Postcolonial Feminist Research Articles

Towards inclusive gender diversity training – a critical framework

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to design and apply a critical framework for assessing the inclusivity of gender diversity training. The framework combines insights from intersectional feminist and postcolonial feminist theory. It is applied to assess whether and how influential gender diversity training manuals question the (re)production of systems of inequality and promote the recognition of varied lived experiences of women particularly in global workplaces.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research was done in two stages. First, we designed a critical framework consisting of five elements taking inspiration from intersectional and postcolonial feminist theories. Second, we analysed four gender diversity training manuals from prominent international organizations to assess their inclusivity.FindingsWe found that gender diversity training manuals construct a binary understanding of gender, implying that being a woman is a universal experience. Second, the documents take a systemic approach to intersectionality, acknowledging societal systems, but the focus is on oppression as opposed to privilege, obscuring possible complexities of intersecting social categories. Third, the narratives of gender diversity trainings reflect western hegemony in referring to “global norms” and women from the global south.Originality/valueThe paper brings together complex theoretical strands of intersectional and postcolonial feminist theory in the form of a critical framework that can not only be used to assess gender diversity training but also be applied to other gender diversity interventions. Practical suggestions for trainers to develop more inclusive gender diversity trainings are discussed.

Double Marginality, Historical Memory, and Trauma in Uzma Aslam Khan's the Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali: A Trauma Studies Perspective

The study analyses Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali, using the intersections between post colonial feminism and Cathy Caruth's trauma theory to engage with the issues of trauma, historical memory and double marginality to explore the colonial enterprise. It engages Nomi Ali’s experiences and battles as she lives in postcolonial Pakistan, struggling to come to grips with her identity and past traumas. The intergenerational transmission of trauma among women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds is also the focus of this research paper. This research, therefore, investigates how past traumas, oppression, and patriarchy are represented in this novel concerning their distinctive identities and colonial history. It further tries to explore the notion of double marginality through Nomi Ali’s story, where gender, culture, and historical violence meet. The study aims at exploring the historical memory inscribed on an individual and collective identity, besides describing trauma that makes up the part of women who always form a margin in every sphere. It would deepen the understanding of Pakistani literature in English as contributing to the global debate of trauma, memory, and identity.

Women’s Labour in Movement. From Servants and Housewives to Racialised Domestic and Care Workers

This paper examines migrant women’s labour and the location of poor and racialised working women in the context of the contemporary care crisis. In the first part, I briefly reconstruct, the feminist critiques of the Marxist capitalist social (re)production theory and, the Decolonial and Postcolonial feminist criticisms of the Marxist universal model of the capitalist mode of (re)production and its conceptualisation of marginalised and excluded subjects. This analysis sets the ground for understanding the debts and innovations of Marx’s political economy operated by the contemporary theory of care. In the second part, I focus on the embodied and affective experiences of poor, black, brown, and indigenous women to identify concrete mechanisms and relations of exploitation, oppression, and violence produced in the migration process to maintain global care chains. I base my analysis on a review of case studies of Mexican, Indian, and Filipina migrant women. Finally, I highlight the inherent ambivalences of global care chains as a process of both neo-colonial feminisation of migration and reproduction of neoliberal capitalism and as a shared context of struggle and resistance grounded in embodied and affective experiences. Keywords: feminisation of migration, reproductive labour, global care chains, racialized working women

Voices in the Shadows: A Review of Minority Women's Rights in South Asia

This review delves into the systemic marginalization faced by minority women in South Asia, highlighting the complex challenges arising from their gender, ethnicity, religion, and economic status. Even with strong international human rights frameworks such as CEDAW, challenges remain due to deep-rooted social norms, weak institutions, and economic disparities. This paper delves into the ways patriarchal systems, religious nationalism, and caste discrimination intensify the challenges faced by minority women, leading to ongoing violence and marginalization. The study uses frameworks like intersectionality, postcolonial feminism, and institutional theory to pinpoint major obstacles, such as lack of resources and the clash between global standards and local situations. Suggestions involve promoting diverse, tailored strategies and strengthening grassroots advocacy initiatives. The conclusion calls for epistemic justice and a fresh look at rights frameworks, emphasizing the importance of the lived experiences and knowledge of marginalized women to guarantee real protections in South Asia.

Feminine Re-Narrating the Nation in Nawal El Saadawi’s: A Daughter of Isis

This study introduces a postcolonial feminist analysis of Nawal El Saadawi's A Daughter of Isis, focusing on the lived experiences of Egyptian women within the intersections of gender, colonialism, and religion. It examines how patriarchal structures and colonial legacies collectively shape women's roles and identities in Egyptian society. Central to this analysis is El Saadawi's challenge of oppressive cultural and religious traditions, including female genital mutilation and gender-restrictive roles, highlighting women's resistance against systemic inequities. The study explores the strategies employed by women to assert their agency and reshape narratives of national and personal identity amidst patriarchal dominance. Additionally, it critiques El Saadawi's use of autobiography as a tool for resistance, emphasizing the re-narration of history through marginalized voices. By intertwining personal memory with broader socio-political critique, El Saadawi reclaims women's voices, offering a nuanced perspective on identity formation and the quest for justice in a postcolonial context.

Trans Women and/in Sport: Exploring Sport Feminisms to Understand Exclusions

This paper explores past and present conceptual aspects of sport feminisms to understand trans women and/in sport. The adverse treatment of trans sportswomen now runs through governing bodies, sport media, individuals who are in decision-making roles, policy formation, and public social attitude. The move to exclude and/or restrict trans women from sport is apparent at national and international levels and demonstrates shifts in sport policy. The aim of the paper is to explore past and present developments in sport feminism to highlight the value of its dynamism to explain, critique, and challenge the current treatment of trans women athletes. The paper highlights the need to further develop, within sport sociology, a de-colonial transfeminism. De-colonial in this context involves postcolonial feminism, Black feminism, and queer of color critical approaches.

Power, Institutionalisation, and Religion: Gender-Washing as a Tool of Autocratic Control

This article reflects on Rola El-Husseini's critique of the Western double standards concerning women’s rights and religious freedom in her work "Double Standards and Dissonance: Women’s Rights and Freedom of Religion in the Global North." It expands on the concept of "gender-washing," illustrating how both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes exploit gender equality rhetoric for political gains without genuine efforts toward equality. Through examples from Czechoslovakia and contemporary India, the article explores how different ideologies—from Marxism-Leninism to religious nationalism—use women’s rights as a façade while maintaining autocratic control. It also engages with postcolonial feminist critiques of Western universalism.

Challenging Power and Redefining Progress: Arundhati Roy’s Critique of Neoliberalism, Militarization, and Environmental Injustice

Abstract: This study examines how Arundhati Roy critically articulates power dynamics in her groundbreaking writings The Greater Common Good and Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin, offering a thorough analysis of neoliberalism, militarization, and environmental injustice. By dissecting modern development theories, Roy reveals structural oppressive mechanisms that disproportionately affect ecological systems and vulnerable groups. The study shows the complex relationships between economic exploitation, environmental degradation, and social marginalization by critically examining the ways in which corporate interests and state-sponsored policies work together to sustain structural violence. The research examines the rhetorical construction of development via a postcolonial feminist perspective, exposing the systematic commodification of natural resources and the dispossession of indigenous population by neoliberal ideology. Roy’s philosophical intervention highlights grassroots resistance as a transformative political approach and centers the realities of marginalized people, challenging prevailing narratives. Large- scale infrastructure projects, like the Sardar Sarovar Dam, are symbolic representations of modern power structures that put economic expansion ahead of the wellbeing of people and the environment, as the analysis shows. The ethical implications of development theories are critically examined in this study, which adds to larger academic conversations about social resistance, political economy, and environmental justice. Roy’s writing are regarded as an important intellectual critique that reveals the normalized violence present in international capitalism systems and provides substitute ideas of progress, sovereignty, and ecological interdependence.

FEMINISM IN CHARLOTTE BRONTE’S NOVEL “JANE EYRE” AS A HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Jane Eyre, a novel by Charlotte Bronte, is a kind of manifesto of the future feminist movement, its pages refl ecting all the basic feminist demands. In her novel, Charlotte Bronte raised issues of women’s professional self-realization, fi nancial independence, self-suffi ciency in their personal lives, female sexuality and much more. This was, most likely, the fi rst ever example of such a concentrated expression of the ideas of women’s emancipation created before the XX century. As part of the image of her heroine - Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte demonstrated the acceptable female behavior canons transformation that had begun in the Western society. It is not surprising that in the research literature this work of fi ction is often used to study the so-called woman question. Various approaches to this problem, including the popular theory of postcolonial feminism, off er diff erent ways of understanding the role and image of women in the XIX century using the novel as an example. At the same time, in many feminist studies, a certain ambivalence prevails in the assessment of Jane Eyre. On the one hand, the novel is considered a genuine protest against patriarch society and its ideas, on the other hand, it is often perceived as a pre-feminist work, refl ecting the “dualistic” worldview of the author and her heroine, due to the presentation of marriage and family as the main goal of a happy female life and the only possibility of a woman’s emotional satisfaction. As Marianne Hirsch, a feminist historian, put it, this assessment is driven by “reading the past back through our retrospective knowledge of it,” where “the narrator’s general knowledge… of the outcome of a sequence of events is used to evaluate the behavior of the participants in those events, as if they also knew about what’s going to happen”. This approach leads to “negative retrospection,” when modern researchers primarily see “shortcomings” and “gaps” in Charlotte Bronte’s worldview, considering her novel pre-feminist, but not actually feminist. This issue continues to be a fi eld for long and numerous research discussions. This article also uses retrospective analysis. However, it can be designated as a “positive retrospection”, because here the novel text is analyzed not from the position of “incompleteness” in relation to modern feminism, but from the position of “anticipation” of all its main theses and precepts; as a kind of basic text of the feminist movement, containing the rudiments of practically all the feminist claims of diff erent eras and types. The scale of the problems raised in the novel turns out to be so large that it includes, from our point of view, the claims of both the fi rst and all subsequent waves of feminism - right up to the present day.

Identity Negotiation And Resistance In The Short Story 'Rose In The Tiger Canal': A Review Of Feminism Poscocolonial

This study examines the negotiation of identity and female resistance in the short story Mawar di Kanal Macan by Iksaka Banu, focusing on the dual oppression faced by women in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Using a descriptive-analytical method and a postcolonial feminist approach, the research explores how colonial and patriarchal power structures shape women's identities and incite resistance. Drawing on theories of identity, subalternity, and hybridity, the analysis investigates how women in subaltern positions negotiate their identities within dominant power structures. Furthermore, it examines how hybridity and intersectionality create spaces for resistance through both subtle and overt actions. The findings reveal that the main character, Adelheid Ewald, navigates complex identity negotiations due to the intersecting influences of colonial and patriarchal dominance, with resistance manifesting in legal and symbolic forms. These insights contribute to postcolonial feminist discourse in Indonesia, offering a deeper understanding of how women assert their agency despite operating within layered systems of oppression. The study suggests further exploration of other literary works that engage similar themes to expand discussions on identity and resistance in postcolonial societies.

‘Stories have to be told or they die’: A Critique of the Essentialist Paradigms of Female Genital Mutilation and Religion in Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero (1977)

ABSTRACT This study offers a postcolonial feminist reading of Nawal El Saadawi’s novel Woman at Point Zero (1975), examining how the novel addresses essentialist and reductionist narratives of female genital mutilation (FGM), kinship structures and religion in the context of Egypt. The paper argues that through her protagonist, Firdaus, El Saadawi depicts FGM not only as a form of violence against women but also as a symptom of deeper structural oppression rooted in patriarchy, capitalism and the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of religion. The idea is to read the novel as a female Bildungsroman, drawing attention to the specific experiences of Firdaus within a particular historical and socio-cultural background. Drawing on the concepts of intersectionality, power and resistance, the paper examines how Firdaus’s story highlights the multifaceted and context-specific nature of these forces, demonstrating that they do not function autonomously but instead intersect and interrelate in intricate ways, culminating in a distinctive set of conditions that profoundly influence her desires, relationships, identity and experience.

Young people’s lived sexual and reproductive health citizenship: participation and power of youth in Malawi

ABSTRACT This qualitative, focused critical ethnographic study explores how young people’s ‘lived SRH citizenship’ and their active roles realising their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights, shape their agency and participation in decision-making in Malawi. Informed by postcolonial feminist and difference-centred citizenship theories, our findings reveal that age-based power differentials, systems of gerontocracy and a culture of adultism impede bona fide youth involvement in SRH policymaking, making young citizens’ participation more of an illusion than reality. Although democratisation and decentralisation aim to promote youth engagement, SRH policy spaces/processes lack institutionalised processes for integrating youth and remain dominated by donors and government. Collective efforts to build young citizens’ capacity and to support their engagement are essential for realising their active and meaningful participation in SRH decision-making. Recognising youth as equal members of society is vital to expose systemic gerontocracy/adultism, and democratise power to youth in Malawi, and beyond.

Care workers, collectivisation and protest: a case for feminist and anti-capitalist resistance against the state

Nation-wide organised protests by Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), arguably the backbone of India's fragmented healthcare system, form a watershed moment in feminist protest in India by centring demands for the regularisation of their ‘voluntary’ and undercompensated work. This distinct subaltern group (the ASHAs) engages with the state through dynamic political protest. This article critically explores the protest strategies adopted by ASHAs to better understand feminist protest on the Indian political landscape. It adopts a reflexive method of inquiry by unpacking how ASHA policy perpetuates institutional patterns of gender-based occupational segregation and how ASHAs, in turn, navigate and respond to these challenges. Somewhere between victimhood and agency, ASHA workers have reclaimed a site of struggle and resistance. Indeed, in the face of gender-based discrimination, ASHA workers are agitating on their own terms. A postcolonial feminist lens allows us to explore the axes of resistance adopted by ASHAs, including their medium of protest, which offers a space for different performative strategies: the self-sustained and self-contained leadership and mobilisation in which ASHAs reject gender-based stereotypes, exclusion, disadvantage and discrimination; and the use of protest to build sites of resistance, solidarity and negotiation. This theoretical framework offers valuable insight by shifting focus away from judicial strategies and towards ASHA workers as ‘protesters’ and as authors of their own narrative.

‘Is not easy to walk with so much power in your flesh’: uses of the erotic in Tanya Shirley’s poetry

This article analyses the representation of the sexual bodies and erotic desire of Jamaican black women in selected poems by Tanya Shirley. It draws on postcolonial feminist theories and Caribbean and diasporic cultural studies, especially Audre Lorde’s theory of the erotic as power, as it analyses idiosyncratic sources and strategies of women’s erotic empowerment. In her poetry, Shirley is careful to highlight the volatility of eroticism as a force that can both empower and imperil women. She also erotically empowers frequently neglected attributes of female subjectivity such as the fat female body and the stereotypically nurturing characteristic of women. Moreover, Shirley pays homage to Jamaican working-class women who cunningly deploy their erotic power in response to socioeconomic and gender oppression in the problematic and nuanced contexts of Caribbean gender politics. Through these rhetorical and thematic strategies, Shirley illustrates various uses of the erotic as a template for Caribbean women’s poetics. This model rejects both pathologised and respectable renditions of Caribbean black women’s sexuality as evidenced in historical discourse and earlier works by women writers, insisting, instead, on an assertive and celebratory female eroticism.

Ambiguous Women

For five seasons, Yellowstone (2018) has been polarizing on many fronts and creating an ambiguous understanding of its political agenda and positioning. This article explores the depiction of female characters as one of these fronts. With a focus on Beth and Monica Dutton, the analysis seeks to point to the ways in which female characters are presented in ambiguous ways with regard to their gender performances and their correspondence to (racialised) stereotypes. As the characters evoke notions of potential empowerment for (Native American) women, it is crucial to examine them as sites in which gender and race are being contested. Beth and Monica Dutton mirror the ambiguous political nature of Yellowstone because while both characters appear progressive at times, they also reinforce antiquated notions about gender (and race). By conceptualising Beth as a female rendition of the action hero and Monica as a modern interpretation of the Celluloid Maiden trope, this paper addresses this ambiguity and debates in how far these representations can be considered progressive or empowering. While Beth appears empowering on the surface, her reversion into traditional gender roles and her internalised sexism inhibit such empowering effect. Moreover, because of her resemblance to the Celluloid Maiden trope, the lack of depth to her character, and her inauthentic casting, Monica does little to advance the fight for empowering representations of Native American women. Rooted in postcolonial feminist culture studies, this paper discusses what makes these characters ambiguous and whether or not they can be considered empowering at all.

Romanticizing Caste in Gaadi and Alborada: An Analysis of Two Contemporary Sri Lankan Films

This paper critically assesses Prasanna Vithanage’s Gaadi (2019) and Asoka Handagama’s Alborada (2021) as sites of uncontested reproductions of caste hierarchy, which reestablish hierarchical caste and gender relations, unraveling the nexus between patriarchy and caste. It investigates how Vithanage and Handagama have employed myth and history in film, in a context where Sri Lankan film makers have used historical discourse to validate hegemonic Sinhala nationalist formations. It examines to what extent Vithanage and Handagama succumb to nationalist ideology and thereby legitimize caste, class, and gender inequality, or whether they unravel the violence and coercion inflicted upon women for the maintenance of caste and patriarchy. Drawing upon postcolonial feminism which examines the linkages between caste and gender, this paper contends that despite the films’ move to romanticize caste and reinforce and validate existing caste stereotypes, they nevertheless demonstrate the ways in which women resist, contest and negotiate patriarchal power, however minimal.

Contextualizing the Manifestation of Gendered Colonialist Microaggressions: A Qualitative Study on Post-Colonial Migration Experiences Among Immigrant Women

Over the last decade, the framework of microaggressions has been adopted to examine subtle manifestations of discrimination from the perspective of socially disadvantaged groups. However, the microaggressions literature is strongly U.S.-centered, and very few studies have been conducted in other societal contexts, such as European countries characterized by distinct migration patterns and post-colonial intergroup relations. Moreover, foreign-born immigrant women have been overlooked in microaggression research. The present qualitative study draws upon post-colonial feminist theory and adopts an intracategorical intersectional approach to examine the experiences of foreign-born immigrant women in Portugal. Ten focus groups were conducted with 52 participants ( Mage = 34.2, SD = 10.2). Data were analyzed via a two-step process thematic analysis (TA) approach. First, codebook TA was used to produce nine themes building on previous microaggressions taxonomies. Then, reflexive TA was applied to generate four macro-themes related to post-colonial discourses. As a result, we propose a taxonomy of Gendered Colonialist Microaggressions and a theoretical framework linking these subtle forms of discrimination to social representations of immigrant women, rooted in colonial legacies and systemic power disparities. This study highlights the understudied psychological and societal implications of microaggressions in post-colonial settings, raising new questions and providing directions for future action.

Digital post/colonial feminism: Poetics and politics of digital literary activism by Arab women

ABSTRACT This article proposes digital post/colonial feminism as a viable theoretical and conceptual framework to understand and analyse Arab women’s literary resistance to patriarchal and post/colonial powers in light of the new communicational paradigm shift of digitality. It provides an interdisciplinary and contextual engagement with digital literary works to transcend monothematic approaches, considering the role of digital tools and techniques in enabling new forms of feminist literary activism. It is motivated by the absence of a robust theoretical framework that adequately encapsulates Global South women’s digital literary resistance – particularly Arab women – in the broader context of postcolonial feminism. It aspires to fill this gap by tracing Arab women’s literary resistance practices in digitality, arguing that the digital media helps female artists challenge dominant narratives, amplify marginalized voices, and reclaim collective memory. Two digital literary works by Arab women are investigated to capture their new digital aesthetics and tools of resistance.

“Hybrid feminist leadership”: feminist leadership on the ground – experiences of women political leaders in Indonesia

ABSTRACT In the twenty-first century, there has been a notable increase in the number of women leaders across various regions. Inspired by postcolonial feminism, this study investigates the experiences of women political leaders in local elections in Indonesia since 2005. While many of these women leaders benefited from familial ties in their political careers, the research underscores that their ascent was not solely dependent on male authority. Instead, they tapped into a variety of resources linked to their gender identity as women, such as active involvement in women’s networks and communities. Moreover, this study delineates how these women leaders actively pursued public roles in politics rather than passively conforming to the constraints of kodrat (one’s inherent biological nature rooted in faith). Their experiences exemplify what this research terms “hybrid feminist leadership,” which is characterized by a blend of reliance on male power and assertive utilization of their womanhood, all within redefined boundaries of traditional feminine roles. Ultimately, the article contributes to the understanding of female leadership in Asia by framing feminist leadership within the realm of micro-politics.

Decolonising Methodologies: Towards Alternative Approaches to Studying Women’s Unpaid Care Work in the Global South

This paper problematises dominant methodologies and epistemologies in research on unpaid care work in Global South contexts. Women’s unpaid work is often called a ‘burden’ in Gender and Development (GAD) discourse, particularly by actors designing policies and practical interventions who cite evidence produced by feminist economists. Drawing on post-colonial feminist critique of Western feminists universalising their experiences of oppression, this paper argues feminist economists must incorporate the complex lived realities of unpaid care work into methodologies. Recognising the diversity of women in the Global South, and their ability to theorise their own oppression and the value of their labour is essential. Care scholars are encouraged to reflexively engage with decolonial perspectives, and design methodologies which elevate women’s voices. This is imperative given the discursive power of feminist economics in shaping GAD agendas, policies, and interventions. Qualitative and interpretive approaches are proposed as one path to broaden knowledge production on unpaid care work.