Week 11: Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter 17: “On the Threshold of Women’s Era”: Lynching, Empire, and Sexuality in Black Feminist Theory by Hazel V. Carby (p. 330-343)

Summary:

Carby states that the purpose of this essay is to address the ways that African-American women intellectuals explain “patriarchal power through its manipulation of racialized and gendered social categories and practices” (p. 330). The author feels that the focus feminism is on a very small percentage of women (white, middle-class) and that non-white women are often ignored in their writing. Therefore, feminism promotes a “racist hierarchy” (p. 331).

In 1896, the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was created and gave black women the first opportunity to discuss their rights and fight against their oppression. Many novels were published during this time period by African-American women with the purpose of “resisting and defeating oppression” (p. 332). Next, Carby discusses the “theory of internal and external colonization developed in the works of Cooper and Wells” (p. 332). The focus of her essay, however, is internalized colonization. Here the white man is portrayed as a beast that consumes everything in front of it, while white women are unable to control this beast. Cooper proposed that white women should revolutionize their thoughts and actions in order to lead reforms.

Carby continues the discussion by introducing the South, lynching, and rape. Ida B. Wells saw lynching as a “practice of political and economic repression” (p. 334). Wells believed that her first anti-lynching organization was the start of the movement among African-American women in the U.S. She also argued that in 1/3 of lynching cases, the reason was due to rape. The idea of rape created fear and terror within communities. Wells contended that the African-American community to learn that rape was a form of economic power. Black men were also technically allowed to vote, but usually could not do so peacefully; therefore, this was another form of emasculation. Wells also explained that lynching “could manipulate sexual ideologies to justify political and economic subordination” (p. 336). Cooper continued along the same lines and explained that “white men used their ownership of the body of the white female as a terrain on which to lynch the black male” (p. 336). Cooper and Wells believed that white women were a part of the preservation of an oppressive system. According to the author, rape and lynching are the two best representations of internal colonization. Hopkins argued that rape “should be totally separated from the issue of violated white womanhood and then recast as part of the social, political, and economic oppression of blacks” (p. 340).
The author concludes this essay by stating that the previous analyses “firmly established the dialectical relation between economic/political power and economic/sexual power in the battle for control of women’s bodies” (p. 342). Lastly, she states that we should become aware of the complexities of sexuality, the differences, and finally, begin an era that can include all women.

Reaction:

I thought this was an excellent analysis of rape and lynching in this time period. I don’t think that I would have been able to make these connections by myself, but it is now very clear to me that rape was used as a means to control African-American males politically. It is very disturbing to think that women had to suffer and become implicated in this system in order to achieve oppression.


Chapter 18: Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Countries by Ann Laura Stoler (p. 344-373)

Summary:

This chapter is introduced by a brief explanation of women’s role, or lack thereof, in colonization. Stoler states a fundamental question: “In what ways were gender inequalities essential to the structure of colonial racism and imperial authority?” (p. 344). She intends to explain the interrelatedness of colonial authority, racial distinctions, and gender in this essay. Colonial authority was based on inclusion (of whites) and exclusion (of Others). There are two parts to this essay: 1) an examination of the “domestic arrangements of colonial communities and their wider political structures” and 2) an analysis of the “cultural hygiene” of colonialism (p. 347).

Sexual relations were controlled in colonial settlements and the immigration of European women was restricted. Therefore, concubinage was the most appealing option for colonizers living abroad. Concubinage was thought to stabilize the colonial situation by eliminating sexual diseases that men would acquire from brothels. Also, concubines were recommended because they could be helpfully in teaching local language and culture. Stoler provides the following definition of concubinage: “the cohabitation outside of marriage between European men and Asian women” and included “sexual access to a non-European women as well as demands on her labor and legal rights to the children she bore” (p. 348). Concubinage created a social hierarchy, but created métis children that were often rejected by both cultures.

Concubinage was eventually replaced by the acceptance of prostitution. Another important change in the makeup of colonial settlements was the implementation of more white European women. A new society seemed to be created to model the refinement and delicateness of Europe for white women’s benefit that “deserved” more. Stoler states that women are: “charged with dramatically reshaping the face of colonial society, imposing their racial will on African and Asian colonies where ‘an iron curtain of ignorance’ replaced ‘relatively unrestrained social intermingling’ in earlier years” (p. 352). She also states that white women are not solely to blame for this shift. During this change, it was believed that white women needed protection from “primitive” men of color. There were also very broad definitions of threat and danger, which left all colonized men at risk of being aggressors. Stoler continues: “While native men were legally punished for alleged sexual assaults, European women were frequently blamed for provoking those desires” (p. 354).

The next section is titled: “White Degeneracy, Motherhood, and the Eugenics of empire” (p. 355). Here Stoler explains: “The ‘colonial branch’ of eugenics embraced a theory and practice concerned with the vulnerabilities of white rule and new measures to safeguard European superiority” (p. 356). Stoler explained that in this way the colonizers and the colonized were subject to exclusion and regulation, both became Others in a way. Colonial medicine reflected the fear of degeneracy in many ways. For example, Neurasthenia was a “phantom disease,…the classic illness of the late 19th century” that was “intimately linked to sexual deviation and to the destruction of the social order itself” (p. 359).
Stoler continues by examining the dangers of métissage. Previous concubines were now seen as a threat because if they procreated with white Europeans, a new “race” was created called the métis. These children were seen as weak and were often rejected by their fathers as well as members of the native culture. Many of these children ended up in orphanages and were taught morals by European women. The role of European women in the household became: “leisure, good spirit, and creature comforts” (p. 363). Motherhood became an essential role for women in the imperial mission of France.

The chapter is concluded by Stoler stating: “I have tried to show that the categories of colonizer and colonized were secured through notions of racial difference constructed in gender terms” (p. 365). She also states that colonial politics were not limited to sex and that sex was about “sexual access and reproduction, class distinctions and racial privileges, nationalism and European identity” (p. 367).

Reaction:

I thought this chapter was really well written and clearly defined the role of sex within colonial settlements. I have studied French colonialism in Indochina and it was interesting to examine women’s roles in the colony with more depth.