RACE AND GENDER
RACISM, SEXISM AND WHITE FEMINISM
CATH DUFF examines the point of intersection between essentialism, white feminist legal theory and aboriginality, and asks: what is an aboriginal woman anyway? She draws upon her research
with KAREN O'CONNELL, based on a series of interviews with Aboriginal women.
THE classic definition of gender essentialism was formulated by Angela Harris: "the notion that a unitary, 'essential' women's experience can be isolated and described independently of race, class, sexual orientation, and other realities of experience". Anti-essentialists critique many feminist legal theorists for incorporating this idea into their work, whether directly or indirectly. It is argued that this renders indigenous women, amongst others, invisible or deals with the other aspects of their identity in a superficial way.
Australian Aboriginal women have been relatively silent about gender essentialism and non-in- digneous legal feminism.A study of aboriginality and domestic violence, which relied on conversations with several Koori professional women, revealed that issues of essentialism affect indigenous women in the criminal justice system and ultimately result in the provision of inappropriate and inadequate legal services to Aboriginal women in violent home situations.
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The gendered face of domestic violence
It is clear from the statistics available that Aboriginal women bear the brunt of violence in their homes and communities.
More women died from criminal assault in the home in one town in the Northern Territory and in one community in Queensland than all the deaths in custody in those two states during the five year period examined by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991).
This violence is a complex issue that reflects the dual interlocking systems of racism and sexism. Domestic violence in Aboriginal communities is regarded by indigenous women as a manifestation of sexism. They argue that violence in Aboriginal homes is the result of the racially imperial colonisation of Australia which imported sexism into indigenous communities. Sexism is regarded as a consequence of colonisation which renders
Aboriginal women culturally and legally invisible.
Sexism also has implications for surviving or rediscovered Aboriginal culture. A white, sexist understanding of the role of Aboriginal women will distort and erode these cultures. For example, when the Pit-
jatjantjara women went to Adelaide to lobby for land rights, the men from the tribe accompanied them to ensure that the men's rights were not entirely neglected. In the consequent negotiations the Premier talked only with the men and the piess ignored the presence of the women. When the Adnjamathanha women saw this public image they were unwiling to
. align themselves with 3j| the Pitjatjantjara people. gBi They believed that in ■P joining with this male 4 1 dominated grout) they
would risk thef own status in their own community. Sexism has clearly not only led to the demise of much Aboriginal women's culture, but also impacts on surviving or rediscovered Aboriginal culture in a highly problematic way.
In its perpetration, violence in .Aboriginal homes is primarily motivated t>y sexism although its ultimate source is racism.
There has, however, been much debate about the motivating and continuing role of racism in perpetrating domestic violence in Aboriginal communities.
The racist face of domestic violence
It is argued that Aboriginal men suffered more from colonisation than did Aboriginalwomen; that they lost their power of law-making while women retained their family responsibilities and thus, their dignity. Male roles have arguably been further compromised by the domestic economy in which women are 'privileged' because they more easily conform to an ideal welfare identity.
This view has been increasingly rejected by Aboriginal women who claim that colonisation was equally destructive to women. At the turn of the century 'protection' or 'welfare' policies were established which, over the next 50 years, increasingly controlled and confined Aboriginal communities. These policies focused on women.In NSW the Aboriginal Protection Board policy for 1915, for example, was explicitly aimed at reducing the Aboriginal birth rate by removing girls "approaching the age of puberty" from Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal women were, from 1915 onward, increasingly recognised as cultural channels through which the 'assimilationist' message of the inferiority of Aboriginal values could reach indigenous families. The Aboriginal Protection Board intervened wherever possible in the lives of Aboriginal women relentlessly demanding 'culturally appropriate' (read 'white') housekeeping and child-care styles.
Beverley Ridgeway claims that "despite [this] perpetration of violence upon them by non-Aborigines, [Aboriginal women have] established for themselves a role within non-Aboriginal society". Domestic violence is seen to stem in part then, from the role and status of Aboriginal men in society today. The poor and powerless position of Aboriginal men when compared with that of Aboriginal women is
presented as a catalyst for violence in the home.
Many Aboriginal women counter this by stating that women may be the victims of abuse even when their partners "could not in any way be described as poor and powerless" and that violence occurs in every walk of Aboriginal life.
Both of these approaches recognise that domestic violence is about control but they differ in the amount of responsibility they attribute to the individual perpetrators of that violence. Race and gender elements are given different emphasis in each argument but neither denies that domestic violence is, ultimately, a construct of both racism and sexism which cannot be separated.
The Trap of Essentialism
The white feminist analysis of domestic violence which claims that violence in the home is ultimately linked with male power and patriarchy, and which has become official government policy (.National Strategy on Violence Against Women), is not denied by Aboriginal women. What they do deny is that this gender essential- ist analysis can fully explain the experience of violence in Aboriginal homes.
Today many Aboriginal women are reliant on the welfare state because of their low participation rate in the workforce. This reliance results in continued surveillance and intervention by government agencies into Aboriginal family life. In NSW the Department of Community Services (DOCS) administers family maintenance payments, but it is also the agency that polices the family and potentially re
moves children on the grounds of neglect. Koori women are forced, by their unemployment, to rely on DOCS but their children are consequently "even more vulnerable to the normative interventions of culturally alien officials, repeating the patterns which have separated Aboriginal children from their families for the last 200 years" (Heather Goodall, 1992). Aboriginal women clearly suffered and continue to suffer from colonisation.
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Photo: courtesy of the Aboriginal Law Bulletin.
pressions experienced by an Aboriginal woman. She cannot, however, distinguish between the racial and gendered aspects of her experience of violence in the home. The current white feminist analysis of domestic violence will always be insufficient to describe her experience since she is unable and unwilling to fragment her identity as an Aboriginal woman.
Aboriginal women who are victims of domestic violence do not have a purely gendered experience of it.
By ignoring the racial aspect of an Aboriginal woman's experience of domestic violence white feminists fail to acknowledge its specificity. Since issues of both race and gender clearly affect an Aboriginal woman's experience of violence in the home it must necessarily be different qualitatively from that of a non-indige- nous woman. Although ''Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women have many similar experiences of domestic violence...there do appear to be differences in the experiences of Aboriginal women" (Bolger).
More Aboriginal women are victims of domestic violence - they are ten times more likely to be murdered than nonAboriginal women. Further, while domestic violence for non-indigenous women refers to assault by a spouse or partner the domestic situation of an Aboriginal woman may encompass a larger group of relatives who may assault her. The mainstream definition insufficiently describes her experience of violence in the home and many Aboriginal people, unhappy with the term 'domestic violence', prefer to talk of 'family fighting'. Aboriginal women are also more likely to be attacked with a weapon than non-Aboriginal women.
Gender essentialism is also dangerous since it results in the ranking of the op-
Aboriginal women reject white feminist solutions to domestic violence because of their essentialist nature. These women do not want separate women's refuges, health centres and counselling services, most of all they don't want to leave their husbands or partners. Aboriginal women are still closely aligned to Aboriginal men and they don't want to leave them behind. Even those Aboriginal women who are unwilling to accept that their men have suffered more, and who counsel that "Aboriginal women are clearly saying they are tired of the... community violence they face every day", are still not prepared to dissociate themselves from Aboriginal men. Carol Thomas has also stated that "what might work [for domestic violence] for a white community isn't going to work necessarily for a Black community because there are different things that you need to take into account".
The feminist critiques of domestic violence fail then to address the specific oppression and needs experienced by Aboriginal women simply because the women are Aboriginal. They also allow white feminism to deny its culpability in the historical and continuing oppression of Aboriginal women.
An 'Essential' Criminal Justice System
The criminal justice system can fail Aboriginal women spectacularly. On a practical level Aboriginal women may not use this system to deal with domestic violence
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for reasons clearly related to their status as indigenous women. It is clear that they distrust the legal system. White Protection Board and current government policies, chronic overpolicing and a history of black deaths in custody, which continue at the rate of at least one a month, go some way to explaining the unwillingness of Aboriginal women to enter the legal system.
An Aboriginal woman may not use the criminal justice system because, cogent of its inadequacies, she also believes that bringing a complaint will be useless in the face of the systemic oppression she e<peri- ences on a day to day basis. Aboriginal women are not using the criminal justice system, and it is clear that the system is not addressing their needs.
"The Aboriginal Protection Board policy... was aimed at reducing the Aboriginal birth rate by
removing girls approaching the age of
puberty..."
Why the experience of Aboriginal women disappears
Much work has been done on the inpact of the criminal justice system on A1 original men but few people have consdered its effect on Aboriginal women. A gendered analysis of the system by Aboiginal women serves to highlight its esseitialist nature. It is clear that racial inequitie exist within the criminal justice system. If an Aboriginal man breaches an apprehended violence order for example he will nvari- ably go to prison but a non-Aboiginal man may appear in court three tines for breaches and still only be fined. Hovever, what also becomes obvious is that, m the case of domestic violence, the systen condones racist and sexist arguments thit distort and erase an Aboriginal wc.nan's
experience of violence in the home. As a result the legal system continues to be instrumental in the continued oppression of Aboriginal women.
"...domestic violence is, ultimately, a construct of both racism and sexism
which cannot be separated..."
It is not uncommon for judges and lawyers to acknowledge and state that it is acceptable to bash and rape Aboriginal women. Such views are based on "bullshit traditional violence" which justifies domestic violence, including sexual assault, by claiming that violence was traditionally sanctioned in Aboriginal culture. In R v Burt Lane, Ronald Hunt and Reggie Hunt (unreported Supreme Court, Northern Territory, 20 May 1980) - a case where a young Aboriginal woman died of rape injuries - white, male lawyers presented evidence supporting the fiction that rape was not a serious crime in Aboriginal society . In his decision Gallop J., ignoring contrary evidence from a female anthropologist who testified that rape was a serious crime in Aboriginal society, accepted that "rape is not considered as seriously in Aboriginal communities as it is in the white community...and indeed the chastity of women is not as importantly regarded as in white communities".
The legal profession sets a dangerous precedent when it makes these kind of decisions. Ironically, the decisions are made because the victim is an Aboriginal woman but no account is taken of her lived experience of domestic violence. Her status as an indigenous woman is, in effect, redefined.
It is also no accident that an Aboriginal woman cannot use the defence of Aborigi- nality in the criminal justice system as
Aboriginal men can. This defence relies on the cultural devastation suffered by Aboriginal men to explain their crimes and reduce their sentences. The system, even when it does recognise Aboriginal people, can only see Aboriginal men.
AboriginalLegal ServiceThe inability of
the criminal justice system to recognise the experience of Aboriginal women can also be evidenced by considering the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS). The ALS was established in the 1970s because Aboriginal people, primarily men, had no legal representation. For ethical reasons the ALS will not act for two Aboriginal people against each other. The expectation is that the ALS will provide a service for Aboriginal men, that it will help to keep them out of prison or have their sentences reduced. The ALS often adopts defence tactics that rely on the notion o>f 'bullshit violence" and cultural devastation. In a domestic violence situation however these tactics frequently harm indigenous women and legitimate their continued oppression.
Finally, the criminal justice system is culturally inappropriate for use by Aboriginal women. Many indigenous women will, for example, be unwilling or unable to discuss with men, black or white, experiences of sexual assault and domestic violence. The system takes no account of this possibility and does not accommodate the
specific needs of Aboriginal women who may enter the criminal justice system. As the recent case of Robyn Kina in Queensland illustrates, the violent experiences of Aboriginal women become invisible once they enter the system and are redefined by a white, male judidary which cannot provide an effective solution to the women's lived experience of violence in the home.
It is clear that Aboriginal women are worse off than Aboriginal men in the criminal justice system. As Larissa Be- hrendt points out, the system fails to recognise that Aboriginal women obviously have different needs from those of Aboriginal men. The criminal justice system remains a bastion of the white, male, mid- dle-dass hegemony which itself contributes to the continuing oppression of Aboriginal women. This system is dearly unable to accommodate the racist and
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gendered nature of an Aboriginal woman's experience of domestic violence.
Conclusion: Implications for Essentialism
Aboriginal women are demanding to be heard by the criminal justice system and
the wider community. They want to be included in the system through consultation processes so that the specific needs of Aboriginal women who experience violence in the home are recognised. They want that consultation to culminate in the implementation of appropriate and effective policies and practices.
Aboriginal women do not want to have their identities divided and their experience of domestic violence distorted or erased. The establishment of a separate legal service for Aboriginal women is one means of ensuring that this does not happen. An Aboriginal victim of domestic violence must be able to access the criminal justice system knowing that it has the capacity to recognise her identity as an Aboriginal woman and understand her experience of domestic violence. Until the legal system learns to accommodate the simultaneous and complex experiences of racial and sexual oppression, such an understanding will be impossible, and Aboriginal women will be subject to the silencing and fragmentation of their identities.
Outside the system, Aboriginal women have developed and are developing community based solutions. These initiatives vary from community to community taking account of different needs and experiences. This work has been remarkably successful in addressing the basic needs of Aboriginal victims of domestic violence. Where Aboriginal women have the space to define themselves they have developed strategies to deal with multiple oppressions.
Aboriginal women are developing a specific discourse through their community responses to domestic violence and their criticism of the criminal justice system, which takes into account race and gender. This theory does not take a form that is recognised as "official feminis: discourse" because it is based in practice and Aboriginal women do not see its embodiment in a formalised theoretical structure as a priority. However, Aborginal women's discourse does show the possibility of developing an anti-essenialist theory in which multiple experiences are included. Even if white feminist theory is unable to account for difference adequately it must, at least, recognise tie validity of these alternative discourse? and attempt not to silence them. ■
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