Women and the Process of Decolonization

Anti-colonial and decolonization movements tend to consider women’s rights as secondary or divisive. The goal of these movements is to establish a new nation by eliminating remnants of their colonial past. Women suffer most in this process of cleansing away colonialism by implementing what they believe is their pre-colonial heritage.

Looking at the commonalities between women’s relationship to the state in post-colonial Algeria, India, and even indigenous women of the New World and Latin America, one begins to see the normalization of male hegemony and the process of disregarding women’s issues.

Islamic nations have been demonized in the United States; we tend to believe that women in these countries are severely oppressed due to the involvement of Islam in their governments. We need to recognize the role of colonialism and the process of decolonization to better understand the situation of women in both post-colonial Islamic countries and non-Islamic countries.

Looking at Marina Lazreg’s book The Eloquence of Silence, one is able to see the vital role women played in gaining independence from France. Women were members of the FLN (National Liberation Front), which launched the Algerian War of Independence. They had crucial roles in the guerrilla warfare in the larger cities that led to a vote for complete Algerian independence. After independence the new government went to work organizing itself and nationalism was the only concern at the time. Women who had been vital to the freedom movement got little to no recognition.

The new government wanted women to return to their roles as wives and mothers. Instead of trying to integrate women to the political system they marginalized them and made them feel like their issues were not as important as issues of nation building and the economy. Laws were passed to protect women in workplaces and in the family and then taken away. Even today The Algerian Family Code and Sharia law are still in place as governing laws of independent Algeria.

Algeria wanted to decolonize itself, wash away what the French had soiled. Complicating this process was the fact that colonialism had already changed the people, changed the economy, and changed the land. Before colonialism Algerians had been groups of different peoples living in different parts of the land. During colonialism and post-colonialism people from the north and south started to mix and customs started to mix leading to civil distress.

French colonialism also created a divide through offering French education to boys from wealthier families. These boys then grew up to be men who thought in French terms and settled into French parts of the cities. Women were not given the same education because the French didn’t want to ‘change’ Algerian customs and roles. Through discursive violence inequalities between men and women were normalized. Discursive violence also erased memories of the Algerian people. Through education girls and boys were taught that France was the best and whatever they had done to the Algerian people was for their own good. Many of the younger generations forgot how bloody the road to occupation had been.

French colonialism also changed women’s bodies and the image of a ‘modern’ woman was one who dressed in Western clothing, used Western products, spoke French, and acted like women of the West. In some way post-colonial Algeria thought by reverting back to Sharia and making women go back to ‘traditional’ roles they would be decolonizing themselves. But whatever remnants religious movements were grasping for were not the same as their pre-colonial past. How could they be the same when the economies and relationships with other nations had changed?

Before colonialism men and women’s roles benefited both genders. If women did have roles as mother and wives, then men were providers and protectors. During colonialism indigenous men felt emasculated. Post-colonialism gave Algerian men an opportunity to regain their identity, and most defined their masculinity by being in control of ‘their’ women. Since the economy had changed women were now in the factories and working outside of the home. Whatever system of gender roles they had before colonialism did not exist any longer, only an empty shell of a system was left. By imposing this empty shell (what Algerians believed to be their original past) on the society women suffered the most from its lack of rights and privileges.

Although Algeria is a case of an Islamic countries process of decolonization we can see a similar patterns of religion and the nostalgia of the past in trying to gain independence in India through Hindu traditions around women’s roles and bodies. Women’s roles in anti-colonial struggles are often specifically directed for a nationalist cause and not to question their unequal status in family structures that continued to dominate all aspects of their lives. Men in both Algeria and India made it possible for “women to be included in social reforms, like the nationalist struggle, without threatening male authority or the fulfillment of their family roles.” (Katrak, 2006)

Women in nationalist and independence struggles did not use the occasion to raise issues that affected them. Rather than using this time to gain rights for themselves, women were told that their issues were not as important as the nationalist movement and independence. Women’s roles as mothers, wives and daughters of the new nation were re-emphasized as requirements of the family in a post-colonial society.

In India male social reformers often used Hindu scripture as embodying cultural tradition. This cultural tradition was seen as the new ‘nations traditions’. (Katrak, 2006) So whatever roles women had in these scriptures was seen to be the original roles of women, and the need to go back to these roots was necessary in order to decolonize India. Mahatma Gandhi’s involvement of women in his movement did not challenge men’s and women’s roles, nor patriarchal traditions that oppressed women within the home. His representation of women was taken from Hindu mythology of certain female figures that embodied a nationalist spirit. (Katrak, 2006) This promoted a traditional role of mother, wife, and daughter. Gandhi’s symbolizing and mythologizing of females went along with his idea of a national identity based on the spinning wheel and homespun cloth. He believed that the nation should return to its old roots of growing enough food and providing enough clothes and shelter in order to live a modest lifestyle.

As Katrak say’s “Gandhi’s model for female strength was Draupadi, not the militant Rani of Jhansi who, ‘dressed like a man’ and on horseback led her troops in a battle against the British in 1897.” (Katrak, 2006) Draupadi was a more appropriate female model for strength because she calls upon Lord Krishna for help when she is faced with a difficult situation. Gandhi was quoted saying also that “the female sex is not the weaker sex; it is the nobler of the two; for it is even today the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge.” (Katrak, 2006) Unknowingly Gandhi was disempowering women! Even post-colonial Algerian women were told that their sacrificing their jewelry to the national treasury was noble and for the nation; but they were taking the only capital these women possessed. This image of a woman able to suffer more than a man is detrimental to women’s agency. Support rather than resistance to the idea of a sacrificing woman is embedded in popular cultural practices like dance, movies, and religious ritual. The dominant message was that suffering was the most women could contribute to the new nation.

In Latin America we see European structures of patriarchy imposed on indigenous societies, which had had more egalitarian relationships among men and women before colonialism. Women’s roles in production during colonialism was often not recorded so their roles were usually written into history as being home bound and remained in the domestic sphere. This contributed to the “internal colonialism” that affected women after colonialism. (Bose, 1995) Women’s labor was never then valued because it was seen as domestic duties even after the colonial powers left Latin America.

Like most anti-colonial movements, the Latin American movements had been far from advocating the liberation of women. In Latin America women’s resistance to male oppression was pushed to the margins and separated from the national struggles since the national struggle was more important and women’s rights were seen as selfish and detracting from the ‘important’ issues. So it was assumed that women could liberate themselves only after liberating all other oppressed groups of society and women’s issues were part of a “future agenda”. (Bose, 1995)

In Mexico women were supposed to be central to modernizing family life and constructing the nation-state by teaching children patriotism and the work ethic. The husband was the state’s representative who governed his wife and children. (Dore, 2000) Here we can see the similarities between Algerian women and Indian women and Latin American women as mothers of the new nation-state. Again instead of integrating women into the political/social sphere and involving them from the beginning of nation building, women were pushed to the sidelines.

Their roles as mothers and wives were emphasized and men’s roles as governing over them were emphasized. Catholicism naturalized the notion that motherhood was the sole purpose of women’s lives. The revolutionaries in Mexico, and the need for men to have families to take care of in order to be considered a dominant male had reinforced machismo. This gave lower class men a chance to recover manhood they had been denied by colonialism. (Dore, 2000)

We can see discursive violence change an entire group of people with the occupation of the New World and the stripping away identity of the indigenous people of the Americas. Native American culture is usually seen as this misogynistic culture where the men are drunkards and rape women. One should be critical when looking at native societies and understand the affect occupation and colonialism can have in reshaping the culture and roles of men and women in their societies. Before contact with Europeans many Native American tribes were egalitarian; men and women had different roles but one was not superior over the other. All work was seen as necessary and the tribe needed both men and women. But Europeans social beliefs changed the way Native people saw the world, themselves, and gender roles. (Mihesuah, 2003)

Mihesuash says that because “a person’s clan was determined by his or her mother, women possessed much political and social power, in addition to a guaranteed network of female relatives who lent support and companionship.” (Mihesuah, 2003) Native American women had rights and privileges that European women did not have. Since these societies were matrilineal after divorce the children could stay with their mothers, and women retained family property. Elder women in the Iroquois Confederacy (which combined many tribes by the government) actually chose the tribal leaders that represented the tribe on the Grand Council. (Mihesuah, 2003) In other words these women had the right to vote for their representation before women in the colonies!

But Native Americans faced many hardships as colonialism eroded away their culture and lifestyles. Native American rituals were seen as barbaric and uncivilized. Medicine men were often flogged and burned. (Mihesuah, 2003) Missionaries were everywhere offering material goods to the Native Americans. Slowly tribes people began to go to missionaries instead of the tribal religious leaders who were usually women. Because of this religious influence kinship systems began to deteriorate and start to look more like the Euro-American families. This new system of women moving to the men’s family brought about so many problems. Women lost their immediate relatives network and if they were divorced they lost all their assets. (Mihesuah, 2003)
Native American women faced sexual abuse from Euro-American men. Native American women were “hyper sexualized and seen as rapable”. (Mihesuah, 2003) This ideology trickled down to Native men who had their masculinity stripped away from them as they were pushed out of their lands and onto reservations. These cultures that once had so much respect for the women in their families now abused them because of frustration and alcoholism.

Although the Native Americans got pieces of land from the United States their gender roles and culture was permanently changed forever. Most Native Americans living on reservations are under the poverty line, and single mothers head many of households. (Mihesuah, 2003) Violence and sexual abuse against women are at high rates among Native Americans. The discursive violence of occupation from Euro-American colonization changed the face of the indigenous people of America. Native American groups today hold onto pieces of the past when carrying out traditional ceremonies and traditions. Most of these ceremonies look very different from the way their ancestors practiced. Women still do not hold the position they once held in these communities. (Mihesuah, 2003)

Without understanding these people’s colonial pasts we cannot understand their present gendered roles and governmental practices. Colonizers came to these lands for resources, cheap labor, and new markets. What they left behind were mutated societies trying to redefine themselves by shedding away colonialism. When trying to understand women’s positions in new nation-states one must look critically at their colonial histories.

Inequality is a multifaceted; but there is no denying the role of colonialism and years of discursive violence that has normalized women’s subordinate roles. Women make up fifty percent of the world’s population but only own one percent of the world’s wealth. If we understand the reasoning behind inequalities, we can change them.