The White Man’s Burden

Western scholarly discourse is often embedded with the idea of the ‘other’. It is premised around and littered time and again with such binaries. In his essay, The Other Question. Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism, Homi Bhabha writes about the otherisation of the colonial subject through colonial writing and media projections. The expression of the ‘other’ takes a mixed form of fetish and anxiety with regard to the self across imperialist discourse. Mohanty provides a very similar analysis with regard to Western feminist discourse.

Western feminism paints the very broad picture of the colonised or the third world woman with the same brush. Through their writing, the discourse creates one homogenous victim in the name of the colonised woman who is similarly and equally oppressed by the men in their societies under the same pretences regardless of the context. Individual differences do not exist. Thousands of these women are deemed ignorant, illiterate and traditional. They are said to be unaware of their rights, which leads to two ways in which Western feminism is imperialist.

The first way is the definition of the other as primitive. Western feminism defines women in the third world as ignorant and unaware of their rights and potential as human beings. This way of writing leads to two things; it defines the self as the greater, more advanced being and puts the burden of saving the ignorant on the white feminist. If there is no ‘other’ the self also loses meaning. This is a significant characteristic of imperialist writing. Describing the third world as savage, primitive or backward automatically defines the self as more advanced and self-aware. This is what Bhabha also talks about, that such a practice creates a centre or norm against which the other is measured or judge, a standard of humanity which the people in the colony do not meet. And because these women in the colonies do not live a fulfilled life in the colonisers’ terms it becomes the duty of the white feminist to rescue them, to elevate their living standards and to provide them with the rights which have been snatched away from them by the patriarchy. The struggle which the Western women went through a couple of years prior to gain the same rights as men must be fought again, but this time on the behalf of the poor, ignorant third world woman. This is just another branch of the white man’s burden which was the struggle to civilise the uncivilised third world people, but one which is narrowly aimed only at saving the women. The attempt to “save” the third world woman is an entirely superficial one, as was the one to “save” colonised man. The process is never undertaken on the terms of the people being saved. Ideas about what their lives should be like are superimposed. The understanding is that the only correct way to exist is in the way the West exists. All other realities or ways of life are primitive, oppressive or unfulfilling. In a sense, this saving is much more for the sake of the Western feminist’s own peace of mind than for the betterment of the colonised woman (as is the case with all forms of imperialism).

The second way is related to the temporality of the colonised woman. By defining them as traditional, religious and backward Western feminism makes them static, bound to be in the past. The colonised subject is eternally fixed in the past as they have failed to reach the same heights of technological advancement and civilisation as the West. Since they have been unable to realise their full potential on their own, it becomes the responsibility of the Western feminist to “save” them. This is the same logic used by imperialists to invade the colonies and disrupt their way of life.

Thus Western feminism discussing the colonised, helpless third world woman is essentially nothing but another form of imperialism through an ideological discourse.