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Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity: Theology of "The Poor Woman" in Asia Author(s): Wong Wai Ching Source: Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall, 2000), pp. 5-23 Published by: FSR, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002390 . Accessed: 07/02/2011 04:35
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NEGOTIATING FOR A POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITY Theology of "thePoorWoman" inAsia

WongWai Ching "The masters tools can never dismantle themasters house."lThis famous quotation from Audre Lorde poses a serious challenge to every Christian inpostcolonial Asia: IsChristianity, as extensivelymanifested through itsmis sionary churches and its theology inAsia in especially the last two centuries, There has been a a toolof themaster forChristians of post-colonial countries?2 from the beginning. For what the strongneed for an Asian Christian agenda post-colonial church of Asia has inherited from its counterparts in the colonial West are a historyof ChristianityorganicallyassociatedwithWestern imperial West; ism;a doctrinal traditionthathas assumed the cultural superiorityof the and the subsequent alienation of itsChristians at large from their cultural tra ditions and local communities.As one of the pioneer Asian Christian leaders, M. M. Thomas, states, a crucial turnhad to be made by Asian Christians and their churches as they tookpart in theAsian nationalmovements "aspartners In in the common struggle for the secular conditions for true human living."3 of theEast Asia ChristianConference, or his address to the Inaugural Assembly EACC (now theChristian Conference of Asia [CCA],a leading regional orga nization of Asian Christians and churches), in 1958,Thomas outlined forAsian as churches the goal of "nation-building" theirprimary call tomeet the chal after the SecondWorld War.4 National reconstruction, as he outlined lenges
1 Audre Lorde, SisterOutsider:Essays and Speeches (Freedom,Calif.: Crossing Press, 1984),
112.

2 I am using Elleke Boehmer's helpful distinction of two terms: first, the hyphenated post WorldWar II,when most formercolonies gained colonial is reserved for the historical period after theirpolitical independence;second, thenonhyphenatedpostcolonial isused todenote thedynamic textual and political practices that critically examine the colonial relationship,practices through which colonized peoples seek to assert themselves as subjectsof history.Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcoonial Literature (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995), 3. 3 M. Thomas, "The M. Challenge to theChurches in theNew Nations of Africa and Asia," in
Towards A Collection of Adresses a Theology of Contemporary menism 1947-1975 (Madras, India: Christian Literature Society, 1978), 79. ings, 4M. M. Thomas, of Nationalism "Towards a Christian Interpretation to Ecumenical in Asia," Gather

in ibid., 40-43.

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and theologized inhis address, iswhat the churchesof a post-colonialAsiamust participate in and contribute to.For him aswell as formany otherAsian Chris tian leadersof the twentieth century, thiswas the onlyway for the churches of Asia to shed the tinge ofWestern imperialismand to allowChristians inAsia to be fullparticipants in their societies. has It is thereforeno coincidence that indigenization been themost promi nent movement amongAsian theologians since the SecondWorld War. Since the formativeyears of EACC/CCA, the concern for national construction has been expressed in the strong call to indigenizeAsian churches and through Christians' fullparticipation in their respectivenationalpolitical developments. With the successof themovements of national independence indifferent coun movement of Asia has World War, the theological tries inAsia since the Second moved on to take theAsian context, especially the context of sociopolitical and economic reconstruction in the post-colonial period, as itsprimary concern.5 Togetherwith nationalist intellectuals, theologiansof Asia have placed national reconstructionat the forefrontof their discussion and practice, and it defines the overall shape and themain genre of the theologyof Asia today. Because of this "wider"sociopolitical concern of national liberationor re construction, the question of women inAsian churches and societies has never received independent attention but has been subsumed under the "wider" context.Not until the 1980swere a few related and yet relatively independent women-oriented programs and regional networks launched.However, when major Asian Christian leadersopt for national discourse as away to overcome the alienation of Christians from their native communities, such a discourse also shapes fundamentallyhow Christian women reflect on their history and identity inAsia. In this article I shall argue that the general struggle of Asian Christians to constructan indigenousidentity,independentofWestern churches and the gradualdevelopment of aChristian discourse, has deeply affected the theologicalmovement of women inAsia. A unique example is theway Asian women have been constructed in the catchword "thepoorwoman." Certainly, the majority of women inmany countries of Asia, as in other ThirdWorld countries, are still struggling to survive severe poverty. Indeed, many women of color and recent immigrants in countries of the FirstWorld make the same argument in regard to themselves.For instance,many African American women would argue thatAfrican American communities often con
5Robert Schreiter, in N.Y.:Orbis, 1985), 5-6, at Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, tempts togive a clear delineation of the terms indigenousand contextualtheologyaccording to their initialusage.However, he admits that the difference between the termsdid not remaindistinct. In general, it isnow accepted that indigenizationrefers to earlier attemptsof theologians,especially in China and India, where ancient cultural traditions posed amajor challenge to their rethinkingtheol with whereas contextualizationisa broader term referringtopostwar efforts to engage theology ogy; the sociopoliticaland economic realitiesof the countries or situationsconcerned.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

stitute the "Third World"within theUnited States.However,with due concern for the plight of women in poverty and politically marginalized situations everywhere,my primary effort in this article is to analyze the use of "thepoor woman" as a discourse inAsian theology in general and Asian feminist the My contention is that the discourse of "thepoorwoman," al ology inparticular. it reflectsa genuine attentionpaid towomen in the lower strataof Asian though societies, dominates the literatureof Asian theology, includingAsian feminist West theology,and has become themost powerfulpostcolonial strategyto fight ern imperialism. Moreover, the use of this powerful discourse has somehow limited the furtherdevelopment of Asian theology in general andAsian femi nist theology inparticular.By pointing out the limitationsof such discourse, I hope to free up new space for a full explorationof theologies inAsia. "The Poor Woman" and Regional/Non-Western Identity

all the womanof thiscountry Taking matters intoconsideration, poor rather than ourcontempt. of should anobjectof compassion be [India] Willard6 -Capt. N. Augustus Believing that they were actually introducing civilization to barbaric lands,colonizers contributed to the "production, publication, distribution, and of informationand ideas"regarding their colonial subjects,most consumption of all "the poor women" among them. Ashis Nandy reminds us that femini zation of the colonies helped to "legitimize"colonizers' systematic aggression in respect to everydaypractice in the life of the colonies. Yet nationalists also used themetonym of "thepoorwoman" as they started to fight the colonialist discourse of dominance over the definition and codificationof theirworld.7 To fight the feminized discourse of the colonizers, Kadiatu Kanneh, an African critic, argues that Frantz Fanon poses his discourse of rape, "elabo rated through images of rending veils and of exposing bodies and forbidden horizons 'pieceby piece."' In her view, Fanon's call for an "Algeriaunveiled" shows precisely how the relationshipbetween Algerian women and the colo nized Algeria itself isplaced in a "metonymic process" inwhich woman and veil
6 Willard in an appeal to his fellowEnglish citizens to consider sympatheti Capt. N. Augustus cally the plight of Indianwomen, who were "perfectly ignorant of all knowledge."Quoted in SumantaBaneree, "Marginalization Women's PopularCulture inNineteenth Century Bengal," of inRecastingWomen: Essays in Indian Colonial History, ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (NewBrunswick:Rutgers University Press, 1989), 127. 7Ashis Nandy, The IntimateEnemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi, India:Oxford University Press, 1983), 4-9. Nandy, drawing on psychological theories of culture, between sexual and political dominance" in Western colonialism.He con argues for a "homology tends that such a homology primarilyprovided legitimacytoEuropean domination and exploitation in thepostmedieval period as "natural valid." and

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become identical. In such an interchange,both woman and veil become sig When nifiers of the colonized as "oppressed, inscrutable, and dispossessed." Fanon characterizes the French resolve in thephrase "We must firstof all con quer thewomen; we must go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves and in the houses where themen keep them out of sight,"he calls for a resistance to colonial violence through "unveiling."In short, a battle is staged over the blackThirdWorld woman's body as damaged and oppressed.8 This battle is a classic example of how anticolonialists have used the colonial ists'own strategyof feminization to fightback. Due to the pervasive general destruction that theChristianmissions of the colonial period have caused the cultures and societies of Asia, Asian Christian leaders, includingsomewomen leaders,have seriously takenup the nationalist challenge to be fullparticipants in their respective societies in order to build a new Christian identity.In accordance with this importanttask, theydirect their attention towarda vigorous restorationof Asian indigenous cultures and tra most seriously the changing economic and sociopoliti ditionswhile regarding cal context of post-colonialAsia. In the course of these efforts to reclaim their Christian identity as positively and indigenouslyAsian, they not only have joined in the general nationalist strategy to demarcate Asia from the colonial West but also have adopted the nationalists' ideologicalconstructionof women as their strategyof resistance to the continuous political, economic, and cul turaldomination of the West. Kumari Jayawardena,inher studyFeminism andNationalism in theThird World, finds important relationships between nationalist movements and women. Nationalism, as a formof resistance to Western influence,asserted na tional identitieson the basis of nationalists'own past histories.Most important, when the nationalistsof various formerlycolonized countrieswent back to their cultural or religious roots and reinterpreted them to foster a national identity thatwould serve as the basis for national aspirations, theymade women the embodiment of this national identity.They claimed that "thewomen of 'the East'were more spiritual,"that theyhad inherited the nationalwisdom of cen turies, and that although they had fought the political battles asmen did, they were primarily "the custodians and transmitters" their respective national of cultures.9 According to Partha Chatterjee, the identical relation often drawn be tweenwomen, tradition,and nation served the newly (or recovered) indepen dent countries of Asia as a strategy to achieve a new national identitybymeans of a "material/spiritual distinction." In the battle to overcome thematerial as
8Kadiatu Kanneh, "Feminism and the Colonial Body," in The Post-colonial Studies Reader, ed.

BillAshcroft,Gareth Griffiths, andHelen Tiffin (London: Routledge, 1995), 346-48. 9Kumari Feminism and Nationalism in theThirdWorld (London:Zed, 1986), Jayawardena, 257.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

well as ideologicaldomination of the West, colonized peoples resolved to catch with themodem material, technical advancement ofWestern civilization up while maintaining and shoringup the "distinctivespiritualessence" of their re spective national cultures. On the one hand, the nationalists argued that although thematerial domain exercised influence and force on the colonized andmade them adjust to it, it remained "outside"the colonized andwas there which was the "true self," lay in fore ultimately "unimportant." The spiritual, side themselves and hence was "genuinelyessential." It followed that as long as a colonized country tookcare to retain the inner,"spiritual distinctiveness of its culture," it could then both find itsplace in themodern material world and maintain its truenational identity.10 For nationalists, the embodiment of this true, inner identity of their culture, tradition,and nationwas naturally thewoman.Whereas theworld, the treacherous terrainof the pursuit of material interests,was typically the do main of the man, the home in its essence must remain unaffected by the profane activitiesof thematerialworld-and woman was its representation.In such a national deliberation on the "new woman," evenwhen men had to sur render to the pressures of the material world in innumerable Western, ways, women were to assert national, spiritualpurity.1The objective of such a strat West and yet egy, according toChatterjee, was to seek a total rejectionof the to make modernity consistent with the nationalist project. Conse attempt essential, spiritual identityof theEast," embodied in quently, itwas this "inner, awoman, that the nationalists had tomaintain and control and that had the finalpower of definition. The net effect of all these tendencies was to keep women within the boundaries prescribed by themale reformersand leaders.l2 As a result, Indian nationalists of the nineteenth century fashioned an imageof idealwomanhood into reality. Initially reacting to attacksby colonial writers, nationalistwritings ensured that Indianwomen who played a role in the regenerationof the nationwere built up as almost superwomen:a combi nation of spirituality,suffering, faithfulness,and heroic deeds. In the course of nationalmobilization, progressives and conservatives alike "invented"an In dianHindu traditionthatplaced the nation's identity in the culture, specifically in a nationalwoman.l3 A parallel example can be found inTani Barlow'sstudyof socialistChina in the laterhalf of the twentieth century.Barlow demonstrates how theChinese socialists constructed a "nationalfemale subject"in theiruse of te termfunu,
10 Partha 11 12 The Nation and Its Fragents: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories

Chatterjee,

PrincetonUniversityPress, 1993), 120. (Princeton:

Ibid., 130. Ibid., 120-21. 13 Uma Chakravarti, "Whatever Happened Script for the Past," in Sangari and Vaid, 78-79.

to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism,

Nationalism,

and a

10

Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

According to Barlow,funu constituted some of the meaning literally"woman." most powerful propaganda during the years of guerrillawar in the formation period of theChinese Communist Party (CCP).Since that timefunu has been set up against "imperialism," West," "bourgeoisfeminism,"and "landlord "the It has repeatedly constituted one of the state'sprimary political oppression." concerns and has contributed to the legitimizationof the CCP'smandate to dictate on behalf of the proletariat. In the course of theCCP's offer to become the salvationof the nation, the party also claimed its authority in the libera tionof China'swomen. Consequently,funu has come tomean nationalwoman or,more precisely, a nationalmonopoly of themeaning of woman. Invoking aMaoist-Communist state inscription,Barlow summarizes: "Funuoppose[s] while supporting the feudalism, imperialism, individualism,and bureacratism, of ChairmanMao; share[s]many interests with the oppressed prole thought tariat;contributes] to the nation's overallwell being ...; and enthusiastically accept[s] that 'inour country the interestsof the individualand the interestsof
the state are one.'"14

With some variations, the veneration of a "new"nationalwoman is also found inAsian theology, includingwomen's own theology.Although women as represented inAsian Christian literatureare not necessarily heroines of the nationalwars of independence in their respective countries, they are surelyna tionalheroineswho sufferand fight for the cause of theirnations. In this sense, the "new"or national woman constructed frequently as "the poor woman" inAsian theology usually embodies spiritualqualities of "theEast." These are great values such as courage,bravery,benevolence, devotion, religiosity,heroic deeds, faithfulness, and,most important,perseverance in suffering and self sacrifice in the event of crisis on either the internalor the national front.Thus, "thepoorwoman" not only is the poorest among the poor inAsia but, with all her courage and perseverance, also emerges as the heroine who endures the greatest possible suffering inflictedupon any human being and rises tobecome themost persistent fighteragainst forcesof exploitation inside and outside her country. In a passagewhere C. S. Song, a native Taiwanese Christian leader,de scribes the culture of Asia as a culture of sufferingwithin a culture of domi nation, he invokes a story of a poor Chinese woman. It is a story about the Chinese familyof suffering of a daughter-in-law,Li Ts'ui-lien, in a traditional China. In the story,Li refuses to submit to the unrea late-thirteenth-century sonable demands and complaints of her in-lawsand is therefore rejected by them aswell as by her own parents. The story endswith Ts'ui-lien's resolve to

14 Tani E. Barlow, "Politicsand Protocols of Funu: (Un)Making NationalWoman," inEngen

dering China: Wo aen, Culture, and the State, ed. Christina K. Gilmartin et al. (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1994), 345.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

11

heroine: "Is there not plenty of be a nun.Here Song commends his "liberated" We do not have to turn to the feminist theology in thisChinese folk drama? West for it.Here inAsia feminist theologyhas deep roots in the culture of suf We fering. must explore that culture in livesnarrated in stories,dramas, songs and poems.We thenwill discover that feminine theologyhas been a living the ology inAsia for thousandsof years."15 What is important for Song, as in his other stories about poor women in Asia, is to tell storiesof Asian resistance to the domination ofWestern mission Women such as Li Ts'ui-lien are both representationsof Asians in ary theology. termsof their severe sufferingunder inhumansystemsof oppression, and hero ineswho fought courageously to "liberate"themselves andwho challenged the hierarchical structures of Asian societies. Hence they stand for a living tra dition of feminist theology inAsia, somuch so thatmen andwomen inAsia do not need to look for a feminist theology in the West. Moving stories of such poor yet heroic women recur again and again in many Asian women's writings. For instance,Oo Chung Lee outlines the two images inher book In Searchfor Our Foremothers'Spirituality. In the chapter titled "Asian Women's Reality: Poverty andOppression," she beginswith an af firmationof Jesus'ministry, inwhich "he showed great concern for the poor and oppressed, particularly for poor women. For this reason, . . .Christian women who claim tobe His disciplesmust also have concern, inHis name, for poorwomen."'6Lee goes on topresent the predicament of poorwomen inAsia under the categories of rural-to-urban workers,women in the migrants, factory women in prostitution and sex tourism,housemaids, and rural women. slums, Running through all these categories of women are their agonizingplights of discrimination and exploitation due to the double jeopardyof economic pov What she has presented in the chapter is, she erty and patriarchaloppression. concludes, only the "tip of the iceberg in describing the suffering of poor
women in Asia."17

Although her subsequent chapter "Women of Asia: Leaders of Social Change" does not leave completely the theme of women's oppression and ex ploitation by male dominance in economic and political structures, Lee recounts therehowwomen have contributed as social leaders in their societies. She reports that inAsia, althoughwomen possess only 1 percent of thewealth in theworld, they do 66 percent of thework that is "needed for human sur vival."The general statusof women remains low in their societies, yet women

15 S. C. Song, Theologyfrom the Womb of Asia (Maryknoll, N.Y.:Orbis, 1986), 74 (emphasis added). 16 Oo Chung Lee, In Searchfor Our Foremothers' Spirituality (Seoul, South Korea: Asian Women's Resource Centre forCulture andTheology, 1994),32.
17 Ibid., 41.

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countries.'8

ofFeminist in Studies Journal Religion

have made immense sacrifices for their brothers, their families, and their One group of theologicalwomen finds a self-sacrificingnational heroine inChoWha Soon. a radicalKorean activist and pastorwho had been impris oned and tortured because of her open disapproval of government policy.19 Cho is recognizedby thesewomen theologiansof Korea forher selfless love for the neighborswho have gone toher:wounded soldiersduring theKoreanWar,
women workers in the factory, her own church congregation, and any others

who have crossed the path of her life. She has risked her own security and reputation for the sake of justice. Cho's pioneering ministry, comments the group, reaches out and touches hundreds of thousandsof hearts, "creatingan One impressionrecalled epochal tide towarda new heaven and a new earth."20 Ahn Sang Nim, the chairof the group and formerGeneral Secretary of the by Korean Association of TheologicalWomen, ishow Cho served as a nurse'saide towounded soldiers when shewas just sixteen:
While the nurse Cho was taking care of the wounded soldiers in the cold of winter, she noticed that none of them had warm socks. Her compassionate heart drove her to find a solution to this need of these helpless people. She found worn out and dirty army blankets in the store room. Not finding any washing facilities in the temporary hospital

shewent to the creek with theblanketsafterher dutiesat night.She and with her freezing brokethe iceof the stream washed them hands. When theydried she startedto sew socksforeach inmate byherself all
during the night.21

Ahn comparesCho's "unusual" service to the people as a "God-inspiredact of concern."Cho, in the theologians' estimation, has been an agent of motherly themission of God. She ventured deep into the people's struggle against ex ploitation inpain and suffering, and endured imprisonmentand torture inher with the social structure. outright confrontation Swarnalatha Devi, an Indian theologian, findsher heroines indalit Chris tianwomen.23 She contends that they are the true "torch-bearers the faith" of
18Ibid.,47. 19 ChoWha Soon, Let theWeak Be Strong:A Womans See Strugglefor Justice (New York: Crossroad, 1988), chaps. 15-16. Ahn SangNim et al., "Korean Women's Reflection," inLet the Weak Be Strong, 153. 2o
21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 154.

23 Dalit is an Indian termmeaning "broken" "downtrodden" or and is currentlyapplied to the outcasts and untouchableswho make up almost one-fifth of the Indianpopulation- groupMo
handas Gandhi described as Harijan, or "children of God." For a sociohistorical backound of the

dalits, see JamesMassey, Roots:A Concise History of Dalits (Delhi, India:Published forCISRS, Bangalore, by ISPCK, 1991).For more elaborate discussion on the formulationof a alit theology, seeM. E. Prabhakar, Towards a Dalit Theology (Delhi, India:SPCK, 1989); andXavier Iruda ed., TamilnaduTheological Seminary,1990). yaraj,ed., Emerng Dalit Theology (Madurai,India:

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

13

as they takeup the hardships of theirday-to-day life and the burdens of their families and communities. She recallshow in one instance in 1985, Christian dalit women, themothers, wives, and sisters of nine Christian dalit men who were murdered by their landlords, fought courageously to lead a movement As against the landlords. theywere interviewedby a communityorganizer, they
spoke in one courageous voice: How can we go back toKaramchedu and face the ryots who, regardless of our own employers, fell upon us, like beasts, molested and humili ated us. We will not go back to our homes stained by our blood and

We teardrops. havebeen buried alive,andwe will continueto shout

from our living tombs.We will go everywhere, and speak to anyone and

do everything helpourdalits. havenothing more to fear.24 to We

Similar stories of devastated poor Asian women and similar antithetical themes of women's suffering and courage can be found everywhere and in almost every feministpiece of theological writing inAsia.2 Stories of poor rural women laborers, women, poor industrial women, and migrantworkers, comfort on almost every page of InGod's Image, awidely circulated prostitutes appear popular theologicalperiodical published byAsian Christianwomen.26Similarly, there have been storiesof numerous heroines and leaders in history, including the enshrined Filipino Princess Urduja and Gabriela Silang; and the Indians Mira Bai and Panditta Rama Bai. The retelling of these stories of suffering women and heroines bywomen theologians inAsia,write Mary John Manan zan and Sun Ai Park, represents those theologians' efforts to rediscover their women leaders,heroines, and saintsof theirpar history and resurrect "their ticulartradition[s]as sourcesof cooperationand strength"forwomen's struggle
in general.27
24 Swarnalatha Devi, "The Struggle of Dalit Christian Women in India," in Feminist

Theology

World: A Reader, ed. Ursula King (Maryknoll, N.Y.:Orbis, 1994), 136-37. from theThird 25 Asian feminist theologicalpieces are found in the following anthologies: Major VirginiaFa
bella and Mercy Amba Oduyoye, eds., With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing

N.Y.:Orbis, 1988);Virginia Fabella and Sun Ai Lee Park, eds.,We Dare to Theology (Maryknoll, Dream: Doing Theology asAsianWomen (Kowloon, Women's Resource Centre Hong Kong:Asian forCulture andTheology;Manila, Philippines:EATWOT Women's Commission inAsia, 1989);and King.The most importantjournalsfor thepublication of Asianwomen's theologyare theAsian Jour nal of Theology,Voicesfrom theThird World, and InGods Image.
26 In God's Image was first started by Sun Ai Lee Park in 1975. Articles on women in poor situ

ationshave been featured inevery issue since then.Recent comprehensive articles reflectingon the situationof women inAsia include Mananzan, "FeministTheology inAsia:A Ten Year's Mary John for Overview,"vol. 4, no. 3 (1995):38-48;YongTing Jin, "Visioning AWRC inContext and Perspec tive,"vol. 15, no. 3 (1996):4-5; andAnnWansbrough, "Behold IMake All Things New: Trends in Asian Women's Theology,"vol. 15,no. 3 (1996):6-9.
27 Mary John Mananzan and Sun Ai Lee Park, "Emerging Spirituality of Asian Women,"

inFabella andOduyoye, 86.Mananzan, a Filipino Catholic sister, is the coordinatorof the Women's and chairper Commission of theEcumenical Association of ThirdWorld Theologians (EATWOT) sonof theFilipino nationalwomen'smovement Gabriela. She has been a contributorto anthologies

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Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

Based mostly on her readingof InGod's Image and other Asian women's theologicalwritings, Chung Hyun Kyung summarizes that the social context of Asian women's theology is a predicament of tears and sighs and that "Asian wom women's theologyhas emerged... from the extreme suffering in [Asian en's] everyday lives. They have shouted from pain when their own and their children'sbodies collapsed from starvation, rape, and battering. Theological She reflection has emerged as a response towomen's suffering."28 continues Asian women's theology in the general context of the ThirdWorld, by placing contending that "poverty and oppression . . . are everyday reality formost under the body-killing Asian women":29"Asian women have become 'no-body' structuresof... foreigndomination, state repression, militarism, racial strife, The and capitalism."30 miserable situationof Asian women isde industrialism, Women's Com nounced repeatedly in regional statements such as that of the World Theologians (EATWOT) mission of theEcumenical Association of Third at a 1985Asianwomen's conference inManila:
In all spheres of Asian society, women are dominated, dehumanized and dewomanized; they are discriminated against, exploited, harassed, sexually used, abused, and viewed as inferior beings who must always

In male supremacy. thehome, subordinate to themselves the so-called with bias and women havebeen treated church,law, education, media, In of the sub andcondescension. Asia andallover the world, the myth servient,servileAsianwoman is blatantlypeddled to reinforcethe dominant male stereotype image.31 Nevertheless, although thesewomen are the poorest among the poor, they of are at the same time courageous.Despite various -forms oppression, they to live on for the sake of their children.Chung argues that "when ... struggle wills to continue their lives,most Third many poormen have already lost their World women do not even have the luxuryto give up their lives.... They create food for life out of nothing.... They choose life under theworst lifeless condi tions in order to give life to their children."32
of Asian feminist theology and is the editor ofWomen and Religion:A Collection (Manila,Philip pines: InstituteofWomen's Studies, St. ScholasticasCollege, 1988).Park is the founder and former coordinatorof theAsianWomen's Resource Centre forCulture andTheology. She has published numerous articles in theAsian Journalof Theology and is the editor of thepioneering periodical on
Asian women

28 AsianWomen's Theology Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the SunAgain: Introducing N.Y.:Orbis, 1990), 22. (Maryknoll, 29Ibid.,23.
30 Ibid., 39.

and religion,

In God's

Image.

31"FinalStatement:Asian Church Women Speak (Manila, Philippines,Nov. 21-30, 1985),"in

Fabella and Park, 148. 32 Chung, 23.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

15

women and the identityof A similar methodological tie between suffering Asians is found in thework of Kwok Pui-lan, aHong Kong native now residing in theUnited States.Kwok also identifies with thematerially and physicallyde women of Asia, insisting that feministChristian theology inAsia cannot prived be anything but "a story of suffering":"I only know feminist theology inAsia will be a cry, a plea and invocation. It emerges from thewounds thathurt, the scars thathardly disappear, the stories thathave no ending. Feminist theology inAsia is ... scribed on the hearts of many that feel the pain, and yet dare to hope."33 That is to say, the themes of women's suffering and their courage to fight it primarily define Kwok's delineation of a theology of women inAsia today. Despite Kwok's fairlyrecent admittanceof the fluidityof Asian identity, an emphatic identificationof Asian women as the poor and the oppressed is found throughouther biblical and theologicalwritings to date.3 In fact, according to R. Radhakrishnan, such antithetical images in an ex woman as firstand foremost themost afflictedvictim and then the fan emplary tastic female have been latent forces innational ideology since the beginning. Echoing Chatterjee, he contends that such self-contradictory representation in awoman is used to articulate a split in national ideology over the intense conflict between modernity and tradition-between the conscience of a na tion's material backwardnessand a nation's self-pride.5 This ideological split, reflected in the contradictorycategorizationof awoman as both a national vic tim and a national heroine, also shapes the representation of women as re flected inAsian theology today.As a consequence, the question of women in Asian theology todaybecomes a question more of Asian postcolonial identity thanof the interestsof women themselves. Although there isno apparent signof a drive formasculine control inpres ent Christian writings of Asia, this feminized strategy is evident inAsian the ology.That is, the triplyor quadruply trampledpoorwomen of Asia are being used as ametonym of human suffering inAsia and hence as amotif forChris tianpolitical action. Such ametonymic woman assumes in herself all the expe riencesof humiliation,violence, oppression, exploitation,grief, pain, and anger of the suffering mass of Asian societies, aswell as the courage and hope to fight
33Kwok Pui-lan, "God Weeps with Our Pain," East Asian 2, no. 2 (1984):

Journal

of Theology

228. 34In N.Y.:Orbis, chapter2 of her Discovering theBible in theNon-biblicalWorld (Maryknoll, 1995),Kwok Pui-lan reflectson the fluidityof Asian identityand admits thatAsia is,forher, primarily a political positioning. Precisely because of thispolitical decision, her references toAsia andAsian women inother chaptersare alwaysto the suffering,poor, and oppressed.Further,despite her taking note of the superficialityof a delineation between the East and West at one point (p.3), her Asian interpretationis largelyconstructed on the side of the sufferingand the oppressed inopposition or
resistance to an "imperial West." Explicit 35 R. "Nationalism, Radhakrishnan, examples Gender, are found in chaps. 6 and 7. and the Narrative of Identity," in Nationalisms

and Sexualities,ed.Andrew Parker et al. (NewYork: Routledge, 1992), 85.

16

Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

back with her tears, cries, shouts, and self-sacrifice for the people of Asia. Whether or not Asian Christian leaders are conscious of their usage of this image, the poorAsianwoman has become a constitutivepart of anAsian iden tity that privileges suffering as a strategy against the continued material and West in the societies of Asia today. cultural colonial encroachmentsof the
"The Poor Woman" for Asian Women's Self-Identity

Given the context of the colonial history of Christianity inAsia, theology Western of and/or aboutwomen inpostcolonialAsia also locates itself against powers36Like Asian theology in general, it is placed within the broad frame work of a reconstituted identityof Asia. This means thatAsian feministChris tians identify themselves strongly as Asians, distinct from Western aswell as other ThirdWorld feminists. Except for its distinct emphasis on the predica ment and the "special strength"of women, Asian feminist theology,as formu lated so far, shareswith Asian theology in general the threemajor postcolonial areas of focus: the recoveryof Asian identities; the commitment to the socio of political and economic transformations their societies; and the prioritization of practice overWestern/academic theory.According to the characterization of Mary JohnMananzan, a Catholic sister of the Philippines, Asian feminist merely adds to the generally oriental (identity), liberational (transfor theology Asian theologicalwritings a fourth element, that mation), and integral (praxis)
is, feminism.37

Apparently, conflict exists between the two identities of Asian women. Inher call for amethodological frameworkfordoingwomen's theology inAsia, Virginia Fabella, anotherCatholic sister of the Philippines, highlights the im portance of Asianwomen's "twodisparatebut interactingcontexts: theirAsian ness and their womanness."38 Being well aware of the subordinationof women within Asian societies, she begins by challenging as insufficientthe assertionof onlyAsianness forwomen doing theology inAsia and argues thatwomanness is themore pressing reality to consider. Fabella explains thatwhat shemeans mere conglomerateof biological or psychological fac by "womanness"isnot "a tors but an awareness of what itmeans to be awoman in the Asian context today.... Suffering,multiple oppression, growing awareness, struggle for full Fabella also cites humanity-this is all part of being awoman inAsia today."39 the EATWOT statement regarding the realitiesof Asianwomen that isquoted
36I once heard a prominentAsian feminist theologian comment that countries such as South Korea, Japan,Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore should not be included in "Asia" anymore, be cause theyare rich and far too Westernized/modernized. 37 Mary JohnMananzan, "Redefining Religious Commitment in the Philippine Context," in
Fabella and Park, 111.

38 Virginia Fabella, "ACommon Methodology forDiverse Christologies?" in Fabella and

(cited Oduyoye 39 Ibid. in n. 25), 115.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

17

earlier. In the end, she argues,with regard to the disparateness and the inter activeness of the two contexts indoingwomen's Christian theology inAsia, the former isovertakenby the latter. The importance of grounding any Christian reflection of Asian women in the history and society of Asia is further elaborated by Chung Hyun Kyung and Kwok Pui-lan. Throughout herwork Struggle toBe the SunAgain, Chung vigorously denounces Western colonialism and neocolonialism, contending that they only "createdan added burden toAsian women's belief" when they In brought Christianity toAsia "with ... opium and guns."40 order to ground in theAsian soil now, she suggests a "newmethodology" that in Christianity cludes storytelling of the victimization and liberationof women from among poor farmers, factoryworkers, slum dwellers, dowry victims, and prostitutes; a biblical hermeneutic that treatsAsian women as the text and the Bible and traditionof the Christian church as the context; and,most of all, a departure "from the doctrinal purity of Christian theology and risk [of] the survival liberationcentered syncretism."41 In Kwok's essay "The Emergence of Asian Feminist Consciousness of Culture and Theology," she contends thatAsian Christianwomen need "to re claim [their] history and to underscore the emergence of critical feminist consciousness as [their] important legacy."42 she points out, "Asian As Christian women, as a tinyminority inAsian societies, have to struggle to live out both [their] identitiesasAsian and asChristian among [their]people, most of whom An do not share [their]religious faith." integralrelationof Christianity toAsian culturaland religious tradition has tobe sought inorder to resolve the constant, almost schizophrenictension inAsian Christianwomen.43Although Kwok finds that some past Christian identification with Asian traditions failed to account for the patriarchal constitution of those traditions,she calls for a "constructive and imaginative" formulationof Christian theology thatdraws upon "localand indigenous resources, folk-literature, people's history, and religious texts."44 focus on the plight of women inAsia, Asian feminist theolo Although they gians such as Chung and Kwok apparently show the same amount of enthu siasm as Asian theologians ingeneral in identifying with an Asianness distinct Western influence. from with Asian Christian leaders, they declare their Along preference for themajority yet marginalized poor and the primacy of praxis over theory. Also like theirotherAsian colleagues, they takeon thepolitical and socioeconomic changes that are required of the newly independent govern ments as the primary call forChristianwomen inAsia.
40 Chung, 55.

41Ibid., 108, 111,113. 42 Kwok Pui-lan, "TheEmergence of Asian FeministConsciousness of Culture andTheology," inFabella and Park, 95.
43 Ibid., 92. 44 Ibid., 98.

18

Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

In general, Asian feminist theologians such as Kwok have identified di versity and plurality as one of the major characteristics of Asianness, pri marily differences in class, race, language,ethnicity, religion, and cultures.For instance, themultiplicity Kwok personally tries to reconcile includesherself as anAsian (marginalizedin the West) and awoman (marginalizedinAsian patri archalcultures).Nevertheless, these differences share the single roof of a "poor and oppressed Asia."Under this roof,multiplicity has been formulated as an opposing category to the presumed homogeneous culture of "thewhites." In other words, multiplicity is found because of the vast population and territo ries included in the continent of Asia, a characteristic thatdistinguishesAsians from those in the "homogeneous" West. Responding to thisdistinct character Asian theologians in general claim thatAsians have among themselves istic, much more commonality than diversity-so much so thatmany will simply code Asians asmore collective,more relational,andmore culturally inclusive, aswell as thrivingon the richnessof multiple traditions.45 this sense even the In admittance of multiplicity inAsian identity by theologians such as Kwok has not prevented them from continuously posing a "poor, suffering Asia" up West." againstan "imperial Effects of a RegionaNationalistic Women's Identity on Feminist Theology inAsia The strongnationalist strategyof erecting the poorwoman as the heroine of Asian countries has surelycontributed to the early formulationof women's self-identityaswell as their national and regional identities in their confronta tionwith the West. However, as awoman who grew up amid amixed culture of East and West, ancient andmodern, in a citywhere people prefer the identity of a city rather than thatof a nation, I find the nationalistversus imperialistdis course increasinglydisturbing.4As thisnationalist identitygraduallybecomes the only legitimate description of women inAsia, it greatly confineswomen's self-understanding and restricts the further development of theology of and aboutwomen inAsia.
45 Two articles

in In God's

Ige

deliberate

on the issue of diversity

in Asian

identity

in the

contextof Asians andAsianAmericans living in theUnited States.These populationshave somehow demonstrated the kind of diversitymost Asian theologiansmean when they use the term. See
Rashmi aipal, "Cultural Identity and Diversity" of Community versity within Us: The Challenge vol. 14, no. 3 (1995): 53-62; and Kwok Pui-lan, "Di vol. 15, Women," among Asian and Asian-American about the ambiguity of the identity of Hong

no. 1(1996): 51-53.

46 A famous woman writer of Hong Kong writes

Kong people who have never been fully British or fully Chinese. Vis-a-vis the voice of a group of commoners inone of her novels, she says the people of Hong Kong are people without a nation Taiwan:Yuzhenwenhua, ality butwith an identityof a city. See Xi Xi,Wo Cheng (MyCity) (Taibei, 1990).

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

19

According toChandraTalpadeMohanty, an Indian feministcritic, themis takennotion of the "Third monolithic subject"in World woman" is "a singular contrast toFirstWorld feminists.47 Most important, in the discursive exchange between feminists of the East and the West, ThirdWorld women are repre sented as a uniform group of victims: they are victims of male violence, victims of the colonial process, victims of their traditional familial system, victims of the economic-development process, and victims of their religious code.48 a As an "averagethirdworld woman" is one who "leadsan essentially trun result, cated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexuallyconstrained) and her world' (read:ignorant,poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domes being 'third tic, family-oriented,victimized, etc.)."49 On a deeper level,when such a static conception of women is analyzed in the politics between First and ThirdWorld feministdiscourses,Mohanty finds itsgenesis primarily in the posited contrastwith a privileged "self-representa tion ofWestern women as educated, asmodern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the freedom tomake their own decisions."50 The implicitnorm or referent is built "on awhite, Western (readprogressive/ modern)/non-Western (readbackward/traditional) hierarchy... [that]freeze[s] third world women in time, space, and history."51 World woman' categoryhas an Mohanty argues that "'theoppressedThird additionalattribute-'the third world difference!"'Placingwomen in the struc tures of the "underdeveloped"or "developing"Third World, ThirdWorld women takenas a group "areautomaticallyand necessarily defined as religious (read 'notprogressive'), family-oriented (read 'traditional'),legalminors (read illiterate (read 'ignorant'), domes 'they-are-still-not-conscious-of-their-rights'),
47 Western Eyes: FeministWomen and the Politics of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Feminism," inThirdWorld Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra TalpadeMohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 1991), 51. AlthoughMo World women" primarily in hanty advances inher essay a critique of such a production of "Third Western feminist discourse, she is aware of the relevance of the same critique "to third regard to world scholars writing about theirown cultures,which employ identicalanalytic strategies"(p.52).
48 Ibid., 57. In a similar way yet using different categories, Floya Anthia and Nira Yuval-Davis in Third World find that women countries are "signified" in five major ways in the discourse of the

state and ethnic nation: "(a)as biological reproducers members of ethnic collectives; (b) as repro of ducers of theboundaries of ethnic and national groups; (c) as centralparticipants in the ideological of reproductionof the collectivity and as transmitters its culture; (d) as signifiersof ethnic and na tional differences-as a focus and symbol in ideological discourses used in the construction, of reproduction,and transformation ethnic and national categories; (e) as participants in national, Woman economic, political, andmilitary struggles."See Anthia and Yuval-Davis, "Introduction,"
Nation-State, ed. Nira Yuval-Davis (NewYork: St. Martin's, 1989), 7.

49 Western Eyes," 56. Mohanty, "Under 50Ibid. 51 WorldWomen ChandraTalpadeMohanty, "Introduction: Cartographiesof Struggle:Third and thePolitics of Feminism," in Mohanty, Russo, andTorres, 6.

20

Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

and sometimes revolutionary (read 'their-country-is-in tic (read 'backward'), a-state-of-war; they-must-fight!')." Mohanty protests that not only does this "'third world difference' [include]a paternalistic attitude toward women in the thirdworld," it also "ultimately robs them of their historical and political Western formof) liberation.52 agency"and legitimizes theirneed for (a The same "Third World difference" applies to heroic women in the ThirdWorld. Julie Stephens, another Indian feminist critic, argues thatheroic women in the feminist discourse on ThirdWorld women are also a production of a ThirdWorld subjecthood according to the norm of awhite, Western, and thusprogressive andmodern woman. In short, awoman's subjecthood isquali fiedonly by her having a particulardrive for liberation. Thus, theThird World woman subject isonewho possesses full autonomyor sovereigntyin actively re West. If one follows these con sisting oppressive forces, one who rejects the ditions accordingly,one finds that themost "qualified" women-subjects are the nonelite tribal West (hence au women who "signifya complete absence of the and embody activity (hence liberational)" when they are "consistently tonomy) described as 'vigorous,''toiling,' laboring,' 'struggling,' 'fighting."s4 or InMohantys words, rather than setting ThirdWorld women apart from the feministdiscourse of the West, these analyses "perpetrateand sustain the of the ideaof the superiorityof the West," producing "acorrespond hegemony world woman."' By so doing, these ing set of universal images of the 'third have allowed the Western discourse to exercise "avery specificpower analyses indefining, coding, andmaintaining existingfirst/third world connections.55 In sum, beginning as a postcolonial strategyof fighting the politics and West, the coding and distributionof "thepoorwoman" ideologyof the colonial and itsparallel, "theheroine," in the national discourse freezewomen as a sign representingculturalessentials and culturaldifference forboth nationalistsand feminists in Asia.Where a nationalist or regional framework thematizes its priorities in the selective appropriationof theWest and the safeguardingof the essential identityof a nation or region, thewoman question falls out of its ideologically biased interests and suffers from the latter's"ethicopolitical"le gitimacy to priority,or sometimes, "totality."5 The effects of this nationalist, postcolonial strategyof "the poorwoman" on Asian theologyare apparent.Based on the antithetical themes of the suffer ing and heroic deeds of poorwomen inAsia, feminist theologians sketch their
52 Mohanty,

"Under Western

53Julie Stephens, "FeministFictions: A Critique of the Woman' in Category 'Non-Western FeministWritings on India," in Selected Subaltern Studies, ed. RanajitGuha andGayatriChakra OxfordUniversity Press, 1988), 101. vorty Spivak (NewYork:
54 5 Ibid., 105-7. "Under Western Eyes," 73. Mohanty, 56Radhakrishnan (cited in n. 35), 81.

Eyes,"

72.

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

21

different understandingsof anAsian Christian theology.For instance,because of women's painful experience fromextreme suffering, God must be a suffering in the person of Jesus, God incarnate
who cried out on the Cross, ... who was put to death by the military and political forces, who was stripped naked, insulted and spat upon... . [It] is not whether Jesus should be aman or awoman thatmatters, but the very person on the Cross that suffers like us, who was rendered as countless women in Asia..... We

the no-body that illuminates tragichuman existenceand speaksto humanformand suffers weepswith us.57 and
see Jesus as the God who takes the

In the same vein, God is the "Godof the oppressed people," a God who is workers and thosewho are "engaged in strugglesfordig present among factory nified survival." And sinceGod is also a "Godof life," sin iswhatever fosters people's death in various forms:physical death because of starvationorwar; social and culturaldeath of a people; imminent threatof death that arises from insecuritybecause of personal or community displacements, exploitedwages, and unemployment, and so on.58 Take further the exampleof the theologyon Jesusandwomen. VirginiaFa bella argues that any Asian Christological formulationmust indicate a re flectionof one's national experience, inher case that of awoman who haswit nessed the intense national struggles of her people against the militarist government of the Philippines. Accordingly, her Christological affirmation stresses the coming of God's reign as promised by Jesus in termsof "liberation fromall formsof evil-personal, relational,structural-toward a society that is Following liberation theology,Fa truly free, just, democratic, and sovereign." bella argues that "as the people continue to sufferoppression and deprivation and struggle for amore human life, they are livingout Jesus'own life, his pas This sion,death, and resurrection."59 assertion, thoughbrief,more or less sums up the existingAsian feministChristological position. One of the problems of this postcolonial construction of JesusChrist as a political and historical liberator is that it is confined to a regional, anti imperialisticagenda and does not take into accountwomen's interests as they may define them. The immediate consequence is the normalization and rou tinizationof one kind of women's experience-that is,as victims of foreign and home exploitation-and one formof women's agency-that is, as national-lib eration combatants. Such a construction fails to address the real contradictory experiences and the multiple agencies of women from all walks of life and
57Kwok, "d n. 33), 230. Weeps with Our Pain" (cited in 58 Sun Ai Lee Park, "Asian Women's Reflection," Theological

East Asian

3, no. 2 (1985): 180-81.

59Fabella (cited in n. 38), 109.

Journal

of Theology

22

Journalof Feminist Studies inReligion

across cultures; the hybridity of women's existence, in otherwords-East and West, ancient andmodern, Asian and local,male and female. This isperhaps why Asian theology in general and Asian feminist theology in particular still find themselves at oddswith the faithexperiences of themajority of women in most local congregationsof Asia. Kang Nam Soon, a Korean feministChristian leader,advocates the limi tation of a nationalist theology in her experience with progressive Korean churches. She finds that despite recent rigorous efforts in a contextual theo of Christian leaders inKorea hardly logical reinterpretation national "realities," women's issues seriouslyenough. take Whereas themost importantissueon the ecumenical agenda of the National Council of Churches inKorea has always remained the unification of North and South Korea, women's struggles to improve their status in the familyor society are pushed aside as if theywere luxuriesthat only Western societywould afford.0Moreover, she finds that the recent emphasis of some Korean Christians-including feminists-on an in Korean religions and cultures in their theology, like corporationof traditional nationalists'dependence on a "restored"traditionfor their recoveryof national West more thanKorean churches them identities, serves the interestsof the selves.Kang contends that the recent employment of traditionalresources in Korean theologybears a strong tendency of romanticizationand idealization, which has led to a general negligence of sexism hidden in those resources. In fact, the return to traditionalresources in some cases plays the "roleof sus tainingan existingpatriarchalvalue system."61 In the conjunction meet upwith national or re wherein women's interests Radhakrishnan warns thatany strategythat locatesone politics gional interests, within another is as inappropriateas it is coercive.62 women either to be For seen as passive, secondary, supportive, and inert inpeople's struggle, or to be glorified as heroines in revolt is not enough. In their study of women in the struggleof theTelanganapeople, VasanthaKannabiranand K. Lalitha find that none of these above perceptions is able to incorporate the "curiouscontradic toriness"of women's lived experience in their daily struggle into a realistic What these perceptions cannot take account of are themany understanding. "differentkinds of activity and levels of consciousness" that coexistwithin the women, includinga broad rangeof complex attitudes ranging from "struggling" "subordinationto rebellion."3 InKang's opinion, too, a theologyof and aboutwomen inAsia shouldpay attention to the particular as well as diverse experiences of Asian women.
60 Memory': Challenges forAsian andKorean Femi Kang Nam Soon, "Creating 'Dangerous
nist Theology," Ecumenical Review

61 Radhakrishnan,84-85.
62 Ibid. 63Vasantha Kannabiran and Vaid

47, no. 1 (1995): 28.

Struggle,"

in Sangari

and K. Lalitha, "That Magic (cited in n. 6), 181.

Time: Women

in the Telangana

People's

Wong: Negotiating for a Postcolonial Identity

23

Rather thanbeginningwith "claims commonality" having "one transcend of or common character," Asian feminist theologians should recognize that all ing experiences have a particular context and are shaped in particular times and places that cannot be universalized. In effect, the tendency of oversimplifying or romanticizing women's experience in the idea of common sufferingmight affirmforAsianwomen themeaning of their sufferingyet blur themultiplicity of women's experience in theirdifferent localities such as race, class, historical As events, and each individualherself.64 Kang concludes in her essay, "Asian women need more than a simple explanation of [their] situation and [their] problems in order to understand both the underlying causes of women's op of pression andwhat itmeans towork collectively for transformation the struc ture of domination.'" Asian feminist theologians today need the courage to go beyond the protective territoryof a regional identification, to go beyond theAsian-versus Western dichotomy, and to delve instead into the weaknesses as well as strengths in both. For it ismy contention that only by bringing together re sourcesavailabletowomen fromdifferentwalks of life inAsia and affirmingthe spiritual strengthwithin different levels of experience shallwomen be free to put together a truemultiplicity of voiceswithout being easily absorbed intona tionalisticpolitics and agendas that are stillprevalent in the region.

64 Kang, 20,29. 65 Ibid., 30.