Gendering colonialism or colonising gender? Recent women's studies approaches to white women and the history of British colonialism

Two recent feminist books dealing with white women in colonial societies (Fiji and Nigeria) identify ways in which women's experiences are neglected in mainstream accounts of colonialism. They utilise a women-centered approach to examine the complexities of colonialism, particularly its gendered aspects. The paper is a detailed critique of problems and issues in this basic approach: it fails to locate class divisions between both colonial and colonised groups of women; more importantly, by centering white women this approach actually serves to ungender the colonised people and contribute to silencing colonised women. The implications for a women's studies analysis of colonialism are considered.