White Womanhood and Religion: Colonial Discourse in the U.S. Women's Missionary Press, 1869-1904

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how an identity of white womanhood was constructed in nineteenth-century women's foreign missionary publications, particularly in relationship to women of other countries. Using a framework of postcolonial feminism, the paper seeks to uncover the discourses of colonialism and to place women at the forefront of this questioning by analyzing how Western white women's writings and communication practices were implicated in the colonial project. The content of three nineteenth-century women's missionary publications is studied with respect to constructions of white womanhood and how this discourse intersects with religion and U.S. colonialism. While content does exhibit colonial structures of discourse and the supremacy of whiteness, it also points to ambivalence and to relationships of affinity among U.S. women and women in other countries. Ultimately, such discourse, while representing the durability of colonial discourse, may also suggest the presence of transnational relationships built against common concerns, such as the valued role of women and the constraints of patriarchy.