Vron Ware, "Beyond the Pale:White Women, Racism and History" (Book Note)

 

Beyond the Pale by Ware is both ambitious and modest in its scope. While it tackles a vast theme, its approach is necessarily selective, and its conclusions regarding future feminist antiracist politics are tentative. Ware emphasizes that the book serves as a path-clearing exercise, exposing blind spots in existing feminist history and politics and suggesting potential directions for future research.

 

The book is organized into five sections. The first delves into contemporary British images of white womanhood, exploring the racialized basis and ideological function of white femininity. The next three sections focus on the historical aspects of white women and their relations to racism. These sections cover the activities of white British women abolitionists in the early nineteenth century, the shifting ideological relations between nineteenth-century feminists and slavery, and the relationship between feminism and imperialism during the late nineteenth-century Age of Empire. The fourth section centers on the 1890s involvement of white British women in campaigns against the US practice of lynching. The final section returns to contemporary Britain, considering the historical implications of many feminists in colonialism and exploring ways in which future antiracist feminism could develop.

 

The book offers important but uneven case studies. One valuable yet ambiguous contribution is Ware's argument for the political necessity of analyzing whiteness as an ethnicity. She highlights that "white feminists have managed to avoid dissecting these cultural and racial components of white femininity," emphasizing the need for white feminists to critically examine their own identities. Another ambiguous contribution is her emphasis on history and historical research as a political resource for understanding and transforming contemporary ideological configurations.

 

There's a conceptual split in how history is employed in the book. On one hand, history is seen as useful for informing present-day ideologies, suggesting direct connections between the past and the present. On the other hand, the emphasis on history as the principle of difference and variability presents case studies as intrinsically interesting but lacking explanatory force, serving more as images than arguments or analyses.

 

Based on the historical discussion, it appears that the relations, both ideological and political, between white women and race/racism were more diverse in the early nineteenth century than in the late nineteenth century. During the latter period, feminists seemed more constrained by or complicit in imperialist codifications of racist ideology. Some crucial issues are highlighted in Ware's exploration, such as the construction of white women as guardians/centers of civilization under sexual threat by black men, which legitimized racist and imperialist actions. Additionally, the perception of 'degraded' black women as an index of the low level of civilization in black society, in need of salvation by white women, is discussed. Ware also explores the ways in which white women articulated themselves through slave metaphors.

 

Ware's analysis is thinnest when focusing on feminist-identified activism, as seen in the chapter on feminists in the Empire. However, she is at her strongest when delving into women's involvement in antiracism and the gender implications of that engagement. The most intriguing chapter explores the 1890s anti-lynching campaign, where the analyses by nineteenth-century African-American antiracist campaigner Ida Wells contribute to a fascinating exploration of the complex connections between white female sexuality, racism, and emergent socialism.

 

The ambiguous use of history in the book reflects a political and theoretical ambiguity in Ware's approach. This ambiguity is related to her views on cultural/ethnic 'difference,' her connections between 'macro' and 'micro' levels of analysis, and her notions of political organization. On one hand, the book suggests a strong skepticism toward totalizing politics or analyses based on grand narratives of history, feminism, or socialism. This skepticism is viewed as destructive to the specificity and validity of individual case studies, as well as the historical and conceptual specificity of culture/ethnicity. On the other hand, the book's organization and argument also suggest that these specificities serve as keys to grand narratives, which are not abandoned but are constantly alluded to.

 

 

The implications for future feminist politics, as discussed by Ware, are complex. On one hand, there is a necessary emphasis on white feminism taking more responsibility, foregrounding the analysis of racialized elements of femininity, and strengthening connections with black and white antiracism. However, this emphasis runs the risk of inadvertently equating black women solely with the politics of antiracism. The book, with its focus on Ida Wells, associates the only black woman strongly featured with antiracism, neglecting the analyses and politics of black feminists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

 

While it may not be Ware's primary concern, this asymmetry in the discussion can give white-dominated feminism a monopoly on feminism and overlook the success of existing political alliances formed by women across ethnicities based on perceived common interests, as seen in groups like Women Against Fundamentalism. The book raises important political questions about cultural differences, but these are sometimes addressed ambiguously. Arguments like "white and black women can unite against the combination of gender, class, and race relations" suggest a way to sidestep issues related to cultural differences and fears of cultural swamping. This approach might favor a relativist antiracist politics of cultural diversity.

 

Critiques of how white femininity is historically constructed and racialized in dominant ideologies occasionally seem to verge on endorsing the idea that racial and cultural differences are insurmountable. This perspective suggests leaving women enclosed in their cultural/ethnic specificity and 'difference,' treating this difference as valuable and inevitable. Simultaneously, Ware appears to argue that the importance of critiquing these ideologies is precisely to overcome these divisions.