Englishwomen earned equality claims by demonstrating superiority over colonized women

Evidence

As travelers, ethnologists, missionaries, and reformers, Englishwomen could show their equality with Englishmen by participating in the colonial project that was defined in purely heterosexual, masculinist terms as a “penetration” and “mastery” of “virgin” territory of feminine and weak cultures. By such participation, they could uphold their supposed racial and national superiority over Eastern women that, many Englishwomen felt, justified their possession of equal rights with men. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 162

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s MOC thread: here the enabling move is not personnel rotation but women’s entry into empire — a gender-variant of the same ‘inclusion into imperial circuit’ mechanism the reader’s comparative question probes. — connects to: Suffragists argued women’s rights would strengthen Britain’s empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 149; British women joined colonial projects to win equality with Englishmen — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 162; Cross-racial colonial intimacies licensed women’s relative privilege and power — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1325 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• British women joined colonial projects to win equality with Englishmen #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 162
• Cross-racial colonial intimacies licensed women’s relative privilege and power #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1325
• White women historically invoked racial superiority to assert sexual agency against patriarchal control. #corroborates (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1287
• Colonized women historically sought whiteness as beauty and virtue #exemplifies (0.75) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 158
• Imperial feminism weaponizes women’s rights rhetoric to justify colonial rule without improving women’s conditions #expands (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 157
• Colonial women’s-rights rhetoric coexisted with active antifeminism at home. #qualifies (0.72)