Is Australia's Feminism as Racist as our Multiculturalism?
Is Australia's Feminism as Racist as our Multiculturalism?
Okay in order to start things off -
1) Is Australia's feminism racist?
Check out this fantastic poem by .Blac(k)ademic
Knock your socks off?
Yep. I started thinking about the Oz situation. And thought I'd propose this forum question.
If we look back to the herstories/histories of our Australian Feminisms - already it becomes quite clear. White Australian feminism has had a history of keeping black voices OUT, more often reinforcing and Maintaining white middle class power over black people than the opposite.
Back in the day, OZ Suffragettes took a bold step toward turning women into citizens by lobbying for their right to vote (early 20th century), but the fight for Aboriginal women (and men) being recognised as citizens wasn't made until 1967, when finally the Australian commonwealth granted Indigenous people the right to vote.(Regardless - this has turned out to be a fractured form of formal equality as opposed to substantive equality for Black Australians). Of course the acquisition of the vote has not always assured access to citizenship rights, as has been seen in the situations of white Australian women (of all classes) and Australian Migrant Women for example.