Week 4.
The women’s movement and imperial subjects, 1860-1914
Questions to ponder whilst you read:
 To what extent did the imperial context shape feminism in Britain?
 Was first wave feminism concerned only with the rights of white women?
 Could British feminism be said to have ‘benefitted’ from imperialism?
 How did British women interact with Indian women?
Documents
Choose 2 readings from section B ‘Women, Politics and Empire’, in A. Burton (ed.),
Politics and Empire in Victorian Britain
‘Introduction’ plus choose 2 readings, in P. Tuson (ed.) The Queen’s Daughters: An
Anthology of Victorian Feminist Writing on India (1995)
Frances Swiney, Our Indian Sisters (1914) [available as part of digitised MRC
documents at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Leaflet Advertising the Indian Female Evangelist (1880)
[available as part of digitised MRC documents at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Historical Works
A. Burton, Burdens of History. British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial
Culture, 1865-1915 (1994) available online from library
A. McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest
(1995) [esp. Introduction]
C. Midgley, ‘Can Women’s Be Missionaries? Envisioning Female Agency in the
Early Nineteenth-Century British Empire’, Journal of British Studies 45:2 (2006),
335-358
C. Midgley, Feminism and Empire. Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790-1865
(London ad New York: Routledge, 2007)
C. Midgley, ‘From Supporting Missions to Petitioning Parliament: British Women
and the Evangelical Campaign against Sati in India, 1813-30’, in K. Gleadle and S.
Richardson (eds.), Women in British Politics 1760-1860. The Power of the Petticoat
(2000), pp.74-92
C. Midgley, ‘Anti-Slavery and the Roots of “Imperial Feminism”’, in C. Midgley
(ed.), Gender and Imperialism (1998), pp.161-179 digitised
G. Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, Marxism and
the Interpretation of Culture (1988) [Also widely available online if you google.
Don’t worry if you find this tough – it is – but also worth it as a significant theoretical
piece which underpins much of the historical writing on this subject.]
J. De Groot, ‘Feminism in Another Language: Learning from Feminist Histories of
Iran and/or from Histories of Iranian ‘Feminism’ Since 1830’, in Women: A Cultural
Review Special Issue: Rethinking the History of Feminism 21:3 (2010), 251-265
C. Bressey, ‘Victorian Anti-Racism and Feminism in Britain’, Women: A Cultural
Review Special Issue: Rethinking the History of Feminism 21:3 (2010), 279-291.
P. Anagol, ‘Indian Christian Women and Indigenous Feminism c.1850-c.1920’, in K.
Offen (ed.), Globalising Feminisms 1789-1945 (2010), pp.96-110
Catherine Hall, ‘Introduction’ to Civilising Subjects, in S. Morgan (ed.), The Feminist
History Reader, pp.339-359