Feminism and a Reply to Grimshaw’s Note

This paper addresses the issue of feminism and Aboriginal women’s involvement within this movement. Specifically this paper addresses the statement made by Pat Grimshaw that:

In our day, we see white women insisting on an equal place in Australian public life. Black women have yet to see even their menfolk attain positions of power and influence in mainstream culture. It is understandable then, in terms of priorities, black women seek to raise the life chances of the whole group. They view the disadvantage of race and class before the disadvantage of sex.1

In replying to this statement it should be made clear that this paper is a conglomeration of ideas and discussions between the author and several Aboriginal women: Jackie Huggins, Lisa Bellear, Eva Johnson and Aunty Kitty Kennedy. Due to this fact it is impossible to separate whose ideas were whose, so appropriate recognition is given were possible, otherwise it should be noted that this paper is a combination of all these women, including myself, and therefore multiple recognition given.

It is my experience as an Aboriginal woman that white feminist movements mean very little to my black kin. The argument is often raised by these white women ‘that Aboriginal women simply have to understand and recognise that they are oppressed by their black men’. I join my Aboriginal sisters and smile. Sexism is not the worst thing we have to face; racism is! Their words say it all, somewhere in their rhetoric, usually during their attempted persuading argument, racist language creeps in. Aboriginal people face racism on an hourly basis from a dominant white society. Aboriginal people also know that, if our nation is to survive, we must combat racism above all else.

It is the purpose of this paper to examine this assertion and it will argue that because both male and female Aboriginals face the same racist oppression and are fighting for the same cause regardless of gender classification—white feminist movements are irrelevant. Not only are they irrelevant but they are frequently viewed as one of the weapons of oppression, further trying to divide an already oppressed minority by creating rivalry and infighting. Sadly, however, Aboriginal men are now sexist towards Aboriginal women. Although this gender oppression, along with diseases like, domestic violence, child abuse, and alcoholism, is learnt behaviour—learnt from the white dominant invader society2—it can be redressed.

One of the first things that should be noted is the difference in language used by the two different cultures. The dominant white society uses the ‘I’ context, whereby they perceive everything from its effect on them personally. Aboriginal society, however, uses the ‘We’ context—that is, they perceive things from a group perspective.3 Even the government uses the ‘I’ notion, forgetting that Aboriginal people are defined by their culture as a ‘We’ people. White feminists claim to be working for the good of all women but in fact they are working only for white women. Australia proudly boasts that it was the second nation to give women the vote4 but this boast is a lie, as it ignores the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women did not gain the right to vote in Queensland and Western Australia until 1962.

What is more important, as Oldfield states, is that:

There was no reaction from the [white] women about the special exclusion of Aboriginal women who did not have votes in their own state, just as there had been no concern shown during the campaigns of the voting rights, or plights, of Aboriginal woman in any colony.5

She also notes the hostility shown towards and lack of Aboriginal women in the suffrage societies. One society spelt this out plainly stating at its 1896 annual meeting that ‘we are always prepared to accept the hand of all white women in membership, irrespective of wealth or standing’ (my emphasis).6 Most white women were insulated by their urban lifestyle and were either unaware or chose to ignore the horrific racial and sexual denigration being perpetrated against black women by white men during this era and which continues today.

Clearly in this case white women were only interested in the plight and advancement of only white women, they actively suppressed the black women. The passage of time has changed little, more recently some feminists openly admit that they are trying to destroy other cultures in the process. When Aboriginal women warned feminists (in 1981) that racism lurked just below the surface of their movement, one of their members, Pam Stein, replied as follows:

Certainly as a radical feminist, I am trying to destroy black cultures—if they keep trying to uphold the cultures of patriarchy … I am racist to the extent that I believe there are two races—women and men, and I hate the men who are destroying our race … [women] should be analysing this and eliminating our murderers.7

Evidently Stein has a racial problem but she also clearly has a gender problem. Aboriginal women agree with her that Aboriginal men have learnt how to oppress Aboriginal women, but to advocate ‘destroying’ Aboriginal men is clearly ridiculous.’8

Where once Aboriginal women were encouraged to work by both black and white men, now due to training and educational skills these same women are viewed as a threat. For Aboriginal men they are competitors for prestige jobs—on many of the new Aboriginal orientated Government organisations—and are therefore targeted. Clearly it is for women at the top level positions that both black and white men reserve their most vehement sexism.

It is OK for black women to speak out and be counted at a community level—as will be seen is advocated by Lindain—but they are considered to be ‘getting above themselves’ if they reach the pinnacle of the business world. Black men have become uncomfortable with black women at the top. Pat O’Shane clarifies this:

It’s not easy being a black woman at the top of a white bureaucracy. The hardest part has been dealing with chauvinist males (mostly black), who are threatened by a woman having this much power.9

I hasten to add not as an excuse but as a possible explanation that black men and women jointly compete for these Aboriginal-designated ‘crumbs’ that the white men throw their way. They do not compete against white women and white men would never allow them to compete against him for such a position.

During a lecture at the University of Queensland, ‘Gender Relations in Australian History’, 9 August 1993, the guest lecturer, Jackie Huggins, stated that she preferred the term ‘tiddaism’ to ‘feminism’ for Australia’s black feminists. This I wholeheartedly endorse as I can never be a feminist—for to be one is to exclude my equally oppressed black brothers—but as tiddaism (tidda means sister) is sisterhood in an Aboriginal sense it cannot exclude/deny my brothers and their plight. Other Aboriginal women obviously agree with this assertion as can be seen by these statements.

Hilary Saunders, in 1975:

Women’s liberation has played a major part in bringing about a certain form of awareness in black Women but we must not less [let] this awareness go too far. We are race of people who have suffered many injustices, we are fighting for self-determination. Women must play a large part in this yet we can only hope to achieve this as one people not a race of men, nor a race of women but of black People United.10

Vi Stanton, 1977:

I can’t get interested in women’s liberation. To me, as an Aboriginal, it’s not relevant, for the simple reason that our whole people have to be liberated. I don’t consider that we split forces here, between women and men. I can only identify with the idea of lib. [sic.] for the whole people.11

Another anonymous Aboriginal woman, 1975:

I have to say this, the black movement will not be divided by the white feminist movement, particularly the white elitist [sic.] feminists. The black movement will not be divided by the reactionary politics of white feminist movement in Australia is trying to put over.12

Prior to the white invasion Aboriginal women were and still are equal to their menfolk. Liberation from our men will not be necessary if we can liberate the entire Aboriginal population from the white racist community, thereby eliminating their negative influences on our men, young and old.

As one fellow male Aboriginal student stated:

Aboriginal women do not need liberating. White women have been trying to get to where Aboriginal women are for a long time. It is expected that Aboriginal women will have a say in the community, all its affairs and its politics. It is considered abnormal if they don’t, how can you have a consensus if everyone doesn’t have a say, we Aboriginal men know this and expect it. Whereas in white society it is seen the other way, it is abnormal for women to get a say in anything. White women have wanted this for a long time and you Aboriginal women have always had it.13

Aboriginal women in pre-invasion times obtained the most sustainable food supplies, had their own initiation and spiritual ceremonies, decided what they did and where they went in their daily activities and were politically active.14 The sexual division of labour in pre-invasion Aboriginal society did not mean that women were sexually oppressed. It is true that in most parts of Australia, Aboriginal men did the ‘public’ proclaiming of decisions but these decisions were always reached by consensus with all interested members of the group—regardless of gender-participating. It should be remembered that:

anthropology is the study of man by man … one gets a male perspective … That anthropology is heavily sexist has been pointed out by many women anthropologists.15

O’Shane goes on to state:

That anthropology is also heavily racist appears to me self-evident.16

For example, Aborigines were classed as ‘savages’ or ‘primitive’ with a ‘primitive’ culture. By whose standards? Who states that ‘white’ Anglo-Saxon culture is the best yardstick by which all other cultures should be measured?

For Aboriginal people oppression is a racial struggle that is perpetuated by all classes and genders of non-Aboriginal Australia. Before any union of non-Aboriginal women and Aboriginal women can take place all must look inward and discover, uncover and disintegrate the racism that lurks there.17 Throughout Australia’s violent history, Australia has always been segregated by colour.

White Anglo-Saxons were and still are on top of the class ladder, and because white Australian society is also sexist, men are more likely to be given the opportunities to be at the top. Black Aboriginal people have not existed, except as a slave type of class—with one exception, the white ‘bosses’ didn’t have to pay for them. As Huggins states:

No degree of patriarchal bonding between white male colonists and Aboriginal men overshadowed white racial imperialism. In fact, white racial imperialism granted to all white women, however victimised by sexist oppression the right to assume the role of oppressor in relationship to black women and black men.18

White feminism is not a classless society, as they would have you believe that they are. Feminism does not cut across all class boundaries—different groups of feminists have different class interests and allegiances. Each of these feminist classes, like party politics, do not cross the floor—unless under extreme duress or it is extremely profitable for them to do so—to unite with another faction and. for all classes. Aboriginal women are the ‘untouchables’. ‘Unless by having them, it will benefit your cause.’ When it comes to allegiances for ‘white’ classes, ‘money speaks louder than words’.

Therefore, white ruling class men and women unite against a common enemy, anyone who wishes to deprive them of their property, profits, social standing and political allegiances The Eileen Bonds of Australia have nothing in common with Aboriginal Australia, but they perceive that they have everything to lose to this black society, so they unite in racism to fight it. This without question makes these women oppressors of black women and not their sisters under the banner of feminist sisterhood.19 Huggins succinctly points out this centrality of class differences to the feminist equation.

The ruling powers breed and benefit from all forms of discrimination and oppression. Therefore for middle class white women to compare her environmental situation with that of a black, is totally naïve. While white women are fighting to get out of the kitchen, black women are fighting to get into it.20

For some of the present young generation of Aboriginal women this struggle never began. But for the vast majority of Aboriginal women the struggle is to balance retention of Aboriginal culture, keeping the family together,21 whilst fighting economic oppression and racism and trying to master accepted and expected idealistic ‘normal behaviour’ of the whites.22 For some Aboriginal women these latter requirements are perceived to mean the destruction of Aboriginal culture which is not only undesirable but unacceptable. Black women are still expected by their ‘white sisters’ to carry out those domestic chores that the white women are trying to avoid.23 A happy home for an Aboriginal family is an open home where all are welcome but for a white family it is a sanctuary where only a selected and privileged few may enter.

White ruling class women help make the rules of the oppressive interventionist welfare system under which unfortunately most of the Aboriginal population must live. As Pettman states, ‘a central player in all things Aboriginal [is] the state in ways quite different from Australians’.24 In trying to manage ‘the Aboriginal problem’, the state adopted on interventionist policy. Although it is true that the nature, scope and rationale of this policy had changed with the passage of time, it’s aims have not, the destruction of Aboriginal society.

One of the state’s weapons for this interventionist policy was white women, as Pettman states:

Aboriginal women often experience this state in the person of a white woman as health worker, teacher, or social security bureaucrat.25

As most women—when entering the public sphere—enter into areas dealing with the home, family, and social welfare. The exact fields that Aboriginal women are most compelled through necessity to deal with, and it is in this aspect that these two cultures first meet.26 Clearly, here one is dominant (white) and one is supposedly the client, therefore submissive (black). As can be seen, white women are therefore part of the racial problem because they try to impose their own gendered ideas onto the black society. Sykes adds another dimension to this privileged position, with statements like:

Whites—and increasing numbers of white women—jealously guard positions of authority determining which of the blacks will be offered which educational employment tit-bit.27

They interfere in almost every aspect of an Aboriginal woman’s life. Thereby breaking down the support processes within Aboriginal society. ‘Traditionally’, brothers, fathers, uncles and sometimes sons all intervened in family and domestic disputes, thereby preventing the outrageous physical violence which is a pattern of today’s society.28

However, with today’s travel (and white interference—that is, nuclear families) this intervention process is breaking down. There are few Aboriginal people who do not develop a kin relationship both male and female and therefore an extended family wherever they live. The older the female, the greater the respect—it must however be earned—for it is the Aboriginal women who are the backbone of the Aboriginal nations. We bear the children, for without us there would be no Aboriginal ‘race’.

It is well recognised that it is mostly the black women of Australia whom are the activists, today. This is due some argue to Aboriginal men being less able to accommodate the changes that the white invaders demanded him to make.29 Aboriginal women were not seen as a threat to the white male dominant society. Aboriginal women were often taken at a young age and trained to be submissive to both white men and women—usually be missionaries—and then returned to their societies to be used as a weapon against them.30

The Aboriginal man’s spiritual and economic power base was undermined by this process rendering him impotent within the Aboriginal society and ill-equipped to handle the ‘white’ society.

To my knowledge it is not usual practice for enemies to join forces to fight the enemies of only one side, and white ruling class or middle class women are as assuredly the enemies of black Australia as their menfolk are. Until they combat, check and at least destroy the outward manifestation of racism.31 There can never be a complete truce and an end to hostilities. There will never be a winner or loser, for both sides will gain from the end of racial hostilities, as the end of racial hostilities will inevitably mean the realisation that sexual hostilities is part of racism.

This is not to say that both white and black women cannot work together on some common issues, as we can.32 But until white women realise that their oppression is not the same, equivalent to, or even resembles, the oppression and racism that all black Australians experiences daily—and that in fact some of them are part of the problem—nothing substantial can be achieved.33For instance, one example—the white woman who blames black men is missing the essence of the problem which is the people who run this racist, sexist and such-like society—the ruling class.

Aboriginal women do not need liberating from their men. It is Aboriginal Australia that needs liberating from a racist and dominant white Australia (both male and female), so that both black and white women can obtain their desired freedom from the oppressive white men of Australia.

As Jackie Huggins states:

What is holding black men back is the same thing that holds back their black mates: the white power structure. In other words, the main oppressor is a class society.34

Most Aboriginal women believe:

Without question, it is easier for a black woman to consider herself firstly a human being, secondly an Aborigine and only thirdly a member of the female sex.35

An end to paternalistic racism will as, a long term result, mean the end to paternalistic sexism, thereby liberating our ‘white’ sisters. It seems quite logical that if a group of people who are categorised as having a class definition below that of white Australian women achieve benefits that are superior to those of these white women, then those same said white women’s status and class will rise and through this rise (due to necessity) sexism will decline. By Aboriginal women raising the status and life chances of the whole Aboriginal group we will without question raise the status and life chances of our white sisters.

Aboriginal people due to their culture are a group (we) people and white people due to their culture are an individual (I) people. Therefore culturally and naturally Aboriginal women will try to raise the life chances of the whole—this will if the opportunities arise include their white sisters.

White women are just as guilty of racism as white men are of both racism and sexism. Aboriginal women do not see the sense of liberating themselves from sexism (an invaders pleasure) when they must still then live under the more horrific oppression of racism. The desires, aims and goals of white feminism do not match the desires, aims and necessities of ‘black Tiddaism’. These two paths may cross and unite for short intervals, but until racism is destroyed, sexism will remain as a part of every woman’s life.36

Notes

1 · Grimshaw, P. 1981. ‘Aboriginal Women: A Study of Culture Contact’, in N. Grieve and P. Melbourne (eds), Australian Women: Feminist Perspectives. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, p. 94.

2 · Many historians claim that the frontier is over but this assertion is incorrect. It will not be over until our people no longer die in custody, our children no longer die early deaths, rape of black women and men cease, racial violence stops, land rights are recognised and sovereignty acknowledged. ‘White’ Australia has a very long way to go.

3 · This is a well known aspect of Aboriginal society and, from an Aboriginal perspective, the ‘I’ perspective of ‘white’ society is glaringly obvious.

4 · New Zealand was the first nation to grant women the right to vote. Australia was the second—with voting for women in South Australian in 1894—but it was the first nation (in 1902) to give national ‘white’ female suffrage to the right to stand for the national parliament.

Oldfield, A. Woman Suffrage in Australia, pp. 64–65 Although Aboriginal people were counted as citizens, ‘their right to vote under the same conditions as other Australians was not enacted until 1984’.

Dawson, S. (ed.). 1990. The Penguin Australian Encyclopaedia. Viking Penguin Books, Ringwood, p 522.

Beal, G. 1990. Fact Book of the 20th Century Rainbow Books. London, p. 93

5 · Oldfield, A. Op cit, p. 65.

6 · Oldfield, A. Ibid, p. 65

7 · Oldfield, A. Ibid, p. 65

8 · O’Lincoln, T. 1993. Years of Rage: Social Conflicts in the Fraser Era. Bookmarks, Melbourne, p. 187.

9 · It is a biological fact that both men and women need each other to continue the race. Sperm banks aside—as these are not a finite supply of semen—the human race would become extinct if Stein’s directions were taken literally. Aboriginal women know this and state that the outward manifestation of racism must be destroyed first and then the outward manifestations of sexism will yield to a united front They also know you cannot change the way people think but you can alter the outward manifestations of these thoughts which will eventually teach future generations by example the desired behaviour—as they will not be privy to—by observation—the undesired behaviour.

10 · Huggins, J. 1987. ‘Black Women and Women’s Liberation’, in Hecate, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1987, p. 79.

11 · Grimshaw, A. Op cit, p. 87.

12 · Grimshaw, A. Ibid. p. 87.

13 · Lindian Murphy, fellow Murri student in private conversation, 18 October 1993. This is a male Aboriginal’s perspective of Aboriginal women’s role in Aboriginal society. Lindain has worked in ATSIC for a long lime, interacting with communities on a weekly basis, and is, therefore, I feel, adequately qualified to make this observation, both because of his ‘race’ and work.

14 · Brock, P. (ed.). 1989. Women, Rites and Sites: Aboriginal Women’s Cultural Knowledge. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Flood, J. 1989. Archaeology of the Dreamtime: the story of prehistoric Australia and its people. Collins, Sydney.

Gale, F. 1986. Women’s Role in Aboriginal Society, third edition. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Goodall, H. and Huggins, J., ‘Aboriginal Women Are Everywhere: Contemporary Struggles’, in K. Saunders and R. Evans (eds). 1992. Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Marrickville, pp. 398–924.

Williams, N and Jolly, L., ‘From Time Immemorial?: Gender Relations in Aboriginal Societies Before White Contact’, in K. Saunders and R. Evans, op cit, pp 9–19.

15 · O’Shane, P. 1976. ‘Is There any Relevance in the Women’s Movement for Aboriginal Women?’, in Refractory Girl, No. 12, September 1976, pp. 31–32.

16 · O’Shane, P. Ibid, p. 32.

17 · It is my personal experience, coming from a multicultural family (matrilineal side) and an Aboriginal (patrilineal side), that we all harbour racist thoughts which inevitably present their existence in racial acts. Everyone must guard against such degenerating occurrences and go inward to purge themselves regularly. It is all too easy for dislike, annoyance and hatred for an individual, or group or government act, to become dislike, annoyance, hatred and inevitably racial intolerance for a cultural group Although it is human nature to be own cultural-centric it is a world survival technique to be culturally and racially tolerant. The essence of this statement has also been made by Jackie Huggins, Eva Johnson, Lisa Bellear, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Pat O’Shane.

18 · Huggins, J. Op cit, p. 78.

19 · Huggins, J. Op cit, p. 78.

Larbalestier, J. 1990. ‘The politics of representation: Australian Aboriginal Women and Feminism’, in Anthropological Forum, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 143–152.

20 · Huggins, ‘Black Women and Women’s Liberation’, p. 78.

21 · Aboriginal extended kinship included especially as this can be a means of defence against ‘white’ oppression.’

22 · For most ‘whites’, this implies that Aboriginal women—actually, all Aboriginals—should conform to their perception of exceptional behaviour. In short, ‘assimilation’. They view all behaviour and lifestyles from their own Eurocentric racist culture as if it is the only correct cultural behaviour in the world. Human life has existed too long, in what is now called cultural acceptability, for this behaviour to be considered naive. It can only, therefore, be considered as blatant racism.

23 · To be considered a fit mother in today’s ‘black’ welfare society, ‘whites’ deem that you must keep the house, gardens and children sterilely ordered and disinfectantly clean. Today’s ‘white’ women generally are trying to avoid just these demands, and are demanding the choice to be ‘houseproud or ‘career-orientated’—or both. Yet they are telling Aboriginal women that they are only allowed to be ‘housebound’.

24 · Pettman, J. 1993 ‘Gendered Knowledges. Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism’, in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 33, January 1993, p. 126.

Pettman, J. 1992. Living In the Margins: Racism, Sexism and Feminism in Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, p. 153

25 · Pettman, J. Ibid, p. 126.

26 · Pettman, J. Ibid, p. 126.

27 · O’Shane, P. Op cit, p. 32.

28 · Sykes, B. 1991. ‘Blacks in the Public Sphere’, in Women/Australia/Theory, special issue of Hecate, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1991, p. 51.

29 · This aspect of Aboriginal society can be found in many anthropological books on Aboriginal societies.

30 · Goodall, H and Huggins, J. Op cit, p. 402

31 · Unfortunately, there will always remain some people who will believe in racial superiority, and it is impossible to change the mind of an unwilling participant. But as long as these thoughts do not manifest into actions, Australia, especially Aboriginal Australia, can live with it.

32 · Watson, L. (ed). Sister, Black. Is the Colour of My Soul. Pp. 45–52

Scutt, J. 1987. Different Lives. Penguin Books, Ringwood, p. 51.

33 · Pettman, J. Op cit, p. 121.

34 · Huggins, J. Op cit, p. 79.

35 · Huggins, J. Op cit, p. 81.

36 · This will always be—in its most grotesque forms, like rape and domestic violence—a guilty reminder to the ‘white’ Australian patriarchal society of how racism works.

Bibliography

Books

Attwood, G. 1989. The Making of the Aborigines. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Barker, A. 1992. What Happened When: A Chronology of Australia from 1788. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Beal, G. 1990. Fact Book of the 20th Century. Rainbow Books, London.

Brock, P. (ed.) 1989. Women, Rites and Sites: Aboriginal Women’s Cultural Knowledge. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Dawson, S. 1990. The Penguin Australian Encyclopaedia. Viking, Ringwood.

Evans, R., Saunders, K., and Cronin, K. 1993. Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.

Flood, J. 1989. Archaeology of the Dreamtime: The story of prehistoric Australia and its people. Collins, Sydney.

Gale F. 1986. Women’s Role in Aboriginal Society, third edition. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Goodall, H. and Huggins, J. ‘Aboriginal Women are Everywhere: Contemporary Struggles’. pp 398–924.

Oldfield, A. 1992. Woman Suffrage in Australia: A Gift or a Struggle? Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.

O’Lincoln, T. 1993. Years of Rage: Social Conflicts in the Fraser Era. Bookmarks, Melbourne.

K. Saunders, and R. Evans (eds.). 1992. Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Marrickville.

Articles

Huggins, J. 1987. ‘Black Women and Women’s Liberation’, in Hecate, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1987.

Larbalestier, J. 1990. ‘The Politics of Representation: Australian Aboriginal Women and Feminism, in Anthropological Forum. Vol. 6, No. 2, 1990.

O’Shane, P. 1976. ‘Is There any Relevance in the Women’s Movement for Aboriginal Women?’ in Refractory Girl, No. 12, September 1976.

Pettman, J. 1993. ‘Gendered Knowledges: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism’ in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 33, January 1993.

Williams, N and Jolly, L. ‘From Time Immemorial?: Gender Relations in Aboriginal Societies Before White Contact’.