Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 18, Issue 3, 2015

Women, particularly in the colonial context, have often been reduced to a gender-specific role, subjected to patriarchal rule. The historical agency exercised by the street vendors in Brazil’s eighteenth-century diamond district, however, is indicative for a female contribution to historical change on different terms. This article discusses the public and economic participation of these Afro-Brazilian street vendors. As such, an analysis of these negras de tabuleiro borrows from and fits within theoretical models developed by postcolonial scholars, subaltern studies, and a number of Brazilian historians working on women’s history and slave studies.

The sources available on Hindustani women and girls in Suriname were rarely produced by the women and girls themselves, but for or by British or Dutch colonial officers, European travel writers, Christian missionaries, and in some cases, by Hindustani men. In these sources, women and girls primarily figure in stereotypical roles as ‘prostitutes’, ‘unfaithful wives’, or ‘female slaves’. This article sheds light on the ways in which Hindustani women and girls positioned themselves in relation to these stereotyped identities. Records produced by the Dutch colonial government are read both along and against the grain in order to identify contradictions, interruptions, and meaningful silences. The risk of reproducing stereotypes is thus reduced and alternative interpretations of women’s acts and views are highlighted. It is argued that the historiography on Hindustani women in Suriname, as well as the wider historiography on Indo-Caribbean women, can and should use this methodology to move away from a focus on the ‘reality’ of these stereotypes towards an analysis of the active involvement of Hindustani women in the construction of family and community. It is shown how forms of coexistence between men and women, concepts of family, and financial responsibility were shaped by the norms of marriage, monogamy, and the nuclear family that were imposed, but also adapted and used by women to achieve their personal ends.

Up until today, the global feminist community has been haunted by a history of inequality and oppression. The hegemonic context of racist imperialism produced a rather problematic version of an imagined global sisterhood, as Western feminists for a long time felt, and sometimes to some extent still feel, superior to women elsewhere in the non-western world. In this article, we will examine to which extent Belgian feminism can be understood as ‘imperialist feminism’, a term used by Antoinette Burton in her research on British feminism in the imperial era. By means of a qualitative discourse analysis of feminist journals, published during the period of 1892-1960, this article explores to which extent the Belgian colonial project, and corresponding imperialist and orientalist thinking in general, influenced the discourse of Belgian feminists. The way Belgian feminist discourse possibly showed different forms of pride in the nation state, including its colonial project and civilisation mission, and Belgian women serving this project with a specific moral and social mission, could be explained in terms of strategic opportunism. It will be shown that some Belgian feminists, through victimisation of Congolese women and a maternalist reappropriation of the common educational role for women in Western societies, constructed a very specific white woman’s burden, which can be framed in a quest for inclusion and recognition in Belgium.

This article discusses the global campaign against female genital mutilation/cutting (fgm/c) within the context of Egypt and questions the marginalisation of certain forms of activism. Against the background of the development of transnational feminism, it argues that the ‘global campaign against fgm/c’ was successful and reached institutionalisation in the years 2000. The transition from early grassroots feminist activism toward a state-guided campaign was characterized by a more pragmatic and diplomatic approach. The article thus focuses on the political and social conditions that frame local activism and discusses the personal experiences and narratives of activists. The reception of the work of feminist icon Nawal El-Saadawi in the West, shows the obstacles a postcolonial author and activist encounters when wanting to be heard. Fieldwork interviews with prominent Egyptian activists against fgm/c in the 1990s point at similar difficulties. When attempting to express their vision, they found that the scope for challenging dominant gender ideologies narrowed down. The article concludes by arguing that a critical anthropology of development work and the transnational feminist movement offers methodological answers to the question of how marginalized postcolonial voices can be heard or represented.

Lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld is specialised in human rights violations and committed to supporting war victims. Since some years, she represents victims of the Indonesian independence war (1945-1950) in the Dutch court. These lawsuits increased pressure on the Dutch state to admit to its war crimes during this war. For Tijdschrift van Genderstudies, Zegveld was interviewed about how she became involved in the lawsuit of the widows of the village of Rawagede and about the various other lawsuits demanding compensation from the Dutch state that followed from there. She provides insight into the role of the Comité Nederlandse Ereschulden in bringing these cases to court. Zegveld addresses how ‘race’ and gender do not only intersect in human rights violations itself, but also in the possibility for victims to be heard in court and become claimants. She explains how the Dutch state is slowly being made accountable for its colonial past, almost seventy years after the atrocities of the Indonesian independence war.