Wrestling with Imperial Patriarchy

Abstract

I, an Indian Christian, have been made to feel inferior in Britain on account of my Indian identity and my sex. Something of the past British imperialism still expresses itself in its sexism and racism towards me. This combination I name imperial patriarchy. I find that white feminist theologians often present an analysis that still stems from an imperial/colonial mind-set. I critique Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism with the help of post-colonial feminists. Daly suffered the same convenient amnesia as the Victorian missionaries who criticized Chinese foot binding while forgetting that a Victorian woman’s torso was bound by a corset or tight lacing. I call upon Western feminists to become aware of the imprint of imperial patriarchy on their own thinking and then to join with their non-Western sisters in combating both sexism and racist imperialism.