It’s easy to feel overwhelmed at times by how much we still have to do regarding women’s rights. Rights that have been won are taken away from us, or we keep fighting for things that we no longer hope will ever happen. It is then worth remembering that the fight for those rights has been going on for a long time. And that history often repeats itself – issues that were discussed decades ago may suddenly turn out to be crucial today. And then it can help to be familiar with the writings of the women who have already been through it.
The Penguin Book of Feminism, however, it is not another Eurocentric anthology of feminist thought. Our “white” feminism (as it is more and more often referred to) often excludes women from outside the US and Europe from the discourse, and even suggests that the only way to improve their situation is to follow the path of white women. But it’s not true. Because we really have a lot to learn from, for example, feminists from Southeast and East Asia.
The oldest text from that corner of the world that you will find in the anthology is an 1882 essay by Tarabai Shinde, an Indian feminist who rebelled against casteism. Her essay, A Comparison Between Women and Men it is often considered the first Indian feminist text. Shinde found the source of the low position of women in Hindu sacred texts – and so her views would likely be controversial today in a country where nationalist voices are growing stronger. In the featured fragment you will also read about the restrictive custom that forbade widows from remarrying, about the patriarchy and exploitation of women at home and about everyday violence against women on many levels.
I am extremely happy that the anthology also includes a fragment of Toshiko Kishida’s essay, Daughters in Boxes, which was the inspiration for the title of Kwiatów w pudełku (Flowers in a box). Kishida writes that young women are often called “daughters in boxes” because “they may have arms and legs and a voice, but it’s all for nothing because their freedom is limited.” She points out that such boxes are created only for daughters, never for sons. And he suggests that instead of limiting the freedom of girls, we should different prepare boxes for them, in which we will put, for example, a good education.
Another important text is a fragment of The High Caste Hindu Woman by Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati from 1887, an Indian feminist and women’s rights activist. She writes about the pressure that is put on women to give birth to sons, about how they are victims of violence from their husbands for giving birth to daughters.
You can compare it with Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s 1905 novella, Sultana’s Dream – which is a science-fiction novella! – in which women have full rights and power, and men live hidden at home. The women-scientists invented robots that cultivate the land without their effort, there are no more wars in the world (because men were responsible for them), and the working day lasts only two hours. It was first published in The Indian Ladies Magazine.
The anthology also includes a poem by Chinese feminist Qiu Jin; an essay on women’s education in India by Sarojini Naidu; a famous 1942 essay by Chinese writer Ding Ling in which she criticized the Communist Party’s approach to women; and a text by Pakistani politician Jahan Ara Shahnawaz.
Of course, you can also read a whole range of key texts for the development of feminism in the US and Europe, texts by Virginia Wolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, Betty Friedan, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Angela Davies, Toni Morrison and bell hooks.
I encourage you to focus on chapters and passages that add a different perspective to white-dominated feminism: you will find an excerpt from the great Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi; a poem by the Iranian poet Fatemeh Shams or the Tunisian Amal Moussa; a text by the Kenyan activist Wangari Muta Maathai; texts from Egypt by Arwa Salih and Nawal El Sadaawi. You can also read a fragment of the writings of Fadwa Tuqan from Palestine and Mariama Bâ from Senegal. And then, I hope, you will continue your own exploration of the different voices and experiences of women around the world.
There are no reviews yet.