Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World

Preface

This book is a revised and expanded version of Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, published in 1982 by the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands, for its Women and Development Programme.

Here, I have dealt with the early years of feminism and the emergence of the ‘new woman’ in several countries of the East. Later periods are referred to, but the study is basically historical, set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is intended as an introduction to the subject of feminism in the Third World. Many people in the Third World are not aware that their countries have a history of active feminism, or of early movements for women’s emancipation, that were supported both by women and men reformers. Moreover, as a result of a colonial-type education, many are not even familiar with the history of other Third World countries. I have, therefore, included some historical background in each of the country studies. Women’s participation in revolutionary and democratic movements is also emphasized. Although many of these have been highlighted in history books, the role of women in such struggles has not been given adequate attention; one hears only of the ‘heroes’ and little of the numerous ‘heroines’ of Asia.

In analysing contemporary Asian women’s movements, some understanding of the nature and content of feminist history in Asia is needed. This is important because those who want to continue to keep the women of our countries in a position of subordination find it convenient to dismiss feminism as a foreign ideology. It should, therefore, be stressed that feminism, like socialism, has no particular ethnic identity; further, any movement for liberation and social change in the Third World can be strengthened only by the participation of the women at all levels and, in so doing, they are able to free themselves from exploitation, oppression and patriarchal structures.

This book discusses the general issues of feminism, women’s emancipation and women in political struggles, against a background of increasing activity by the Asian peoples against the domination of their countries by colonial rulers. The struggle for women’s emancipation during this period was necessarily bound up with the fight for national liberation and formed an essential part of the democratic struggles of the period. It must also be emphasized that the book deals with a period when the bourgeoisies of some colonial or semi-colonial countries played a progressive role, and the women of this class, together with radical women of the petty-bourgeoisie and working class, came forward to fight in the various battles for democratic rights. Many of the ‘new women’ of the period, unfortunately, relapsed into their domestic roles or showed concern only with ‘equal rights’ struggles within the framework of capitalism and the post-colonial state in which the bourgeoisie retained power. Nevertheless, others continued the struggle, joined revolutionary movements for social and economic change, and brought a revolutionary feminist perspective into political movements. Their struggle still continues in many countries, where women militants participate in movements for national liberation, women’s liberation and socialism.

The material for this study has been gathered from a wide range of sources that are indicated in the bibliography. In compiling that material I had the invaluable assistance of Alem Desta (of Ethiopia) who unearthed several rare books from the Women’s Archives in Amsterdam and other libraries in the Netherlands. I am also grateful to those who commented on sections of the study, made valuable suggestions, and helped in finding material. I am particularly indebted to Maria Mies, who pioneered the women’s studies programme in the ISS and inspired many Third World feminists. I must thank Kamla Bhasin, Susan Ekstein, Swarna Jayaweera, Donovan Moldrich, Cecilia Ng, Chitra Maunaguru, Howard Nicholas, Rhoda Reddock, Rosalynd Tibalgo, N. Sanmugaratnam, and several other friends, as well as the students of the Women and Development Programme of the Institute of Social Science, and women in Sri Lanka with whom I had many discussions on issues concerning feminism and Third World women. They are, of course, not responsible for my errors. I would also like to thank Robert Molteno of Zed Books for his encouragement, and all those who, in many ways, have helped in the editing and publication of the book, especially Jean Sanders, Rosalynd Paine, M. Jacob, and other staff members of Zed Books.

Kumari Jayawardena

University of Colombo

Sri Lanka

1. Introduction

I see here the representatives of only half the population of Egypt. May I ask where is the other half? Sons of Egypt, where are the daughters of Egypt? Where are your mothers and sisters, your wives and daughters?

Bhikaiji Cama of India, at a meeting of the Egyptian National Congress at Brussels in 1910. (Kaur 1985: 102)

This study deals with the rise of early feminism and movements for women’s participation in political struggles in selected countries of the ‘East’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The developments in the countries chosen—Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia—show certain parallels and similarities of experience as well as some clear differences of strategy based on their specific historical backgrounds, and provide interesting material for comparative study.

The countries dealt with have one factor in common: they have either been directly subjected to aggression and domination by imperialist powers interested in establishing themselves in the region, or indirectly manipulated into serving the interests of imperialism. While India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines became part of colonial empires, Egypt and Iran were reduced to semi-colonial status, the Turkish Empire was progressively dismembered, Japan was put under pressure from Western countries to open up the country to trade, and China became prey to the encroachments of foreign trading powers who wanted to exploit Chinese resources. Although all these countries fall into what, for the sake of convenience, has been termed ‘the East’, they also present certain specificities linked to their cultural and ideological backgrounds. Egypt, Turkey and Iran have an Islamic history that has shaped their attitudes and responses. India and Sri Lanka inherited civilizations based on Hindu and Buddhist doctrines and show similarities with, and differences from, one another. Further East, China, Japan and Korea have certain common characteristics that are partly due to their Confucian ideology. In between, such countries as Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia have felt at various times the pressures of the two dominant ancient civilizations of Asia: the Indian and the Chinese. In responding to the pervasive presence of imperialism, their attitudes showed the different influences of their ideological heritages—ideologies which had an impact on the position and role of women as well as on the modes and characteristics of women’s movements, as the detailed country studies in this book reveal.

The words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ have become emotive words that often evoke hostile reactions. Feminism is generally thought of as a recent phenomenon, rooted in Western society, and people tend to overlook the fact that the word was in common usage in Europe and elsewhere in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to signify agitation on issues concerning women. The meaning of the word has now been expanded to mean an awareness of women’s oppression and exploitation within the family, at work and in society, and conscious action by women (and men) to change this situation. Feminism, in this definition, goes beyond movements for equality and emancipation which agitate for equal rights and legal reforms to redress the prevailing discrimination against women. While such movements often advance the struggle for equality, they do not tackle such basic issues as women’s subordination within the family or challenge the existing framework of men-women relations in which the subordination of women is located. In this study the word ‘feminism’ is used in its larger sense, embracing movements for equality within the current system and significant struggles that have attempted to change the system.

The concept of feminism has also been the cause of much confusion in Third World countries. It has variously been alleged by traditionalists, political conservatives and even certain leftists, that feminism is a product of ‘decadent’ Western capitalism; that it is based on a foreign culture of no relevance to women in the Third World; that it is the ideology of women of the local bourgeoisie; and that it alienates or diverts women, from their culture, religion and family responsibilities on the one hand, and from the revolutionary struggles for national liberation and socialism on the other. In the West, too, there is a Eurocentric view that the movement for women’s liberation is not indigenous to Asia or Africa, but has been a purely West European and North American phenomenon, and that where movements for women’s emancipation or feminist struggles have arisen in the Third World, they have been merely imitative of Western models.

As a result of this, I have thought it necessary to take up some of these issues and to show that feminism was not imposed on the Third World by the West, but rather that historical circumstances produced important material and ideological changes that affected women, even though the impact of imperialism and Western thought was admittedly among the significant elements in these historical circumstances. Debates on women’s rights and education were held in 18th-century China and there were movements for women’s social emancipation in early 19th-century India; the other country studies show that feminist struggles originated between 60 and 80 years ago in many countries of Asia. In a way, the fact that such movements for emancipation and feminism flourished in several non-European countries during this period has been ‘hidden from history’. Only recently, with the rise of feminist movements all over the world, has attention been directed to early feminists and feminism in the Third World.

The movement towards women’s emancipation described and analysed in this book was acted out against a background of nationalist struggles aimed at achieving political independence, asserting a national identity, and modernizing society. During the period dealt with in this study, the countries under consideration were trying to shake off imperialist domination. All had faced the reality of foreign conquest, occupation or aggression. They had resisted in diverse ways, but their resistance had three common facets: first, the desire to carry out internal reforms in order to modernize their societies, it being felt that this was necessary if they were successfully to combat imperialism; second, the dismantling of those pre-capitalist structures, especially ruling dynasties and religious orthodoxies, that stood in the way of needed internal reforms; and third, the assertion of a national identity on the basis of which people could be mobilized against imperialism. These forces can be seen to be at work in all the countries studied.

The external and internal forces were thus closely interlinked. The forcible domination or opening-up of the countries to capitalist penetration had created unequal trading relations and promoted the expansion of a local class of merchants, commission agents and collaborators of foreign capitalists. In all the countries under consideration, some sections of the capitalists, primarily those who went into industry and whose products had to face foreign competition, conflicted with imperialism; their dissatisfactions were shared by intellectuals and professionals who had studied abroad or were products of the modern schools and colleges that had been started in the 19th century. This local bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie faced the continuing fact of foreign occupation and economic domination. In some countries, they attempted to throw out the occupiers and to develop on a basis of autonomy; in others, they tried to negotiate more advantageous positions for themselves. In all cases, however, they felt the need to sweep away crumbling ruling groups and monarchies which tended to submit to imperialism (the Qajars in Iran, Manchus in China, the sultanate in Turkey and the Shogun in Japan); this was considered a necessary step towards the modernizing, reforming and strengthening of internal structures which were essential if an effective opposition to imperialism were to be mounted.

This resistance, which used the paradoxical strategy of adopting Western models in order to combat Western aggression, reinforce cultural identity and strengthen the nation, took various forms. Japan, for example, industrialized rapidly, becoming a powerful country within the framework of a highly authoritarian imperial system and a traditional hierarchy. China, in contrast, swept away the feudal monarchy and challenged Confucian attempts in order to modernize the country, resist imperialism, and build up democratic forces. India, while purifying internal structures of the worst excesses, concentrated on the political struggle and achieved a political, but not a social revolution, and in Sri Lanka the emerging bourgeoisie successfully negotiated a transfer of political power which left the existing social structure unchanged. Turkey and Iran associated ‘civilization’ with capitalist development and Europeanization, programmes that were carried out by dictatorial regimes which imposed the necessary reforms on the people. Egyptian reformism and nationalism developed within the framework of the prevailing class structures and the monarchical system.

As nationalism grew, the struggle of the local bourgeoisie in most of these countries developed on two fronts simultaneously: internally against the pre-capitalist structures, and externally against imperialism. In this agitation, which took on a bourgeois democratic form, the bourgeoisie had to assert the national cultural identity in the form of patriotic appeals intended to unite and arouse the consciousness of the people, while also promoting reforms aimed at educational, scientific, technological and industrial advancement. The liberal slogans of democratic rights, including representative government, universal suffrage, the rights of man and the rights of nations, which were used in the struggle, thus had a material base in the striving of the local bourgeoisie to gain political and economic power.

The creation and assertion of a cultural identity was itself dialectically related to the growth of imperialism. One of the by-products of imperial aggression was a mutual interaction between the cultures of Europe and of the non-European world. Eighteenth-century Europe experienced a new wave of interest in the ‘Orient’, which led to voyages of further discovery and colonial conquest, and to an interest in Eastern cultures and social structures. The Orientalists, as the new scholars became known, were particularly active in India after Britain gained its initial foothold in the 1750s and the colonial scholar-officials began to ‘discover the East’, as well as in France, where Napoleon’s 1798 expedition to Egypt was accompanied by a shipload of French scholars who set about studying all aspects of Egyptian society. Similar studies undertaken in other Asian countries helped to uncover much of their history through archaeological and historical research; in the course of time they also led to the creation of a concept that became an instrument of cultural domination—a concept of non-European cultures seen through the prism of European cultural and intellectual development. This is the construct that Edward Said has called ‘Orientalism’:

The Orient is an integral part of European material civilisation and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles … a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient. (Said 1979: 2–3)

The interaction between cultures proved to be a two-way process, however. The beliefs that the older cultures of the East were the ‘source of civilization’, that the quest for origins lay in the East and that European languages were linked to Sanskrit, were to have a profound influence on Western political thinking in the 19th century. Similarly, in those countries of Asia and Africa which had been exposed to ‘Occidentalism’, the attempts to emulate Western economic development were associated with an appreciation of Western cultural values and specially of such concepts as natural rights, liberalism and parliamentary democracy, which were perceived as the foundations for such growth.

Within this framework, those nationalists who challenged foreign aggression had to tackle the problem of asserting a national identity by combating obscurantism, and by reforming and rationalizing existing structures and religious and cultural traditions. In short, they had to challenge and change the old order, sometimes radically, while reviving what were defined as the true and pristine traditions of a distant and independent past. In doing so, they were influenced by European Orientalists who had glorified Asian civilizations and cultural traditions, as well as by Western political thought. In particular, they were inspired by the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity and the anti-religious views of French revolutionary thinkers of the 18th century.

In addition, the 19th-century flowering of liberalism, especially associated with the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in Britain, and the socialist challenge of the French Utopians and later of the Marxists, were to strongly influence sections of Asian intellectuals. One must also stress the influence in Asia of Darwinism, the freethinkers, theosophy, and all the anti-Christian, anti-clerical movements of the 19th century, including the bitter political struggles between state and church, the separation of religion and politics, and the secularization of society which occurred in many European countries. In a colonial or semi-colonial context, resistance to Christianity and to missionary activities had anti-imperialist implications, and the challenge to Christianity in Europe gave an impetus to national movements of cultural revival that already existed (as in India and Sri Lanka). Similarly, European rationalism, Freemasonry, secularism and positivism were also to influence those liberal and socialist groups in Asia and Africa who were less concerned with religious revival than with social change.

Religious revival and opposition to tradition generally took the same form in most Asian countries, linking together the reinterpretation of sacred texts and the reform of clerical structures; this led, in some cases, to the reduction of clerical influence. In the Middle East, Islam as it existed was seen as an obstacle to nationalist political and economic development; much was written not only about the need to return to the ‘pure’ Islam of an earlier period, but also about the idea that Islam, if reinterpreted correctly, was a rational religion compatible with social advance. Similar movements were at work with regard to other religions in Asia. In India, there was an attempt to reinterpret Hinduism on the basis of the concept of one God and the unity of all humans; repugnant social practices such as caste and sati were seen as the result of accretions or misinterpretations. In Sri Lanka, reformers went back to the texts of Buddhism and reinterpreted them as being indicative of a rational system of ethics, totally compatible with modern scientific knowledge.

In many Asian countries, clerical authority was seen as retrograde and supportive of corrupt feudal regimes and, therefore, as conducive neither to the growth of nationalism nor to necessary superstructural reforms of the social system, such as measures to emancipate women. Efforts to reduce the power of clerical authorities were perhaps most marked in those countries with well-established hierarchies as in Islam. The drive towards a secular state was seen particularly in the ‘Young Turks’ movement of the early 20th century, which in turn influenced policies in the neighbouring Muslim countries. The anti-Brahmin content of religious and political reformism in India shows another facet of this same tendency.

We thus have a situation where Western secular thought is a crucial factor in fashioning a consciousness and in devising structures that would make possible an escape from the domination of Western political power. The traditional political and religious élites were well aware of the dangers of this emerging consciousness and tried to meet the challenge in various ways: total isolationism in some countries, a return to fundamentalism in others. But in almost all the countries under study, the new body of ideas was seized on by the bourgeoisie and used as an instrument in their attempt to forge a new national consciousness and modern secular political structures. It must be noted, however, that the early fervour with which such ideals were pursued has now somewhat diminished; the old precapitalist dogmas and religions have proved to be surprisingly enduring.

Another important factor in the formation of this consciousness was education. In almost all the countries under consideration, education had been closely linked with religion and generally confined to the religious and upper strata of society. Mass education was a concept of the bourgeois world, brought into these countries by the colonizing powers. Even though in most cases education began as a process of proselytization, and for the training of local administrative cadres, it paved the way for the spread of literacy among the masses. Ultimately this education also became the means of imparting a knowledge of modern science. The spread of literacy in turn formed the foundation on which newspapers and journals could be established. The specific ways in which women’s consciousness was fashioned by education will be made clear in the following case studies.

The spread of literacy and of newspapers had another far-reaching effect. Political events in one country can have a rapid effect on nationalists and revolutionaries in another. An important turning-point in Asian nationalism, for example, was Japan’s victory in 1905 over Tsarist Russia in the Manchurian war. Asians had admired Japan for the success of her rapid modernization and industrialization policies, and many students and political exiles had been attracted from neighbouring countries (especially China, Korea and Vietnam). Japan’s military victory showed that Asians were able decisively to challenge and defeat Europeans in armed warfare. Sun Yat-Sen claimed that the Japanese victory gave ‘unlimited hope’ and ‘raised the standing of all Asians’ (Spector 1962: 30), and Nehru declared that Japan was ‘the representative of Asia battling Western aggression. If Japan could make good against one of the powerful European countries, why not India?’ (Nehru 1949: 440–4). The Russian revolution of 1905 also gave Asian democrats and revolutionaries the conviction that absolute governments, however firmly entrenched, could be toppled:

The Russo-Japanese war underlined the possibility of the overthrow of Western imperialism. The Russian Revolution of 1905 indicated the feasibility of the overthrow of autocracy, native or foreign. In most Asian countries, where the two objectives were fused, Russia’s defeat and Russia’s revolution together produced a resounding and durable impact. (Spector 1962: 30)

Other striking events which evoked a strong response among Third World nationalists included the struggles of the Irish against British domination, especially the martyrdom of the freedom fighters and hunger strikers. Many Asians and Africans who were in Europe in the early 20th century made a point of visiting Ireland; Nehru did so in 1907, and the visit strengthened his ‘extremist sympathies’ (Gopal 1975: 22). Moreover, the political changes that occurred in some countries of Asia and Africa caused hope to grow in other areas where the struggles continued. The deposition of the Manchu dynasty and the proclamation of the Chinese Republic by Sun Yat-Sen in 1912 had a tremendous impact on nationalists in other countries. Similarly, the Young Turks’ revolution of 1908 and Mustapha Kemal’s declaration of the republic in 1922 were dramatic events which influenced other struggles, while news of nationalist upsurges in India, Egypt, Iran, Vietnam and many other countries, which were constantly highlighted in the newspapers, served to provide mutual encouragement. Perhaps the most influential event was the Russian Revolution of 1917 which caused reverberations throughout the non-European world, and in the colonized countries aroused hopes of major change. At the time, a Sri Lankan radical journal expressed the enthusiasm of young Asian nationalists and revolutionaries: ‘Czardom that for ages manacled human liberty has vanished from unhappy Russia with the heralding of the dawn of a better day’ (Jayawardena 1972: 227). Influenced by the events in Russia, Communist parties which had arisen in Asia by the early 1920s—in China, India, Japan, Iran, Egypt and Turkey among others—launched revolutionary movements for social and political change.

It is in the context of the resistance to imperialism and various forms of foreign domination on the one hand, and to feudal monarchies, exploitative local rulers and traditional patriarchal and religious structures on the other, that we should consider the democratic movement for women’s rights and the feminist struggles that emerged in Asia. The country studies, in which we examine the situation of each country in detail, will show that struggles for women’s emancipation were an essential and integral part of national resistance movements. In all these countries, the ‘woman question’ forcefully made its appearance during the early 20th century. The debate on the role and status of women had of course started earlier, but in the era of imperialist and capitalist expansion the question assumed new dimensions; the growth of capitalism changed the old social order and gave birth to new classes and new strata whose women had to pose the old question in a new dynamic. In short the issue was one of democratic rights.

To foreign and local capitalists and landowners, women were the cheapest source of labour for plantations, agriculture and industry. To the colonial authorities and missionaries, local women had to be educated to be good (preferably Christian) wives and mothers to the professional and white-collar personnel who were being trained to man the colonial economy. To the male reformers of the local bourgeoisie, women needed to be adequately Westernized and educated in order to enhance the modern and ‘civilized’ image of their country and of themselves, and to be a good influence on the next generation; the demand grew for ‘civilized housewives’.

The importance of female labour under conditions of capitalist development in Asia has to be stressed. While it is true that women had toiled in the fields and plantations and domestic industries in the precapitalist phase, it was with the development of capitalism in a colonial or semi-colonial context, that they were to become available as potentially the largest and cheapest reserve army of labour. Women’s labour was therefore very important to local and foreign capitalists; traditions and practices which restricted women’s mobility or enforced their seclusion were thus detrimental to capitalism in its search for cheap ‘free’ labour. With the growth of industries—especially those associated with the textile trade—the demand for women’s labour grew in all the countries under consideration: China (silk and allied manufactures), Japan (textiles and consumer goods), Iran (carpets), Egypt (cotton), India (textiles) and Turkey (rugs and textiles). Women’s labour was also crucial in the plantation sector (tea, rubber, coconut, sugar, etc.) and in farm and domestic agriculture in these countries. Moves towards the further ‘emancipation’ of women to enable them to work and to better serve the needs of industrialists, planters and farmers were therefore to be expected.

The process of capitalist expansion also created an emerging bourgeoisie which arose partly from the needs of the imperial administration, i.e. local administrators and professionals, and partly from the needs of the new forms of economic organization that served foreign capital. The men of these emerging groups, however, saw the ‘woman question’ in a very different light. While the women of the peasantry and working class were being proletarianized, those of the bourgeoisie were trained to accept new social roles in conformity with the emerging bourgeois ideology of the period. For example, the bureaucrats, missionaries and male reformers of the local bourgeoisie were convinced that women had to be emancipated from the social abuses of a ‘savage’ past, from practices that were defined as repugnant by the prevailing norms of European society. Obvious areas of violence and oppression were highlighted, such as widow burning in India, veiling, polygamy, concubinage and seclusion in Egypt, Turkey, Korea, Vietnam, Iran and Indonesia, and foot-binding in China. But to these were added other so-called ‘barbaric practices’ that went against the Christian ideas of monogamy and sexual control that Europeans enforced upon their own women. For example, vestiges of matriarchy, tolerant sexual mores, polyandry and divorce by mutual consent, all of which existed in the Kandyan regions of Sri Lanka, were criticized not only by the foreign rulers and missionaries but also by men of the local bourgeoisie. Many of the reformers among the indigenous bourgeoisie were men who saw the social evils of their societies as threats to the stability of bourgeois family life, and who therefore campaigned for reform in order to strengthen the basic structures of society rather than to change them. There was thus an in-built conservative bias in many of the reform movements.

The nature of the resistance movements in these countries and of the feminist struggles within those movements varied with the balance of forces that resulted from capitalist expansion. In most countries, they were dominated by the local bourgeoisie. Again, there were two types: those in which the bourgeoisie found it necessary to mobilize the masses in the struggle, as in India and Indonesia, and others, in which the local bourgeoisie replaced the imperialist rulers through a process of negotiation and gradual reforms as in Sri Lanka or the Philippines. The women’s struggles associated with both types of resistance movements did not move beyond the sphere of limited and selected reforms: equality for women within the legal process, the removal of obviously discriminatory practices, the right to the vote, education and property, and the right of women to enter the professions and politics, etc. These were reforms which had little effect on the daily lives of the masses of women; neither did they address the basic question of women’s subordination within the family and in society. Even where women of the working classes were involved, the specific character of the struggles was determined by that of the larger struggle; equal pay and similar demands were usually their main objective.

In a few countries, however, the involvement of peasants and workers in the resistance movements pushed the struggle on to a broader front. Not content with replacing the pre-capitalist or imperialist regimes with a local bourgeoisie, they aimed at a more radical transformation of society, at the establishment of a socialist society, a trend that is illustrated by the country studies of China and Vietnam. The feminist element in these movements was able to become a revolutionary force that simultaneously helped to transform society and to improve the position of women. In this context, examples of revolutionary feminism during the early 20th century provide valuable evidence that feminism was not a diversion, a bourgeois aberration, nor a matter to be considered only after a social revolution; on the contrary, it was a process which had to be continuous and permanent during all stages of the struggle.

Women’s movements do not occur in a vacuum but correspond to, and to some extent are determined by, the wider social movements of which they form part. The general consciousness of society about itself, its future, its structure and the role of men and women, entails limitations for the women’s movement; its goals and its methods of struggle are generally determined by those limits. Mention will be made in the country studies of courageous women who consciously strove to move beyond those limits in the pursuit of goals that today would be defined as feminist, but who failed because of the lower levels of general awareness.

It is appropriate at this stage to discuss women’s consciousness as it emerged in the countries under study after the impact of colonialism and the experience of Western society and thought. Of all the religious ideologies discussed, Islam has the longest contact with Europe. From its very beginnings it has fought continuously with Christianity. What challenged Islam in the 19th century, however, was not Christianity but European secularism. As Bernard Lewis says:

A philosophy free from visible Christian connotations and expressed in a society that was rich, strong and rapidly expanding, it seemed to some Muslims to embody the secret of European success and to offer a remedy for the weakness, poverty and retreat of which they were becoming increasingly aware. In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, European secularism and a series of political, social and economic doctrines inspired by it, exercised a continuing fascination on successive generations of Muslims. (Lewis 1982: 184)

Muslim travellers to Europe who tried to understand this secular society were particularly interested in the position of European women. The fact that women seemed relatively free of the social restrictions of Islamic society, that they were allowed to move about, that they were respected in society and deferred to by men, struck them forcibly. The institution of monogamous marriage and the fact that the family was the basic unit of society were also alien concepts that provoked discussion. Evliya Celebi, an 18th-century Turkish traveller and observer of European society, wrote:

If the emperor encounters a woman in the street … he halts his horse and lets the woman pass. If the emperor is on foot … then he remains standing in a polite posture … takes his hat off … and shows deference to the woman, and only when she has passed does he continue on his way. This is a most extraordinary spectacle. In this country, and elsewhere in the lands of the infidels, women have the chief say and they are honoured and respected for the sake of Mother Mary. (Lewis 1982: 287)

The freedom displayed by women in their social intercourse with men was commented on by many; witnesses to grand balls were compelled to think that such intimacy also meant sexual liberty. The 18th-century travellers were sometimes so struck by the ostensible freedom of women that they tended to exaggerate:

In France, women are of higher station than men, so that they do what they wish and go where they please; and the greatest lord shows respect and courtesy beyond all limits to the humblest of women. In that country their commands prevail. (Mehmed Said Effendi in Lewis 1982: 289)

These travellers were struck by the openness of a society that permitted some men and women to take part in easy social intercourse; it might be said that they found this so surprising because the Islamic élite at that time was accustomed to seclude its women in the zenana. However, non-Muslims were equally impressed. Yu Kil-Chun of Korea went to the USA at the end of the 19th century as his country’s ambassador and published an account of his travels in 1892. One of the things that struck him most was the position and status of women in American society and their employment in various activities and professions outside the home. Moreover, he was singularly intrigued by the marriage pattern which ideally permitted women to choose their husbands on the basis of love. Yu finished his account by advocating the equality of men and women. Even though he made it obvious that this was not due to any concern for the human rights of women, but rather because equality would promote the welfare of children, homes and country, it is still remarkable that he should single this factor out for particular attention. Asian women too were influenced by the myth that all Western women were ‘free’. To give one example, around 1900, Kartini, the pioneer of female education in Indonesia, was to envy the ‘free, independent European woman’ (Geertz 1964: 137).

Faced with societies that were sufficiently developed and powerful to subjugate them, and with the need to modernize their own societies, many reformers of Asia seized on the apparent freedom of women in Western societies as the key to the advancement of the West, and argued that ‘Oriental backwardness’ was partly due to women’s low status. For example, Fukuzawa Yukichi, an interpreter with the first official Japanese mission to Europe in 1862, advocated equality between the sexes. In The Encouragement of Learning, he criticized the traditional relationships between men and women, advocating monogamy and freedom of choice in marriage in order to make Japanese society more ‘presentable’ and ‘civilized’. Fukuzawa said frankly: ‘I shall attempt to make our society more presentable if only on the surface … I should like to put my future efforts towards elevating the moral standards of the men and women of my land to make them truly worthy of a civilized nation’ (Fukuzawa 1968: 306, 336).

Since the status of women in society was the popular barometer of ‘civilization’, many reformers agitated for social legislation that would improve their situation. In India, in 1818, Raja Rammohan Roy led a campaign against what the missionaries called ‘certain Dreadful Practices’. This was followed by actions led by many other social reformers, including Vidyasagar, K.C. Sen, Ranade and Phule. Similarly in the Meiji era, Japanese intellectuals such as Fukuzawa and Soho condemned Confucian traditions of family life and advocated rights for women. The Young Turks of the early 20th century, Ziya Gokalp and Ahmet Agaoglu, pleaded for women’s emancipation: Gokalp expressed the general current of opinion among male reformers when he wrote: ‘In the future, Turkish ethics must be founded upon democracy and feminism, as well as nationalism, patriotism, work and the strength of the family’ (Ahmed 1982: 155). Another Turkish writer, Tevfik Fikret, expressed the sentiment prevalent among Asian reformers of the time that ‘when women are debased, humanity is degraded’ (Ahmed 1982: 155). In China, reformers of the later 19th century such as Kang Yuwei and those of the early 20th century grouped around Sun Yat-Sen opposed the constraints on women that traditionally existed in Chinese society, as did nationalists Dr So Chae-p’il in Korea, and José Rizal in the Philippines who strongly advocated a secular education for women. Education and freedom of movement for women, and monogamy, were thus seen as marks of modernity, development and civilization. Reformers tried to embody these factors in their political platforms and activities, striving to make their own wives and daughters embodiments of the new ideal.

This new consciousness demanded an ‘enlightened’ woman. The new bourgeois man, himself a product of Western education or missionary influence, needed as his partner a ‘new woman’, educated in the relevant foreign language, dressed in the new styles and attuned to Western ways—a woman who was ‘presentable’ in colonial society yet whose role was primarily in the home. These women had to show that they were the negation of everything that was considered ‘backward’ in the old society: that they were no longer secluded, veiled and illiterate, with bound feet and minds, threatened with death on their husband’s funeral pyre. The concept and terminology of the ‘new woman’, so fashionable in Europe in the 19th century, was eagerly adopted by both men and women of the educated class. For example, Kassim Amin’s book on women’s emancipation published in 1901 was called The New Woman; in 1919 Egyptian women formed the ‘Société de la Femme Nouvelle’. In the same year an ‘Association of New Women’ was established in Japan, while in China and Korea, in 1919 and 1920 respectively, feminist magazines called The New Woman were published.

Though the terminology was similar,