Growing up in a kiwi society but an Indian household was a struggle growing up. Even though my parents adapted to the lifestyle the values stayed the same.
I recently found a poet whose work really inspired and related to me. Not only is she Indian she also talks about breaking out of the pressure created by Indian parents and creating your own identity influenced by a constantly developing European country and the values our parents have instilled in us.
Rupi Kaur is very talented and it is a very influential young person.
It made me become aware of how much of an impact a piece of poetry or art can help. I always saw how much mainstream media influenced and affected our views but i didn't realise such artistic forms of media were able to influence us and to actually help to relate and feel a sense of unity. Rupi Kaur's work is heavily influenced by feminism but it goes more into detail about how Indian women in particular struggle with achieving equal rights.
People often look at oppressive institutions individually but racism and sexism are very closely connected.
We tend to look at other issues such as sexism but forget how race can change the experience of individuals and create different issues depending on the person and their culture.
As Indian girls till this day, we are oppressed not just my males but also by individuals older than us. This is a form of respect as elders are deemed to be more educated and being outspoken towards them can express that you think you are more educated and are rebelling. Oppression is not so much to do with gender in Indian culture but anyone that is older than yourself. This shows that organizations and forces from outside the culture and religion, when trying to fix gender equality may be looking at areas that aren't because by gender inequality but by other factors such as morals and teachings (respect to your elders)
That's why it's really important that we don't separate these issues but realise they are connected as each individual is a different race and sex. 'Mainstream Feminism' in my opinion is only centered around the white women's struggles.
I agree with you on this. Gender relations are definitely different in each culture. For me to say I experience sexism the same way you experience it, would definitely be inaccurate, because I (as a Maori) have no idea how you experience it all. Race and sex are related and we shouldn't look at one without the other or atleast understand that there is a relationship between the two.
ReplyDeleteI think feminism is as Eurocentric as all mainstream movements and there is a definite smothering of non-white voices trying to address their intersectional experience of marginalization. I often have this conversation with friends around how women can have both shared and entirely different experiences of oppression, and how usually we focus on the commonalities in order to have some sort of 'united front'. I guess this is almost like strategic essentialism: the bolstering of certain shared experiences or qualities for progressive purpose. But this united front doesn't put enough emphasis on catering for those outside of 'western' systems of being. It is only now that feminism is addressing the issues of LGBTQ people, and I think that the same is beginning to happen for women of colour. The hope is that we can share influence to maximize success and safety for all women, but this may not fall into the role of mainstream feminist dialogue- perhaps it is planted too firmly in Eurocentric histories. I think intersectionality and layered stratification according to class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality should be more widely discussed and recognized.
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