White women’s burdens

I keep coming away from feminist events feeling more and more empty and disconnected with myself. Most times I am spoken at or about as if I was not in the room. I am almost never an individual but a part of a collective characterised by tradition and culture. I can only be the exotic helpless other who is tortured by tradition. I wont deny tradition, culture and religion are used against women in the global south but culture is everywhere. Even in the first world with all its liberalism is rife with culture and all the maladies that accompany it. This week my facebook page has been inundated with stories of the Delhi rapist blaming his victim for playing a part in her own rape. It is shocking news, even disgusting how someone is so oblivious of their crime. For the victims family hearing those words would have been a cruel reminder what their daughter went through.

I don’t deny the nature of the crime or its impact, it’s the manner in which this narrative has played out in the media unjust. Indian men are positioned as more vile and disgusting than men anywhere else. In the west smug stories of how culture, religion bring about violence are used to demonstrate how progressive the western world is to have thrown off those shackles and moved onto a rational society. Women are used in this debate to prove the achievements of the western world. Conny Roggeband and Mieke Verloo have written a brilliant paper on the subject of how western and migrant women are positioned in national debates in the Netherlands. The idea that migrant women of colour women suffer violence is based in reality however the same is true of white women. With the 3% conviction rate in the UK the notion of the liberal, west starts to fall apart.

Culture is everywhere and rape culture is everywhere. Everyday I see buses plastered with posters of 50 Shades of Grey indicative of rape culture in British society. Why is there such a denial that culture exists in the west? I have heard many socialists talk about how they have no culture in the west. I suspect this is racism hiding behind orientalism, exotic dress and food are thought to be the only hallmarks of culture. Sociologists have a term for this – ethnocentrism. The naïve assumption that ones way of behaving and acting were the norm and everyone else is inferior positions the non-western subject as subnormal. In India it is normal to define foreign cultures as inferior. We often use the argument that we have female goddesses which translates into respect for women. This could not be further from the truth, the existence of female deities does nothing for mortal women, neither does the law. Indian women are not liberated because of their goddesses. Western women are not liberated by their atheistic secular society. Gender violence is a part of the left socialist’s great shame. Recently a friend posted an article about the denial of violence in the left movement you can read all about it here. War On Women – It’s A Left Wing Problem Too! The debate around rights has far too long concentrated on saying hey look we are better than that 3^rd world nation at least we are not…… The rights the western world fought are part of an on going struggle complacency will not keep them alive and ensure they are  enforced. In a era when right wing forces threaten to destroy these rights it is foolish to laud over past victories that have not been fully realised 

I accept India is not perfect I wont deny the documentary needs to be screened and it should lead to discussions however those discussions should not turn into a moral finger pointing match. When I was in India I saw this debate of the save Indian male as legitimate for obvious reasons in the UK I see it as unfair for the simple reason it tells women in the west this big lie that they are free and liberated. We women of colour are trapped by our culture white women are trapped in their liberal world.

References

Roggeband, C., & Verloo, M. (2007). Dutch women are liberated, migrant women are a problem: The evolution of policy frames on gender and migration in the Netherlands, 1995–2005. Social Policy & Administration, 41(3), 271-288.

https://smashinggenderchange.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/war-on-women-its-a-left-wing-problem-too/