Theory of Postcolonial Feminism
states that feminism also has a strong emphasis on ‘constructedness’ of feminity
that concern with conditioning and socialisation, and how the images and representations of femininity affect literary works and culture. All these
formulations are ways of avoiding the assumption that femininity is universal and unchangeable. According to the feminist criticism in the 1970s, female characters
created by male tend to represent stereotypes of actual women and constructed by patriarchy. These women are fictional women who men think women actually are.
1970s was the period when the critical attention on
mechanisms of patriarchy
took place; it
is the cultural stereotypes ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality Barry, 2002:122.
Female sexuality does not casually exist from the beginning, but it is constructed by experiences and adjustments to particular situations. For instance,
in the nineteenth century fiction, it hardly finds female characters who work for a living unless they are urged by dire necessity. From the example, we learn that
women roles in the family can be changed out of the circumstances they live in. Shulamith Firestone as cited by Rosemarie Tong in
Feminist Thought
argues that women’s sexual passivity comes from emotional, economic and physical
dependence on men, therefore, it is not naturally given Tong, 2009: 133-134. This thesis also uses postcolonial theory along with theory of feminism,
since it discusses the struggle of an Issei widow seen through postcolonial feminist perspective. Postcolonialism concerns about issues of race, nation,
empire, migration, and ethnicity with cultural production. It is one of critical theories which also focus on some specific issues including issues of gender or
feminist criticism Barry, 2002: 198. In the other words, postcolonialism can be compared to concept of patriarchy in feminist thought, which is applicable to the
extent that it indicates man domination over women. Hans Bertens in
The Basics Literary Theory
writes, Postcolonial studies critically analyses the relationship between colonizer
and colonized, from the earliest days of exploration and colonization. It examines how these texts construct the colonizer’s usually masculine
s uperiority and the colonized’s usually effeminate inferiority and in so
doing have legitimated colonization. It is especially attentive to postcolonial attitudes
—attitudes of resistance—on the part of colonized and seeks to understand the nature of the encounter between colonizer and
colonized. Bertens, 2008: 174-175 Moreover, Helen Carr as cited by Loomba says that in the language of
colonialism, non-Europeans occupy the same symbolic place as women and they are not seen as a part of culture but as a nature. Women are depicted as passive,
child-like unsophisticated and as a group of people with no initiative, no intellectual powers and who are outside society. Meanwhile, in the relation with
racial discrimination, Loomba also cites that ‘lower races represent the ‘female’ type of human species, and females the ‘lower race’ of gender’ Loomba, 1998:
159-160. Postcolonial feminism emerges as the response of a perspective that
feminism tends to focus on west women’s experiences. In addition, it also
endeavors to make feminism can be applied to all women around the world. In the other words, postcolonial feminism aids to direct feminism from universality to
individual experience because each woman has different experience out of their culture, race and nation. Ania Loomba in
ColonialismPostcolonialism
also states
that postcoloniality is like patriarchy, it is articulated alongside other economic, social, cultural, and historical factors, therefore, it works quite differently in
practice in various parts of the world Loomba, 1998: 19.