou t how to i nterp r e t the a c ti ons of

B r i ti s h women wi t hin c o l on i al i s m . A s I men ti o n ed a bo v e, post-colonial t heory characte rises the c o l o n i al period as

'one where B r iti s h men were the ma i n actors a nd whe re Briti�p wome n o n ly played a s ubs i d i a 1 ro l e. In h i s t o r i c a l ,.
accounts of the empi r e, B r i t i s h wom e n were often portrayed as ca us in g the down f all o t ie e mpir e by crea ti ng ·.:

d i stance b e tw e en the c o l o ni s e rs and t he ir colo n i al s ubj e c ts . For ex a mp l e , it h as b e en a ss e rt e d t hat t he mcmsahibs V .•

/7
 Page I 05

i n ln�fl, _bccaus: they brought t? an end easy sexual re lat.ions b:twecn Britis.h males a�1d their l��ian conc_ubin�s,

br��1ght 111 a pcnod_ �r gre,�tcr _d1stan�e betv.'.�en t h e colo1�-��I subJfi!�-�nd-t�"tCt�t�.E�rly fc1111�1.st work .m this

area set about rcwntmg this history; rt centred on recovering the istory of women within the British empire,

"'-"Portraying them in a positive l i g h t , u n i n v o l v e d with the oppression of colonialism, �nd_in many cases trying to

resist colonial rulc.fJanc Haggis hasoeen very cnticatoJ some ol this work, arguing that this focus on white

women serves both'to s i l e n c e colonised women and to represent on1scd people as ungendcr�aggis 1 9 9 0 ) .

I lowevcr, more recent work has tried to mo� away from the ten enc · itish w :ie( and h _

concentrated on trying to analyse the complexity o · t 1eir pos1tio11s, both as part of an istant · ron t�e pow�

structures o f the colonial stale ( Ware--r99"2;M I ll s 1 9 9 1 ; Chaudhuri and Strobel 1992). This has invol�

development of a more theoretically based form of interpretation which docs not focus on value and judgement.

Chaudhuri and Strobel's collection of essays, Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, in

particular, is focused on the need to examine the way in which British women in India and Africa constituted

themselves as subjects in the process of, for example, campaigning for 'e ual rights' for those women whom they

saw as oppressed because o1 practices such as clnondectomy_, �a , c ild marriage an.d the harem/polygamy. In the

process of campaignmg for women whom they considered to be more badly treated than themselves, Bnhsh

women carved out for themselves both a political voice and also a position from which the could view

themselves as relatively privilege British women were very mvo ve m campaigns for womens nghts in the

colonial context, or exam cy campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts in India, for world

temperance, against slavery, against the killing of twins, a l l of which were often explicitly focused on the

alleviation of suffering amongst 'native' women. fh1t this canipa1gmng was more a fundamental element m British ·

women achicvmg a pol meal voice for themselves. This resulted in women in other countries becoming a vehicle

whereby Western women could achieve a sub"ect osition for themselves, ofart1 at the expense of indigenous

women' su �cc -pos1 ion an sense o agenc . Gayatri Spivak as een especially critical of this rocess whereby

Western women speak for a um versa! female subject, when in fact it is the voices of the other' fem e su · cts and

the vanety and range of those voices which are �tadeq. The essays in the Chaudhuri and ro ection both

describe in some detail the range of activities in �ich British women were engaged within the colonial sphere,

challenging the notion that it was primarily a male space, and also examine the way in which British women both

resisted and were complicit with colonial ideologies and colonial rule. In this way, it is now possible to analyse

British's women's activities without feeling that it is necessary to reclaim and revalue them.