Colonization and Violence Against Women
By Val Kalei Kanuha
Introduction
Hawaii is an island nation that was colonized by the United States
in 1893. It was not until the very end of the 20th century
that then President Bill Clinton apologized to the Hawaiian people,
but given the damage that has been done, it was a little late. My
comments are based on my understanding of the institution of colonization
as it has occurred in the Hawaiian nation and in the Hawaiian Islands.
Most of us, especially as Asians and Pacific Islanders, have experienced
or know about the effects of colonization in our countries of origin.
In this discussion of colonization, I would like us to think in
terms of the domination of a particular nation, community, society
or peoples by a foreign or outside nation, society, force or country.
To have been colonized is to have been dominated, to have been taken
over systematically, institutionally, historically, and politically
as a nation of people by another nation of people, usually from
the outside but not always.
Let us examine what happens culturally in a colonized nation.
Local people are romanticized: this was especially true of Hawaiians
and Pacific Islanders, seen as inhabitants of a tropical "hula"
nation. Women are exoticized: the colonizer's gaze is directed at
local women rendering them beautiful, sexual, etc. These constructions
are applied then to the entire place, resulting in the feminization
of a country. This is what happened to our people. Colonizers portrayed
our entire country as a stereotypical Pacific Islander woman: bare
breasted, feeding men, having sex with them, etc., and overlooking
how everyday life was lived by men and women in order to privilege
notions of native women acting in the service of foreign colonizing
men.
In our own cultures, pre-colonial life is idealized, and its disruption
blamed as a cause of violence against women. We cannot agree to
the notion that our colonized countries were mythically ideal until
the bad invaders came in from the outside. We, meaning the anti-domestic
violence movement, have to reject the explanation of colonial history
as the cause of violence against women. To accept it is to admit
we have become part of the colonized mind. Furthermore, we cannot
characterize all colonizers as "westerners". I am part Japanese
American and we know that the Japanese certainly have a history
of colonization, reminding us that many of our own people, not just
Westerners, or Europeans, or white people, are colonizers.
Myths about Asian and Pacific Cultures
We all know the myths and stories that are told about what our
societies were like before the big bad colonizers came in. We need
to challenge whether or not these claims are made to justify violence
against women. Is it really true that we were all peaceful, loving
people until the colonizers came upon us? I don't think so. Who
then is going to take the lead in casting a serious critical gaze
at this question and challenging the usual answers? It has to be
done by us because we do not want people from the outside to come
in and say to us: "You know what, you guys have just as many problems
as the rest of us; so don't use this colonization excuse to say
you were all perfect until we came along and colonized you". Let
us then embark on our critique by examining myths that idealize
our cultures.
The first myth is that many of our cultures were matrilineal and
therefore, before colonization, all of us respected, loved and had
a very important place for women in our society. There is a simple
retort to that. Just because a society is matrilineal does not mean
it is not patriarchal. Matrilineal structures decide only how inheritance
rights, land and other forms of wealth are passed on within the
family. They do not say anything about who really controls the status
of those women's positions in inheritance, in history, and in politics.
By saying we are matrilineal, we are somehow equating it with being
a society that reveres women, and places them above men. If you
really think about it, many of our societies are matrilineal; however,
many of our societies are still very oppressive to women and have
always been so. Hence, it is not a very good argument.
The second myth is that we did not have domestic violence, or violence
against women, until we were colonized. If you listen to the stories
that many advocates and others talk about today concerning the different
forms of violence against women that occur in our society, my guess
is you will find that many of these forms of violence against women
existed before outsiders came into our societies. If we look at
our old texts, our legends, our own myths, histories, our writings,
our art forms, and music, you will find them filled with oppressive,
denigrating images of violence against women-images that pre-date
any kind of contact from the outside. It is hard to argue that most
societies were just wonderful toward women before they were colonized.
The third myth is that colonization is at the root of violence
against women and in a hierarchy of oppressions, colonization is
the most important form of oppression. Furthermore, that sexism,
classism, homophobia and other kinds of oppression are not as critical
or as harmful as the oppression of colonization. This third myth
claims that the most important kind of oppression is colonization
for us as people of color. There is another simple retort to this
point. If, in fact, we believe that colonization really is at the
root of violence, how then do we explain that colonized women are
not violent against men since all of us were, after all, colonized
together? Why are there still a disproportionate number of men
of color-men in our communities-who are violent against our women?
Hawaiian women were dragged to the docks to serve British soldiers
and sailors and all the whaling ships that came into our ports.
Women were victims of colonization. But, somehow, Hawaiian women
do not abuse Hawaiian men at the same rate that they (Hawaiian men)
abuse us. Perhaps we can say that colonization had different effects
on women versus men but that is not an adequate explanation for
men's violence against women.
Colonization and Patriarchy
Geraldine Moane, an Irish political scientist and sociologist who
writes on gender and colonization[1], points
out that systems of oppression and domination that colonize states,
nations and people are identical to the strategies men use to dominate
women. Here are a few examples.
The first one is the strategy of claiming ethno-cultural superiority,
historically used by colonizers to justify domination because their
intelligence, their gods, their way of life and rationality was
superior. This strategy has really done a good job of keeping us
in our place. Male superiority is used in exactly the same way.
Men's ways of thinking; men's ways of knowing; men's drive toward
autonomy versus women's wimpy ways of wanting to be in relationships-these
ways of 'superiority' are what men use to oppress women.
The second strategy of colonization is differentiating "the other."
One of the ways colonizers keep us in our place is to say they are
the center of the universe and all the rest of us as people of color
are "the other". If you think about what happens with women and
men, you will see that men use this very notion of women as "the
other" to keep women marginalized and to keep themselves at the
center.
A third strategy of colonization is the use of all forms of violence-physical,
emotional, psychological, and spiritual - by the colonizer against
the colonized. Many of us were, and some still are, forbidden to
use our native languages; told not to pray in a certain way; told
not to study; and told not to be in families in a certain way. These
are ways that colonizers kept families separated from themselves,
from other families, and from their cultures. Here again, the parallels
of male domination through multiple forms of violence against women
obtain.
A fourth strategy is the seizure and control of economic resources.
The taking of land-a very important part of who we are as a people-the
using of land, and the misuse of land and natural resources by the
colonizers is one of the ways in which the colonizers remove our
people from the things that are most sacred to them. So economic
exploitation and capital accumulation go hand in hand. Historically,
In Hawaii, we did not understand the notion of land ownership: we
lived on the land but we did not own it; we did not think it should
be owned. So Hawaiians, like other colonized peoples lost their
lands. Similarly, abusive men control women's economic resources
and constrain them from access to their social and familial resources.
Women too, may unwittingly give up their wealth, or their familial
and community ties because they miscalculate the importance of holding
on to them.
A fifth strategy is the control of culture- it involves patrolling
the boundaries of the colonialists' culture and defining what is
acceptable/exotic about the invaded culture. The same thing happens
for us as women. Men control almost all the images of women in the
media, the ways that we learn about ourselves through education,
culture or politics. Our culture is dominated by male images of
women and male images of what a society is supposed to be.
The last strategy is the exclusion of native people from access
to power. For many of us as Asians and Pacific Islanders and for
many of us as people of color, we know who occupies the leadership
and positions of power. It is usually not us. If you look at what
happens in relationships between men and women and who is in power,
it is mainly men and not women.
These notions and strategies of colonial domination are used by
patriarchy to continue male dominance over women. We need to counter
claims that colonization has led to violence against women, by pointing
out that there is in fact a tight connection between colonization
and patriarchy. Some would even say that you could not have colonization
without patriarchy. Who after all were the colonizers? They were
mostly men (that is not to say women cannot be colonizers). The
institutions of colonization rely on political power, access to
resources, strategies of oppression and mobility-all the things
men seem to have. Therefore, we cannot say it is because of what
white people have done to us that there is violence against women
in our cultures. Patriarchy and colonization go hand in hand and
it is this nexus that keeps the structures of gender violence so
well entrenched.
Conclusion
As I look around at the audience, I see it is composed primarily
of women and it occurs to me that most of us are not excusing male
violence because of colonization. In fact, it is the men in our
communities who use this argument in their own defense: because
they cannot, or will not, or feel threatened about, taking responsibility
for their violence against women. So, they resort to blaming the
white colonizers. We must take a strong and active position and
not allow that analysis to dominate. We must resist the ways that
our own communities-led largely by men-force us to silence, hurt,
oppress, and disrespect the voices of women we live and work with;
and all of our mothers who came before us; and all of our children
who will come after us. It is up to us to push against the notion
that colonization is at the root of violence against women, it is
up to us to ensure that women's suffering, struggles and strengths
are not dishonored.
Val Kalei Kanuha is Assistant Professor, University of Hawai'i
at Manoa, School of Social Work.
[1] Moane, Geraldine (1966). Gender and colonialism:
A psychological analysis of oppression and liberation. New York:
St. Martin's Press.
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