From Women and Imperialism to Gendering Colonialism?
Author(s)
Gaitskell, Deborah
Abstract
Two of the four works discussed present essays on the roles and experiences of women during the 19th and 20th centuries, while the other two broaden the study to look at “gendered interaction” between colonizers and the colonized. Expanding the Boundaries of Women’s History: Essays on Women in the Third World (1992), edited by Cheryl Johnson-Odim and Margaret Strobel, examines female roles and key activists in female emancipation in India, Africa, and Latin America. Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (1992), edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel, looks at how British and American women, in working on behalf of women in India and Africa, have become more empowered themselves. Gendered Colonialisms in African History (1997), edited by Nancy Rose Hunt, Tessie P. Liu, and Jean Quataert, analyzes gendered identities, focusing exclusively on 20th-century Africa, while Gender and Imperialism (1998), edited by Clare Midgley, in addition to covering Africa and India, discusses gender roles in the Caribbean, Australia, Ireland, and Great Britain. All four works contribute to the study of women’s experiences and gendered identities around the world, presenting the increasingly popular focus on the perspective of the colonized rather than the colonizers.
