Imperialism, colonial discourse and women

Chapter 4 examines the relationship between imperialism, colonial discourse and gender; that is, how women were imagined and valued in the imperial project. Most of the scholars discussed in this chapter were writing at a time when woman's studies was not well-established, transnational feminism was less visible than it is now and feminist theory-work from the Global South was not as well documented as mainstream Western feminism. We will use the term postcolonial in this section to recognise the fact that the ideologies and practices of colonialism are culturally, geographically and historically inconsistent (Loomba, 1998). The term 'postcolonial' recognises that formerly colonised regions share some legacy features but that these differ in relation to class, gender, race and sexuality - among other phenomena. Postcolonial studies seek to uncover and examine colonial relations of domination as well as the legacies of colonialism.