- Do you think that feminism’s goals should change depending on the context? Will a widespread feminist movement in Sri Lanka look different from the movements that have taken place in the United States, Europe or Australia?
Every solution is going to be different in every country. I’m a very odd sort of woman: Childless, successful in my profession, spoiled. And from the point of view from the average Sri Lankan woman, my life is very poor. What I try to understand is how a Sri Lankan woman acquires prestige among her community. My hunch is that the life of a Sri Lankan woman gives her more satisfaction than the average Western woman.
The Sri Lankan wife has the advantage that her family is within reach, she has a point of recourse. She’s not on her own, she’s part of a whole interlocking family structure. But I would need to know more to understand the picture fully.
I know almost nothing about Sri Lankan women except that the feistiest woman I ever met was from Colombo.
- Even if the life of being a mother or wife gives women here a great deal of satisfaction, are they autonomously choosing that life for themselves? Is it really freedom or is it conditioning?
I still haven’t got a fix on it because I see lots of women walking freely in the street. But I see them walking, I don’t see them driving. Often times a woman can work as long as she uses her hands and a hoe, but not a tractor.
I see women soldiers and police officers here, which indicates to me the ruling class has taken on the notion of gender equality. We’re having trouble with these two roles for women in the “first world,” the rich world. It’s causing a good deal of stretch and strain in the armed forces because the men find the women’s presence inhibiting.
The soldiers say that they’re anxious to protect the women and are virtually begging for them to be removed. Indeed, Israel pulled the women out of the frontline just recently in Gaza.
I find that interesting because it is a way of exploring gender roles. I personally do not want women to be in the armed forces or on the front lines at all.
Because I’m an anarchist. I’m waiting for the whole entire masculine structure to fall over, and for more organic forms to develop in its place. For example, say a mother has two kids who are tearing each other to bits. Does she come up and say, “If you don’t stop fighting I’ll destroy your room”? She can’t do that. She has to find a solution to the problem.
However, the masculine perspective says, “We have to teach these people a lesson, we’ve got to smack them down.” I don’t want women to be involved in that system of values because they end up internalizing something that is not only foreign to them, it’s actually wrong.
- It’s true that women do play a role in the conflict, as soldiers or even suicide bombers.
The thing about liberation conflicts is that women are always co-opted into the fight. What happens when the conflicts ends is that victory is signalled by sending the women back home where they can “put the veil back on,” so to speak. The conflict here appears to be in the end game. But the resumption of a guerrilla war will involve women being used again for that.
- Do you think women who live in more affluent countries and have received the benefits of not only a first wave of feminism but also a second and third wave, have responsibilities towards women in countries where feminism is in its infancy?
I haven’t come here to preach the gospel to the women of Sri Lanka. At the moment, women everywhere are offered is a limited number of opportunities to enter a limited structure that hasn’t solved anything at all. People think that if women get involved in governments, then governments will change. That hasn’t happened. The women change.
I have faith in women but the changes that need to be made are fundamental, they are not going to happen overnight. |
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