A review by jaclyn_sixminutesforme
Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism by Aileen Moreton-Robinson
5.0
In this seminal text, now being re-published twenty years after its initial publication, Distinguished Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson presents an analysis of the historically-uninterrogated position of white identity in Australian feminism, and its effects on Indigenous women. She forwards the proposition that when white Australian feminist conversations talk about race, whiteness as a racial identity is not examined. She looks specifically at the way "difference," and the politics of difference, and the "Other," operate in this specific realm of feminism: "As long as whiteness remains invisible in analyses 'race' is the prison reserved for the 'Other.'" That said, it is not a book "about how white women perceive their whiteness" and instead "reveals how whiteness as ideology and practice confers privilege and dominance in power relations between white feminists and Indigenous women."
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Moreton-Robinson examines an extensive range of feminist literature, and from a methodological perspective looks at the self-presentation and representation of the two subject positions, "middle-class white woman" and "Indigenous woman." In addition to an examination of the existing commentary, chapter five of the book also contains commentary and conversations from a number of interviews Moreton-Robinson undertook with white feminists in Australia actively engaged in what they self-identified as antiracist practice. The text examines how whiteness dominates from a position of power and privilege as an invisible norm and unchallenged practice, how "white middle-class women's privilege is tied to colonization and the dispossession of Indigenous people." Through her examination of the "subject position middle-class white woman," Moreton-Robinson challenges the entrenched and assumed position from which white Australian feminists write, leaving their own racial position and the privileges inherent in that uninterrogated.
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I found this a deeply thought-provoking read, and one I hope many readers will pick up both in Australia and internationally. The discussions about assumptions and privileges in perspective, and the commentary around white feminist discourse more generally, is certainly applicable beyond the specifically Australian experience that the text covers. For further reading, I'd highly recommend [b:White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|53260224|White Tears/Brown Scars How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|Ruby Hamad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595820808l/53260224._SX50_.jpg|71770367], and also (one on my TBR) [b:They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|40887375|They Were Her Property White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545143299l/40887375._SX50_.jpg|63723558].
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Many thanks to UQP for a review copy.
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Moreton-Robinson examines an extensive range of feminist literature, and from a methodological perspective looks at the self-presentation and representation of the two subject positions, "middle-class white woman" and "Indigenous woman." In addition to an examination of the existing commentary, chapter five of the book also contains commentary and conversations from a number of interviews Moreton-Robinson undertook with white feminists in Australia actively engaged in what they self-identified as antiracist practice. The text examines how whiteness dominates from a position of power and privilege as an invisible norm and unchallenged practice, how "white middle-class women's privilege is tied to colonization and the dispossession of Indigenous people." Through her examination of the "subject position middle-class white woman," Moreton-Robinson challenges the entrenched and assumed position from which white Australian feminists write, leaving their own racial position and the privileges inherent in that uninterrogated.
.
I found this a deeply thought-provoking read, and one I hope many readers will pick up both in Australia and internationally. The discussions about assumptions and privileges in perspective, and the commentary around white feminist discourse more generally, is certainly applicable beyond the specifically Australian experience that the text covers. For further reading, I'd highly recommend [b:White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|53260224|White Tears/Brown Scars How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|Ruby Hamad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595820808l/53260224._SX50_.jpg|71770367], and also (one on my TBR) [b:They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|40887375|They Were Her Property White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545143299l/40887375._SX50_.jpg|63723558].
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Many thanks to UQP for a review copy.