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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