Negotiations: Feminism, racism and difference
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Thematic Section
Negotiations: Feminism, racism and difference
ENISA EMINOVA
ABSTRACT Enisa Eminova looks from a young Roma woman’s perspective at the need for us all to tackle racism in the global women’s movement. She asks how seriously to take on class divisions and class issues and develop mechanisms to do so, and looks to innovative ways to build and create spaces for new leadership, especially in and from minority communities. Here, question is how do we go beyond one size that fits all strategies. KEYWORDS Roma women; politics; culture; minorities
Introductionsy1 An American woman was doing an e-mail introduction between me and another Canadian woman to talk about gender studies in Canada. She introduced me as: ‘Enisa is a young Roma quasi feminist’. I opened the dictionary to check definitions for quasi and it says: appears to be something but not really so; partly, almost. I did not ask her what she meant by that because I did not want to listen to any possible explanations coming from aWestern, white, privileged perspective telling me if I was a real feminist or a quasi feminist in my context. I have heard of a lot of different kinds of feminism ^ liberal, ecological, first wave, second wave ^ but never ‘quasi’. If I was to define myself and my work ^ if this woman asked me to introduce myself ^ I would probably say I am feminist activist challenging embedded cultural prejudice in my community, working to develop new leadership networks within her own community or an activist challenging the white Western assumption that theoretically sound change comes only from within white Western universities. Few days before I came here, I e-mailed this woman to ask her what she meant by ‘quasi’ because I knew I was going to say it here. I needed to be sure that I was not making political statements based on my assumptions. She said: ‘if you would be in the States or in another country, you might be called a feminist. Moreover, I see you initiating women’s issues in Macedonia but particularly for Romani women, an issue which cannot get too much attention. So I meant it in order to be sensitive to who you are, lest you do not call yourself a feminist and I did not know what you call yourself.’ I told her this was not a good answer. So, you chose to not ‘label’ me as a feminist but you slapped another derogatory label on me. There are many women who fear to be called feminists, but I am not one of them. I stand behind the F-word, but I choose my battles. I do not want to be a full time ‘roma’ Development (2006) 49(1), 35–37. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100204
Development 49(1): Thematic Section
36
either as I do not want to be placed in any frames. You know, being a full time Roma, and be smart is not an easy and fun thing to do... but I do it when I need it. The key is to support self-definition and selfidentification ^ and to resist labels, which are imposed, which is just another facet of oppression. So taking this as an example of racism, where a member of a dominant culture imposes an identity onto me,
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