Spivak\u2019s argument rises out of a specific period of feminism that has certain concerns about the goals of feminism as a singular movement and its lack of inclusivity. Spivak, along with many feminist who identified with non-Western countries, began to feel that the idea of sisterhood among women, an idea that was prominent during the second wave, did not acknowledge the experiences of many non-Western women. Spivak\u2019s argument that feminism and post-colonialism cannot exist together, then, stems from a very specific definition of feminism, that does not completely match feminism as it is understood today. The Transnational and then Third World feminist movements sought to account for this gap in the needs and experiences of the generally middle class, western, white women who dominated the feminist movement during the second wave and different needs and experiences of women of the global south. The popular feminism of today still struggles with issues of inclusivity, with the needs of non-white and non-western women often not being adequately or fairly represented. However, the problems that Spivak is acknowledging is one that is actively being tackled within feminism.<\/p>\n
What does this mean, then, for Jane Eyre<\/em>? I\u2019m not entirely sure. Victorian women, in a way, were an origin point for the shoving aside the needs of non-white and non-western women for their own gain. During the period of British imperialism, particularly the colonization of India, Victorian women used the poor conditions and treatment of Indian women to advance their own conditions and treatment. If the uncivilized Indian women are subject to any variety of subjugating conditions, the argument went, civilized and sophisticated English women should clearly be above such savage treatment. Is this in a way what is going on in Jane Eyre<\/em>? Is Jane\u2019s feminist-ness being advanced in comparison to the savage-ness of Bertha? In a way, I guess so. But also, I feel like it\u2019s still more complicated than that. But I think at its heart that is what Spivak was calling for. Post-colonialism and feminism are both incredibly complex areas of study that involve considering many different perspectives, while not valuing one perspective over another. Does Jane Eyre encourage us to value Jane\u2019s perspective over Bertha\u2019s? Perhaps. But, can we, in 2017, read Jane Eyre in a way that values Jane and Bertha\u2019s perspectives equally? I think so. In fact, I think we are already trying to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spivak\u2019s argument rises out of a specific period of feminism that has certain concerns about the goals of feminism as a singular movement and its lack of inclusivity. Spivak, along with many feminist who identified with non-Western countries, began to feel that the idea of sisterhood among women, an idea that was prominent during the … Continue reading Jane Eyre, Feminism, and Postcolonialism: It’s Probably More Complicated than That<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138876,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2017","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}