Issue of gender

[Part 2]

I concluded the last week’s column with the fact that the women’s literature from Asia, Africa, South America and African Americans in the USA seem to consider themselves at the intersection of three major discourses and structures; racism, imperialism and sexism. It is pertinent to look at further how women are discriminated in these specific areas.

Pramod K Nayar observes this , “Imperialism treated them as colonial subjects. Racism ‘othered’ them as ‘non-white’. Sexism, at the hands of an oppressive patriarchy even in native societies, reduced them to machines of reproduction and labour. Writers from the African and Asian nations, while coming from different cultural and political histories, see themselves united as women. ”.

Nayar has identified numbers of common gender themes figured prominently in postcolonial writings; identity-sexual, ethnic, national, socio-political, The intersection of three main discourses; racism, imperialism and sexism; Marriage, Sexuality, desire and body and the role of language (mother-tongue) in the formation of cultural and national identity.

One of the salient characteristic of the gender discourse, as Nayar points out, is the fact that nations are gendered. Citing Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry woman, Nayar observes, ‘…once political independence has been gained, women, who had fought the same nationalist battle with and alongside the men, are sent into the kitchens. Their feminine duties must be resumed in the new nation-state…the nation and gender is interlinked social phenomena. Women are ‘involved’ or rather delegated the responsibility for, the ‘biological’ and cultural production of the nation. ”

Gendered phenomenon

It is obvious that nation and the history of nationalism are closely allied with the history of manliness and manhood. In national struggles, women’s role is always subordinate to that of man. In fact, women are reduced to supporting roles, primarily keeping the home ready for warrior- nationalist to return. What is noteworthy in the conventional role of women often assigned to them by culture and social norms is that woman is considered as the ‘repository of cultural wisdom and morality’. Nayar observes, “It is her duty to ensure the reproduction of the man. Moreover, almost every national struggle presented itself as battling to save its women. George Mosse, in fact, argues that nationalism evolves parallel to modern masculinity. Terms such as ‘honour’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘duty’ are masculinised.

It is also to be noted that nationalist struggles have never overthrown patriarchy in Asian or African countries, thus suggesting that nationalism is a gendered phenomenon. Even when feminist and nationalist objectives overlap, the gains for women are relatively few. Women are ‘sacrificed ‘in the ‘larger’ interest of the nation. In an innovative reading, Elleke Boehmer suggests that male role in the national ‘family drama’ may be seen as metonymic (where the male is part of national community or continuous with it) while the figure of woman functions as a metaphor (in representative maternal form), a role authorised by her sons. She stands for national territory and value. Kumari Jayawardene argues that ‘third world’ women share three features with the anti-colonial struggle: the desire for national social reform, the destruction of religious orthodoxies and pre-capitalist structures that prevent, and the assertion of a national identity. ”

It is pertinent to look at how diverse writers portrayed women in national struggles. Nayar observes that Indian writers such as Bankimchandra Chatterjee (Anandamath, 1882) and Rabindranath Tagore (The Home and the World, 1919) portrayed woman as an icon of Indian tradition. Nayar points out, “The image of ‘Mother India’ something which survives to this day- is perhaps the most visible form of gendering the nation. This iconography has always imaged women in terms of symbols of primal origin: birth, hearth, home roots and others. In fact, such an iconography of the unchanging ‘essential’ Indian woman is integral to the nationalist discourses. Winnie Mandela was called ‘Mother of the nation’.”

However, the image of women portrayed in diverse literature drastically differs from one another. In fact, Nayar points out that the woman portrayed in writings of Muslim nationalists is a ‘particular kind of woman’.

“For instance, the writings of Dipty Nazeer Abamad (a nineteenth century reformer) and the poetry of Akbar Allahabadi showcase a particular kind of woman. Allahabadi writes in a couplet;

When yesterday I saw some women without purdah

Oh, Akbar I sank into the ground for loss of national honour. Even Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who launched a movement for Muslim education reforms, was against women’s education in the modern arts and sciences. Gandhi’s attitude towards women and sexuality has been debated by many critics.”

It has also been pointed out that the notion of “‘motherland’ does not automatically mean either ‘source’ or ‘home’ for women. For instance, Nayar points out how Nayantara Sahgal is critical of Gandhi’s vision of India where specific aspects of human life such as sex will be completely removed:

“The India of Bhaiji’s dreams is a country of vegetarian capitalists and rural handicrafts. A few machines such as sewing machines that won’t corrupt the economy or the moral fiber will be welcomed. They’ll make way for leisure but not much of it. Some wool and cotton will be spun in cottages. Citizens will abstain from sex and turn the other cheek. Independence will be a dawn of era washed clean of drink and lust”. This prototype idea of woman who is associated with cultural identity and as a defining characteristic of race and nationality has been changed a little even in postcolonial times. Nayar observes, “In postcolonial times, in the contest between tradition and modernity, the woman is held to be the repository of all that is ‘good’ in the culture’s traditions, even as colonial/postcolonial modernity and tradition seek to power over the familial and domestic space. When everything else in postcolonial culture in a state of flux and transformation, its woman needs to be projected as stable and safe. As writer, C.S Lakshmi puts in: ‘ The ‘notion’ of a unbroken tradition is constant and attempts are made to write this notion of tradition on the body of the woman to dictate its movement, needs, aspirations and sphere of existence even while the body is moving along time, space and history.”

What is obvious is that the gender perspective is much more wider than its narrow definition particularly in Sri Lankan context and it is something which radically questions, contests the long –held notions on the woman and her multiple role in the society at large.