Student’s Name

Instructor’s Name

School’s Affiliation

Date

Sexual Politics Essay

Introduction

Colonization and its related practices has had severe consequences on feminist

movements in many regions since colonial eras to date. Generally, colonial powers utilized

violence and oppression to instill fear in their subjects, and upon the fear was established

colonial reigns. These practices have had severe consequences on the colonized subjects' male

and female populations and had implications for their culture, beliefs, and normality of life.

Colonial practices such as gender coloniality, violence and exploitation, and domestic labor

commodification severely affected social beliefs such as feminism.

Gender Coloniality

The colonialization of Americans and the Caribbean occurred during an era when the

dichotomous hierarchy amongst human and non-human was applied on the colonial subjects

serving the Western man. The colonization went along with other dichotomous hierarchical

distinctions amongst individuals; these distinction became a human mark and a mark of

civilization (Lugones, 2010, Pg. 743). Only civilized individuals were classified as men and

women, whereas the native indigenous people of America and enslaved Africans were classified

as non human. These individuals were classified as non-human and hence considered animals,
wildly sexual, and harsh. On the other hand, the modern European (civilized) man was deemed

fit to rule public and political life. The European man was viewed as a model of civilization,

heterosexual, religious, and intelligent. Additionally, the European woman was not considered a

man's compliment but the mother of race and capital. The foisting of these dichotomous

hierarchies became incorporated into the historical authenticity of relations, entailing intimate

relations. Nonetheless, the gender colonization analogy had one significant semantic

consequence: "colonized woman" is non-existent; no women are colonized, or rather no

colonized females are women.

In the first modernity, the colonized became subjects of colonial institutions and the

pressures from brutal foisting of modernity, colonial and gender systems. Also, the hierarchical

dichotomy as a human mark became a normative tool to damn the colonized. The behaviors and

personalities of the colonized were judged as unhuman hence non-gendered, immoral, absurd

sexual, and wicked. Although during this period, sex was not conceptualized as dimorphous,

animals were only categorized as male and female, with the male being the perfection whereas

the female the opposite and distortion of the male. Therefore, the colonized humans were not

categorized as men and women since they were not civilized and instead referred to as male and

female (Lugones, 2010, Pg. 744). When analyzing about sexual and construction of gender

distinctions of the colonized societies, results from observations of labor division according to

sex are evaluated (Fraser, 2007, Pg. 24). Such analysis gives inseparability of sex and gender

characteristics. The "mission" of colonial civilization was a euphemistic mask of brutal

exploitation of peoples' bodies, violent sexual exploitation, especially of women, reproduction

control, and systemic terror, for example, feeding people live to dogs or making pouches and
hats from the vagina of brutally killed indigenous women (Lugones, 2010, Pg. 744). This made it

difficult for the colonial subjects to air their concerns, for example, feminism campaigns.

The civilization of the colonial subjects justified total colonization, that is, memory

colonization, people's senses of self-colonization, the colonization of their relation to religious

beliefs, to the very fabric of their conceptualization of reality, identity, and social, ecological,

and cosmological organization (Lugones, 2010, Pg. 745). Therefore, religion became a crucial

instrument for ensuring the transformation of individuals. The civilization transformations were

intent on erasing the indigenous population's initial lifestyle and organizations and instilling new

perceptions of viewing things. The success of the civilization of the colonial subjects will mean

paralyzing all the initial ideologies they withheld, such as feminism.

Gendered violence and exploitation

Also, colonial rule was highly characterized by gendered violence, oppression, and

exploitation that significantly diminished the spirit of feminism among women. The author

incorporates a fictional story whose inspiration was drawn from an actual one that underwent

unabated colonization and destruction moments of native peoples' land and homes as the

colonizers settled. Therefore as Goeman's (2017, Pg. 100) narrative is fictional, the descriptions

of gendered and sexualized processes of colonization incorporated in the tale are, however, non-

fictional and represent non-fictional communities around bordering waters between Canada and

the United States.

In the tale, the author depicts the social violence and oppression of women at large in the

non-fictional community. To represent the violence against women within the community, the

author uses three female figures, Angela, Hanna, and Loretta, a daughter, mother, and
grandmother, respectively, who not only depicts the violent instances but also reveal the

connections between violence and colonization (Goeman, 2017, Pg. 100). The events of violence

generally on the societal women brought about structures of dispossession, subjugation, culture

erasure, political rights oppression, and land theft. In addition, the pain inflicted on individual

indigenous women from instances of brutal attacks and general acts of violence on the women's

bodies affected the women by leaving scars on them. Also, the violence acted as conduits of

possible violence that reinforced the settler structures of violence and oppression to the

community, not specifically on women.

The colonial rule imposed far-reaching physical and sexual abuse by repeatedly

molesting and raping women from the indigenous communities. Such acts of molestation not

only inflicted psychological torture on the victims' minds but also caused lots of physical injuries

leaving scars on victims' bodies. For instance, Angel's foster mother informs her of the instance

she asked Hannah to undress. Upon undressing, it was realized that Hannah's skin was

extensively scared. In addition, there were scorches and cuts, as if someone had handwritten on

her the signatures of torture (Goeman, 2017, Pg. 103). The bodies of native women often

provided the documentation of gendered forms of violence as the women became marked via

colonial dispossession and sex work, acts that opened them to increased levels of violence and

death targeting. Such abuses resulted in many of the native women getting displaced to other

places to run for their safety. For example, Angel's displacement, like other indigenous children,

resulted from the state in particular colonial actions, imposing domesticity through policy and

other forms such as violence. The movement of the native women from their original lands due

to violence resulted in native Diasporas. Native diasporas entailed individuals traveling out of

their community and getting lost in other communities, hence living as runaways in the new
communities. Living as runaways in new communities will mean surrendering one's culture and

beliefs, such as feminism, and camouflaging in the new community.

Upon applying native feminist praxis that integrated humans, non-humans, and their land

in interdependent relations, ideas about various scales of social justice spark up. The scales take

three forms, individual bodies, the collective body, which is the community, and the most

significant scale of the three, the national bodies. It is the violent exploitation of these scalar

forms by colonialists that indigenous bodies are made absent. Colonial control exertion over

space as a social process brings all the scales together rather than thinking of them as

disconnected.

Feminine domestic labor commodification

From the colonial era, cheap and effective labor was sourced from underdeveloped states

and transported to superior foreign states where they could provide their labor for small and

unreasonable income. This labor force specifically targeted Muslim and non-western women due

to the nature of occupation in the foreign states. The works mainly entailed domestic care in

different sectors; private households, hospitals, and cleaning activities. Therefore, Muslim and

non-western migrant women are therefore most hired in the famously known social reproduction

sector in economically advanced states.

In the Netherlands, the chores of an alpha helper, an individual caregiver working

directly with the elderly or reliant persons such as young children, were initially established in

1977. Accommodating alpha-helpers in households was introduced to increase Dutch women's

productivity in other sectors because their salaries originally only complimented their dominant

male counterparts in the households. The occupation of an alpha-helper was therefore tax-
exempted; however, without a set minimum pay and insurance benefits to encourage households

to obtain the helpers. Additionally, provisions were set to allow for in-house and hourly basis

employment of the helpers. With these provisions, female household helpers' employment rate

escalated to more than a million migrants employed in low-skill, low-paid, and unregulated jobs.

Similar to the Dutch and other European states, Muslim and non-western migrant women

and those from other minority groups are over-represented in social and household sectors.

Despite France being among Europe’s countries with escalated rates of ladies' economic

activities, the translation has yet to be witnessed in unbiased division of care and domestic work

between genders. To address the problem, schemes have been deployed to simplify the

procedures and decrease costs attached to outsourcing social work to paid employees. Such

schemes included the introduction of cheque employ-service universel (CESU; universal service

of employment through checks) to ease the French citizens' constraints in accessing paid

domestic services (Faris & R., 2017, Pg. 161). Under the CESU scheme's provisions, households

could hire domestic workers by paying them with checks that could be purchased at local banks.

With such conditions, employers highly benefited from the schemes as they could claim income

tax reductions of up to 50% on the costs, whereas the laborers received a national minimum

wage.

Further, policies were developed to allow for the hiring of domestic labor through private

companies and not only dependent on direct private employment. The private companies offered

services not different from private laborers, and extended to nonprofit associations providing

care for the aged and children. In either case, through direct employment or private companies,

the CESU policies remained the key creator of jobs. The changes in policies did not challenge

the fact that domestic chores were delegated to unpaid feminine occupations. The policies only
reinforced class, ethnic or nationality segregations centered on households' varried access to

commodified labor.

In Italy, non-western migrant women became so crucial to Italian households, and the

number of migrant alpha-helpers escalated due to the insufficiency of public care services and

escalated expences of private care. Equally, outsourcing care chores to migrant women allows

Italian households to have a family model and a gender-based division of labor. The migrant

labor is also cheap, considering that they work for longer hours for meager salaries, enabling

households or employers to save money.

Continued dependence on migrant laborers resulted in flooding foreign populations in

these developed states, necessitating immigration policies to check the continuous flow of

foreigners into these states. However, despite the harsh immigration restrictions, organizations

still declared their support for the regularization to allow for women's infiltration into these

states, for they were believed to carry out duties of high social importance (Faris & R., 2017, Pg.

164). It is evident from such organizational support for infiltrating women's labor into states,

even against immigration policies, that these organizations are willing to play blind to

undocumented migrants if they are women seeking employment in care and domestic sector.

Generally, colonialism set the foundation for outsourcing cheap labor from

underdeveloped zones to well-economically established states. The practices are then further

propagated by respective governments to these developed states through cash supplies and tax

exemptions, encouraging the development of "commodification" social services, which are

provided mainly by Muslim and non-western migrant women. The increased rate of native-born

women's involvement in better-off occupation necessitates them to look for gender-acceptable

substitutes for themselves in household chores. For this reason, Muslim and non-western
migrants do not receive equal treatment compared to their male counterparts since the former are

only entitled to house chores, thereby diminishing the feminist spirit. These household helpers

ensure they maintain the well-being of Western Europe households and individuals. They

provide conditions that allow Western European women to undo gender restrictions that tie

women to household chores by substituting them for household duties. Hence, the household

helpers allow the former to participate in the productive labor market and contribute to child

education and the general welfare of the elderly. It is, however, awful that the same individuals

who have proven to be contributing to the success of the female labor force of these developed

states are being mistreated and offered minimum national wages.

Conclusion

Colonization has had adverse effects on the spirit of feminism in different ways. These

include gender coloniality, gender violence, exploitation, and feminine domestic labor

commodification. It is so awful that its effects, such as violence and labor commodification, are

still felt even after colonization ended. In gender coloniality, dichotomous hierarchical

distinctions were highly employed in separating men and women. The gender distinction systems

became a human mark and a mark of civilization, a civilization accompanied by lots of

oppression of colonial subjects. In this gender coloniality, only civilized individuals were

considered men and women, whereas the uncivilized ones, specifically from native communities,

were deemed male or female.

Nonetheless, in gender coloniality, the "colonized woman" is an empty category, or in other

terms, no colonized females are women, an analogy that significantly impacted the native

feminism spirit. Also, the colonization was highly characterized by violent acts against the

female figure via rape and molestation practices. These violent practices highly affected the
women psychologically and physically, especially when signings were made on their bodies to

compel their counterparts to surrender their ancestral lands. The violent acts further led to the

displacement of the native women into other communities to escape from violent afflictions.

These displacements significantly impacted personal beliefs such as feminism since blending

into the other community will entail dropping one's culture and beliefs. Lastly, colonization

resulted in domestic labor commodification, where cheap or even unpaid labor was outsourced

from native communities. Unfortunately, these practices were propagated even after the

abolishment of colonization practices. Currently, the developed states are supplied by cheap

unskilled labor from Muslim and non-western women to attend to their low-paid unregulated

jobs.
 Works Cited

Faris, Sara R. “The Rise of Femonationalism.” In the Name of Women's Rights, 2017.

Fraser, Nancy. Feminist Politics in the Age of Recognition, vol. 1, no. 1, 2007, pp. 24–35.

Goeman, Mishuana R. “Gendered Violence and Resource Exploitation.” Ongoing Storms and

Sruggles, 2017, pp. 100–126.

Lugones, Maria. “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Vol. 25, no. 4, 2010, pp. 743–759.