Coloniality of gender

March against femicide at UNAM in 2017. The coloniality of gender has been used to explain how modern femicide is tied to the European colonization of the Americas.[1]

Coloniality of gender is a concept developed by Argentine philosopher Maria Lugones. Building off Aníbal Quijano's foundational concept of coloniality of power,[2] coloniality of gender explores how European colonialism influenced and imposed European gender structures on Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This concept challenges the notion that gender can be isolated from the impacts of colonialism.

Scholars have also extended the concept of coloniality of gender to describe colonial experiences in Asian and African societies. The concept is notably employed in academic fields like decolonial feminism and the broader study of decoloniality.[3]

Gender effects

Coloniality of gender examines how colonialism impacts both women and men.[4] Maria Lugones, Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso, and Nelson Maldonado-Torres argue that the coloniality of gender aimed at disrupting Indigenous people's connections with each other and the land, asserting that the core idea of European colonialism was exploiting the earth for the benefit of man.[5] Rosalba Icaza adds that "Lugones helps us to understand the historical moment in which this specific system (sex/gender) became a form of subjugation [for colonized peoples]."[6]

Women

For Indigenous women, European gender impositions may have normalized the idea that women's subordination was an essential part of being civilized like Europeans. This is in contrast to Indigenous cultures prior to colonization, which often "adopted matrilineal inheritance and matrilocal culture as their norm rather than the exception".[7] Shannon Frediani argues that "many Indigenous cultures before colonialism had forms of governance recognizing women's participation, their knowledge, and centrality in some spiritual orientations" that ended with the coloniality of gender.[8] Other societies had a "low-intensity patriarchy" that was intensified significantly by European colonialism.[9] Chiara Bottici argues that recognizing these histories allows for reflection on the universality modern, colonial systems, including gender roles.[7] Egla Salazar argues that the adoption of patriarchal systems that forced women's subordination normalized femicide against Indigenous women, such as in the Mayan genocide.[4] In the modern day, some scholars, including Lugones argues that white feminists often ignore or deny the subordination of non-white women in colonial societies, as well the long-term impacts of colonialism.[10]

Further, Tlostanova argues that European gender impositions normalized the hyper-sexualization of non-white women and the sexual violence directed toward them.[11] Non-white women were regarded as sexually available, seductive, and willing to be raped, threatening white women's happiness and well-being.[12] Chavez Jr. argues that the idea of "woman" was not extended to African and Indigenous women in the same way that it was too white women, because non-white women were judged as excessively sexual, sinful and promiscuous, as opposed to the sexual chastity of European colonial women. This lack of feminine morality dehumanized African and Indigenous women, leading them to be sexually codified as female but lacking feminine character.[13]

Conversely, Wardhani argues that Asian women in colonized societies were viewed as more passive, family-oriented and demure than white women.[14]

Men

For non-Western men, the imposition of European gender norms may have shifted the ideal of manliness into being a white European landowner.[4] Egla Salazar argues that the residual effects of this history may still be felt in communities today with men conforming to European ideas of what it means to be a man.[4] DiPietro et al. suggest that men of colonized societies were often feminized, particularly in Oriental contexts, due to their lack of power.[15] On the other hand, colonized males could be viewed as a threat at the slightest hint of agency, particularly in African and some Amerindian contexts. Under such circumstances, colonized men would be presented as aggressive animals, threats to the purity of both white women and colonized women, who would be viewed as needing rescuing from their males.[16]

Gender variance

Coloniality of gender has been used to understand the erasure and violence against people referred to as occupying a third gender by Western anthropologists in the Americas through European colonialism.[17]

Alexander I. Stingl states that the concept challenges the lens of LGBTQ identities and argues for greater recognition of variation in gender, sexuality, and sexuality practices.[18]

References

  1. ^ DiPietro, Pedro J. (1 June 2019). Speaking Face to Face: The Visionary Philosophy of María Lugones. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-7453-3. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  2. ^ Juanita Elias; Adrienne Roberts, eds. (2018). Handbook on the international political economy of gender. Cheltenham, UK. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-78347-884-2. OCLC 1015245222.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ DiPietro 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Martínez Salazar, Egla (2012). Global coloniality of power in Guatemala: racism, genocide, citizenship. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. pp. 101–102, 128–129. ISBN 978-0-7391-4124-3. OCLC 809536891.
  5. ^ Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso; Maria Lugones; Nelson Maldonado Torres, eds. (2021). Decolonial feminism in Abya Yala: Caribbean, Meso, and South American contributions and challenges. Lanham. pp. xv. ISBN 978-1-5381-5311-6. OCLC 1328003487.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Handbook on Governance and Development. [S.l.]: Edward Elgar Publishing. 2022. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-78990-875-6. OCLC 1355566945.
  7. ^ a b Bottici, Chiara (2021). Anarchafeminism. London, England. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-350-09589-2. OCLC 1281198089.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Frediani, Shannon (2022). Decolonizing interreligious education: developing theologies of accountability. Lanham, Maryland. ISBN 978-1-7936-3860-1. OCLC 1342784447.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. ^ Sachseder, Julia Carolin (2022). "Coloniality of Gender". Violence Against Women in and Beyond Conflict The Coloniality of Violence. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-000-64906-2. OCLC 1337072782.
  10. ^ DiPietro 2019, p.13.
  11. ^ DiPietro 2019, p. 133.
  12. ^ DiPietro 2019, p. 133 "The non-White woman is regarded as sexually available, voracious, and willing to be raped, a seductress of the White man and a threat to the happiness and well-being of the decent White lady".
  13. ^ DiPietro 2019, p. 184.
  14. ^ Wardhani, Baiq; Largis, Era; Dugis, Vinsensio (2018-03-01). "Colorism, Mimicry, and Beauty Construction in Modern India". Jurnal Hubungan Internasional. 6 (2): 242–244. doi:10.18196/hi.62118. ISSN 2503-3883. S2CID 194938008. Archived from the original on 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2024-02-02. It can be analyzed through Orientalist thesis where the world becomes Western and Orientals, where in the feminist perspective, Asian women are passive, unable to express their voice (Hasan, 2009, p. 30). Western women are the opposite of non-western women or orientals women who are considered ignorant, submissive to patriarchal dominance, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family-oriented, and victimized
  15. ^ DiPietro 2019, p. 133 "Due to the coloniality of gender enmeshed in contradictory impulses, the colonial man in the colonies of the Western empires can be easily feminized (particularly in Orientalist versions) as he lacks any real authority or power..
  16. ^ DiPietro 2019, p. 133 "And yet, any hint of his possible will or agency is immediately interpreted as a threat to White society, which presents the colonized male as an essential rapist and an aggressive animal, threatening the chaste White lady (especially in African and some Amerindian stereotypes) and his women, seen by the Western society as needing rescuing from their males.".
  17. ^ Barbara J. Risman; Carissa Froyum; William Scarborough, eds. (2018). Handbook of the sociology of gender (Second ed.). Cham. p. 63. ISBN 978-3-319-76333-0. OCLC 1039888036.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ Stingl, Alexander I. (2016). The digital coloniality of power: epistemic disobedience in the social sciences and the legitimacy of the digital age. Lanham. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-4985-0193-4. OCLC 933611463.{cite book}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)