Introduction
It is only to be expected that a creation have the characteristics of its creator. The concept of nationalism is one which without a doubt was created by men for men. Consequently, it is to be expected that nationalism should have strong influences on the masculine gender. This paper shall argue that nationalism is a gendered realm that favors the male sex and that within nationalism as an institution, there is very little room for women. The women are nothing more than props to nationalism.
McClintock states unapologetically and very succinctly that all nationalisms are gendered, and apart from that, they have all been invented and are dangerous (McClintock, 1985). She explains that nations are built from traditional practices which are passed down through history from generation to generation until these practices become integral to the people. The traditions then give the people an identity, a sense of distinction that puts them separate from other societies around them. This is what McClintock means when she says that nationalism is invented.
While on the one hand, nationality purports for a togetherness that arises from the nurtured common identity, it on the other hand perpetuates a distinction between genders, a wide gap between the two sexes. Equality is for those of the same sex, not across the sexes. The resources and opportunities allocated to the two sexes are never the same, no matter what nation on earth one might be in. The nation determines how resources are distributed to the people, using criteria that nationalism devices.
National hierarchies are often patriarchal, the needs of the nation are often equated with masculine needs. Women are not active participants in national issues; they stand ignored and assumed on the periphery, only coming into the main picture if they are playing the role of prop to a man. While the man remains the central figure, the woman, as McClintock puts it, is the ‘boundary’ of what constitutes the nation; women are the mortar that holds the bricks together in the wall, important but unrecognized.
Men are the makers and the keepers of the nation while women are only symbolically associated with the same nation. The roles allocated to women as being part of nationalism are divided by McClintock into five major categories. Women are seen as the way for continuing the nation’s descendants; they are the carriers of life. Women define the boundaries for national groups; if they were to intermarry freely with other nationalities then national lines would become blurred hence the restrictions put on a marriage. Women are passing on national culture, by teaching their offspring and by being considered as part of that culture. Lastly, women are implicated by nationalism in that they take part in the national struggles that best their nations.
The misplaced analogy of nationalism and family
As has been mentioned, nationalism is meant to inculcate a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of one great and cohesive whole. The nation is supposed to be representative of the family, the most basic and all-inclusive human social group. Countries are referred to in terms of being the ‘motherland’ or the ‘fatherland’ and when one migrates to another country they ‘adopt’ it.
Thus, anything that is done to serve national interests is assumed as being in the interests of all those who stand under the umbrella of that nation, an assumption that is rarely ever true in the case of the woman. Women the world over, do not feel like part of their nations are not so keen on the national spirit. The men created nationalism; the symbols of nationalism are also relegated to men. Hence women are rather indifferent to nationalism. They think of it in the abstract.
Nationalism is not a concept that women can address with passion. Simply put it is not a cause that they would as quickly and readily go to war for as the men do. This is how far removed the women are from their countries’ political systems.
In the symbolism of nationhood, the woman comes in handy. Since the woman is in many situations as a national and cultural symbol. Men fight their bloody wars for nationalistic causes that are meant to protect the ‘motherland’. It is considered noble to give up one’s life for this motherland.
But do the same men who perpetrate violence stop to consider the ramifications of violence on their womenfolk? In different war-torn regions of the world, women and children are the ones who voicelessly bear the brunt of conflict. They are the ones who are raped and forced into becoming sex workers to keep their families. Women are the ones who have to stay in refugee camps, helpless and alone, separated from those they care about. Yet the men are the ones who are counted as war heroes, who get the medals and to whom monuments are dedicated. Men are the ones who are immortalized for their feats on bloodied battlefields as they fight in defense of the precious motherland.
Does the post-colonial woman equal the independent woman?
What is termed as the ‘struggle for independence’ can be re-termed as man’s struggle for independence. Like other aspects of nationalism, breaking away from colonial masters was very much a male affair. The colonizer, if still to be considered using the family analogy, acted as the ‘big brother’ who offers guidance to a younger and ignorant sibling who needs to be shown the ropes. The colonialist, feeling superior with his capitalism and nationalistic approach offers to show the younger brother the ropes. The aim of this was for the colonized nation to emulate the colonizing power which acts almost as a benchmark Thus, colonial nations were cast in the role of illuminating patriarchs; they were to lead lesser nations into their maturity stage.
In this process, women stood as a group suspended out of time. Their situation remained untouched and unchanged by the freeing of their nations from the yokes of colonialism. The analogy found between the white man as a colonizer who is at liberty to take as many of the colonized women as he sees fit, as contrasted to the white woman who chooses to take a black lover gives an apt description of the position of woman in society.
Since the white man is in charge, he can willfully take any woman he wants; the woman does not have any say in the matter. However, when the woman takes a black lover, she is in no way seen to be taking control or asserting authority based on her color; she is giving of herself. There is no other reason she could take the lover other than for those that are propelled by emotions. The man can take what he wants, but the woman, no matter her position can only give.
The reason why the black man desires the white woman and longs for her is only that she represents the power and stature that the white man has. By possessing the woman, he can indirectly earn some of the power and status his master has. The woman, for the black man, is just the means to an end.
Marjane Satrapi, in her book ‘Persepolis’(2003), clearly illustrates how little change there is for the woman whether the nation she lives in is independent or colonized. Since the nation has been made analogous to the family, then the gaining of independence is meant to be independent for all, whether male or female. In this sense, Satrapi feels that Pakistan gaining her independence should have meant independence for her women too.
On the surface, it would appear as though women have gained a certain level of independence: they can now go out in public without their veils, they vote and some women even pursue an education. But that is just about the extent of Pakistani women’s newfound independence. Independence is not independence if an individual relies on the whimsy of another as Pakistani relies on their men. What this means is that Pakistani women have not gotten their independence over areas of their lives where it really counts.
Let us examine just one aspect of this independence; the education of Pakistani women. The education that Pakistani women get is based on a curriculum that has been specially formularized by their menfolk so that the women learn how to be good wives. The education that Pakistani women get is not one that is aimed at emancipating them, they remain subordinate to their men.
Religion also plays a role in the subordination of Pakistani women. Islam puts several restrictions on what a woman can or cannot do. Under the religious doctrine, a woman is practically her husband’s chattel to do with as he wishes. The woman cannot be recognized as an entity separate from her husband, father, or brothers. On her own, she has no standing and no value. She can neither own land nor property. She cannot work and has a very low chances of gaining an education of any kind. She remains powerless and enslaved to the menfolk who have devised all ways and means to keep her under their power.
But the women in Pakistan do not stand alone, all over the world, even in the west where the liberation of females and gender equity are preached with great fervor, women still remain under a certain degree of subordination. Nationalism is for the menfolk and unless this ideology is reviewed to genuinely encompass peoples and nations, it shall remain a guise under which women remain oppressed.
Nationalism is an institution for men and by men. While women are indirectly involved in the struggles that might beset a nation, they are sidelined by their men to the periphery, where they remain second in the struggle for and attainment of nationalism.
Conclusion
Putting it as succinctly as McClintock does, nationalism is a gendered realm. It is, like most institutions of its kind, a creation of the male sex, brazenly branded with male traits. Women were not active participants in the creation of nationalism, hence it is not something that they can readily conform to.
For women living in countries that were colonized and gained independence as recently as sixty years ago or thereabouts, the concept of nationalism is an even more alien concept. For these women, their lives are somehow stuck in limbo because for them, nationalism has not fostered much change in their day-to-day lives.
Bibliography
McClintock, A, & Ella S, M, (1997). Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives. Published by University of Minnesota Press.
Satrapi, M (2003). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon Books.