Jonno Marlton #5: Womanhood in the Colonizing Process

In Anderson the discussion of “womanhood” is absent, but there is enough material in the first five chapters to draw conclusions about the role of the woman in nation forming.  We have tracked the dominance of the white European hegemony in factors of expansion, especially the development of print media, and it is safe to say that the woman has been largely left out.  In the case of the Creole Pioneers, we have a generation detached from their mother land.  Their subservient status comes from the white, male hegemony, but their existence, of course, was dependent on women. 

            Creating a new nation requires having children and passing down the laws, which were made by men, and the customs, which were created in a male-centric society.  I would argue that the woman was, in some ways, a colonial tool.  We can see this in La Noire de because the wife was responsible for the family.  She was in charge of the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing.  Granted, she did none of this, but her role in the structured, white French society was to spread the aims of colonialism by indoctrinating the young African woman to submit to the whims of the white “masters.”  Despite the fact that women were lower in society, the male leaders used them when convenient to spread ideas of colonialism and nationalism.  For example, we see in Anderson that even though print was reserved for men and Europeans did not typically formally educate their daughters, the modern Greeks, in an effort to promote nationalism, translated many books and even educated their daughters to read them.  (Anderson 79)

            But, the place of women in society came from their usefulness to the predominating masculine powers.  Allowing women to read was seen as beneficial for the nation, so it was promoted.  We are, of course, still talking about the women from the colonial powers.  On the other hand, as we see from Diouana, she was expected to be content with what she was given, accepting work from white neo-slave holders.  Her actions in the end when she slits her throat demonstrate an attempt to “speak.”  Spivak would ask who is listening, but, nonetheless, the action is a powerful one, and we see a woman standing up against the status quo.  This idea of female empowerment is also demonstrated in The Colored Museum when the woman lays the egg.  Her mother puts her down and degrades her sense of self worth, a condition that arguably comes from the masculine hegemony.  The accidental act of laying an egg and becoming special is a reaction against society’s relegation of women to a subservient position.

My question is what are some ways in which the members of male-centric colonizing powers used women (on either side of the colonizing process) for their political and cultural gains?