Relaciones internacionales.indb - HOMINES

WOMEN OF COLOUR: RECONTEXTUALISING ‘OTHERNESS’
Besson and Dirk’s observations form an interesting parallel with Kincaid’s
social criticisms. Kincaid’s story ‘Girl’ illustrates a more traditional approach
to the acceptance and perpetuation of Victorian morals and the
ideal role a woman should play. The strongly satirical tone indicates the
criticism inherent in the writing. The trend of female elders insisting that
girls adjust to the role of ideal wife and mother has changed, however,
and more grandmothers are encouraging their granddaughters to embark
on less traditional and therefore less restrictive positions.
These literary observations, coupled with criticism of the nature of
Western feminism and discourse by cultural commentators such as Chandra
Talpade Mohanty, illustrate the problems incurred by relying too heavily
on Western thought to liberate the subject. Mohanty argues that in
many ways, because of the unidirectional flow of knowledge, Western critics
have enshrined a monolithic ‘“Third World Woman”. She is hemmed
in by a small set of inflexible images of matriarch, virgin, submissive wife,
or veiled woman—similar to the stereotypes feminism [tried to] dismantle
in the West in the 1970s’. 62 Mohanty’s argument intersects with that of
Richard Burton as they both condemn the restrictive enclosure Western or
Eurocentric discourse sets up for colonials in general, and colonial women
in particular. This continues even after the end of European imperialism.
Parts of Mohanty’s criteria are applicable to Caribbean women. Eurocentric
historians and cultural anthropologists, such as Froude and Long, for
example, and also those whom Bush and Hulme counter in their works, often
apply this severely restrictive limitation of representation regardless of
suitability or appropriateness. 63 Engaging with the language of empire and
colonialism, as regards the straitjacketing and ‘Othering’ by stereotypes,
is therefore intricately involved in the process of liberating the subjugated
‘Other’.
Disallowing the Caribbean woman agency is a method of denying her
human status. 64 As Ivette Romero says:
Although women have played an important role in the reconstructing and
passing down of these braids of cultural information, their voices have not
always been legitimized or heard over the din of power’s discourses. 65
This statement is located in one particular part of the Caribbean and does not
propose to be all-encompassing.
62
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and
Colonial Discourse’ in Childs and Williams eds., op. cit. p. 200.
63
James Anthony Froude (1888); Edward Long (1774).
64
See: Bush (1990); See also: Besson (1993).
65
Ivette Romero, ‘Witnessing: Women’s testimonial narrative in the French and
Spanish Caribbean’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Cornell University, 1993),
p.1.
308
Vol. XX, Núm. x - xxxxx de 2005 • HOMINES •