Ann L. Stoler
(1949-Present, United States)
Anne L. Stoler is a feminist anthropologist who showed there are different social statuses and power relationships within the category of women. Her article, "Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures", revealed a mechanism where privileged women can oppress poor women and men by simply following dominant social systems. Stoler examined European colonialism in Asia including the areas of contemporary India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Her examples of European colonialists included the Dutch, French and British. Stoler claimed that European women in colonies had two contrasting roles regarding their social status. They were oppressed by European men and also they oppressed indigenous people. The following description details this dynamic.
Stoler claimed that European colonialism was based on racial differences between whites and non-whites. The colonialists justified their prestige by defining themselves as a superior race compared to colonized people, who usually had darker skin. Although this racial distinction was useful for creating colonial authority, there was a pitfall in this system---the existence of mixed race children between European men and local women. Colonial administrations saw mixed-race children as a serious problem because their existence would blur the distinction between the superior and inferior races.
According to Stoler, European colonialism made profits from a particular economic system, where indigenous women lived in European men’s house doing domestic work. The use of local women kept wages low and also provided colonialists a way to control local economy and legal rights. Until the 20th century, colonial administrations were often hesitant to let European women live in colonies because the administrations believed that women would create a class of poor whites and would damage European prestige. Because of this political consideration, many European colonists were single men and they tended to generate mixed-race children with indigenous women living in their houses. Since these mixed-race children were illegitimate, they lived in poor circumstances outside of indigenous communities or became orphans. Colonial administrations considered these fair-skinned children as a danger that would undermine the basis of European colonialism.
In the early twentieth-century, European women were introduced to colonies in order to keep European men from generating mixed-race children. These women were controlled with strict rules that would benefit European colonialism. As wives of European men in colonies, they were responsible for watching their husbands to assure that they would not have contacts with indigenous women. European women fulfilled this responsibility by providing a happy family life for their husbands. In order to run a European household in the colonies, colonial European women were trained with detailed instructions about cleaning, cooking, childrearing and employer-servant relationships . They also made efforts to prevent their children from taking on customs and ideas of local culture. The ultimate purpose of these rules was to enforce racial and class distinctions between European colonists and native people. To achieve this goal, European women in colonies often created organizations to preserve European lifestyle and thought in colonies.
Stoler’s research reveals that European women in colonies had two contrasting roles: the oppressed and the oppressor. They were subject to strict rules that were aimed at providing a happy family life for men. In this sense, they were oppressed by this unbalanced gender relationship. At the same time, the same women contributed to European colonialism by actively enforcing racial segregation. In this sense, they oppressed indigenous people who otherwise would have had more freedom and self-determination.
Source:
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McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms. 2004 Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. New York: McGraw Hill.