A Decolonial Feminism

Alone in my flat, reading Vergès’ text one sunny pandemic afternoon, I felt seen. 

In A Decolonial Feminism Françoise Vergès recenters feminism as justice for the dispossessed, racialised and economically marginalised. 

If feminism doesn’t serve 

The underpaid cleaner

The overworked maid

The headscarf wearer 

Then who is it for? 

Not budding corporate CEOs who perpetuate the same extraction and exploitation of black and brown bodies. There’s is a ‘civilisational’ feminism that supports the neo-liberal order and furthers the vilification and attack on Islam, Muslim men and Muslim female bodies. 

Vergès calls out civilisational feminists for thier Islamaphobic rhetoric, their passifying of the the struggle and erasure of the efforts of the global south. 

The reading is light (100 pages or so), but every line offers a balm for healing and a validation of the efforts of black & brown women & our allies.

“Justice for women means justice for all. It (decolonial feminisms) does not hope naively, nor does it feed on resentment or bitterness; we know the road is long and fraught with pitfalls, but we keep in mind the courage and resilience of racialised women throughout history. This is not a new wave of feminism, but the continuation of the struggles for the emancipation of women in the Global South.”

In truth, Verges is reminding us to reclaim something that was always ours but had become lost in the real life workings of those minoritised by liberal spaces that did not allow us to take our mothers as examples. Or allow us to represent ourselves.

We who have understood the academy was never open to us until we left, still required academic validation of our experiences and value. I needed to be seen that sunny pandemic afternoon. But increasingly I’m reminding myself that we have always been enough.   

Françoise Vergès  A Decolonial Feminism is available to buy from Pluto Press.