18 Yuval Davis on gender and citizenship

Shashwati

1.  Introduction

In her work ‘Gender and Nation’, the author Nira Yuval-Davis (1997) puts forth different ways through which gender relations feed into discourses of nation and nationalism. The construction of a nation is a historical process; at any given historical moment, it is the dialectic between variety of political, social and economic processes that determines the criteria of belongingness to a nation. The gender aspect to construction of a nationalist discourse at any given time must be analyzed against such a shifting history. The process of a nation coming into being must be contextualized against a history of attempts by a dominant collectivity to gain ascendance over other co-existing communities, in order to gain a hegemonic access to the apparatuses of the state and civil society. Far from being a static entity with definable ‘objective’ features, construction of a nation must be seen as a dynamic process, in which forces of reconstruction are forever active via political processes of naturalization, immigration, conversion etc which define the criteria of belongingness and otherwise. A common past, often bordering on the mythic; a shared historical legacy of language and culture; a belief in common destiny; not to mention a shared feeling of superiority-these are some known aspects that translate into boundaries of a particular nation, separating it from the rest.

Women occupy a contested space within the discourse of nation and nationalism. The contract Arian origins of modern state proceeded by separating the public from the private. The private realm was essentialized as the space of women as per the sexual division of labor, and in fundamental respects, women’s participation in the public life of the nation was curtailed. At the same time, gender relations served as crucial to sustain the category of nation. Reference to homeland as one’s motherland is common, and so is the fact that historically, wars by nations have been justified to protect their women and children. Yuval-Davis attempts to study these very concrete links between gender and discourses of nationalism.

The shifting discourse of nation and nationalism implies that there can be varied ways in which it interacts with gender relations. Yuval-Davis discusses three of such interactions, the first one being the genealogical dimension of nation-building. This refers to the constructed history of a nation as constituted by shared genes or blood, and women’s role is emphasized as the reproducer of that race. Next is discussed the cultural dimension of the discourse of nationalism that talks about the nation as constituted by one ‘essence’ reflected in a set of customs, or a religion or a common language. The third dimension looked into is that of the criterion of citizenship, that brings its own set of qualifications to define the citizen of a nation, based on notions of sovereignty and territoriality. Gender identities and gender relations play crucial role in construction of an essential nation in each of these aforementioned cases.

2.  Nationalism and ‘Shared’ Blood-Ties

The identity of a nation is constructed very often on the basis of ‘one blood’ or ‘shared genes’. In such an imagination, a nation is constructed on the basis of common genealogical origin of the people, say for example, in terms of a specific race. While ties of blood bind people as one nation separating them from ‘others’, the question of maintaining ‘purity’ of that blood or race assumes utmost importance. In such imaginations of a nation, threat of mixture of different bloods, and the fear of contamination of ‘purity’ of race, through inter-marriages and sexual relations between people of different collectivities may serve as assaults on the essence of nation itself. Therefore there is an overwhelming drive to control the quality of genes or race that make up a nation, and also to ensure its reproduction in the purest form. The racist element in such a nationalist discourse is very evident which defines nation in terms of a ‘pure’ race facing threats of contamination from ‘outsiders’. Women are biological reproducers of the race that constitutes the nation in such an understanding. A pre-occupation with questions of purity of racial core of the nation necessitates that the women’s reproductive power must also be controlled and channeled in desired manner. In this context, a new born cannot be considered a part of the national collectivity just by being born into it. The membership of each of the parents becomes a deciding factor, for example, by Islamic laws, it is a father’s membership that is taken into cognizance, while in others like Judaism, and it is the mother’s national identity that decides. In cases of ‘mixed parenthood’, the membership of the new-born is regulated by a host of customary, religious and legal laws and conventions that define a quintessential nation and its membership. Often such children are denied membership and are accorded a secondary or inferior status within the nation.

3.  1. Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights in a Nationalist Discourse

A woman’s role as the biological reproducer of the nation implies that mechanisms of control over her body, reproductive rights and health are plenty. For example, at any given historical time, the dominant power structures may force women to produce more children, or less, as also children of a particular sex with the help of pre-natal sex-determination technology. A woman’s reproductive powers are controlled to increase or decrease the size of the population as desired, and also to control the quality of reproduction by use of genetic technology. The desire for a particular size and quality of population can be a result of variety of reasons: producing a national stock that is ‘pure’ in racial terms, of a particular size or quality that is representative of power and hence superiority of the nation over other national collectivities. All these aspects factor into the ideological reconstruction of a nation. For example, there are several nationalist purposes for which more number of people are required, and therefore women are called upon to produce more offspring, like for military services, or as workers. Similarly the discourse of eugenics that seeks to modify the quality of the population through genetic engineering so as to pre-determine the quality of the nation- is a gendered discourse. Its concerns with the reproductive health of women arise out of the need to preserve a superior quality of the nation so that undesirable traits can be filtered out with help of selective breeding. For example, the reproductive capacities of poor, uneducated women is monitored and even prohibited lest it has a bearing upon the ‘quality’ of the nation. In India, the population control policies of the government singularly target the poorer sections blaming them for population explosion which supposedly brings down the development graph of the nation. The population policies of a nation have a direct bearing upon the reproductive health of the women, and are therefore highly gendered. Systematic drives by a nation to control growth rate of population are often driven by Malthusian prophesy of scarcity of global food resources which are no match to the explosive rate of population growth. On the other hand, an unregulated population growth poses a threat to stability of the economic system by an over-supply of labor power. It is not difficult to see how global concerns with issue of population explosion, especially on the part of the developed nations, are singularly directed at the poor nations of the so-called Third World, with their massive populations, and persistent conditions of poverty and low standards of living.

The social context in which a woman is placed has a bearing upon her reproductive health and rights. The control over woman’s fertility is often aided by the cultural and social factors. The moral codes sanctioned by dominant religions seek to regulate woman’s fertility, and in such contexts, crucial rights like right to abortion, right to contraceptives etc. are not accessible to women. Woman’s control over her body and sexuality are seen as a threat to conservative power structures and therefore there exist tight grip over a woman’s reproductive options. In poorer nations, where more economic value is placed on the male child, female infanticide is a widely practiced. In the age of social and economic globalization, several of these processes have been accelerated. Massive cut down in public welfare expenditure along with structural readjustment programs, especially in poorer nations, result in spiraling impacts. While a poor family will be induced to produce more children in terms of producing more hands to work and earn subsistence, at the same time a cut in public health care implies that women’s access to decent and subsidized medical facilities to bear and rear healthy children, is also hit severely. In the face of increasing levels of poverty and lack of regular, secure employment, women everywhere are forced into wage labor on precarious terms, which has a direct effect on their health and living. Recent upsurge in reactionary, fundamentalist politics in different parts of the world, has resulted in mushrooming of several conservative governments and political movements that strive to impose more control over woman’s life and body in the name of ‘culture and traditions’. The phenomenon of women going out to work in order to make a living is seen as a threat in terms of a reversal that is affected in traditional roles of a man and a woman. Therefore, any kind of fundamentalist politics glorifies the traditional role of a woman inside a household, and high social value is accorded to a woman’s reproductive identity.

4.  Cultural ‘Reproduction’ of a Nation

The meta-narrative of a nation rests on reproduction of a cultural identity. It is very often that a nation is projected to be constituted by a singular cultural essence. The category of ‘culture’ is a contested concept; at a given historical time, the realm of culture may contain contradictory claims concerning its essential components. The claims of hegemonic powers within the nation are affirmed as well as contested by culture-based politics. Boundaries of a nation are made and unmade on the basis of a cultural identity. Categories of exclusion and inclusion within a nation are defined in cultural terms.

4.  1. Woman as Embodiment of ‘Honor’

Needless to say, the process of cultural construction of a nation and generation of an adherent set of social identities is a gendered process. Cultural reproduction of a national identity employs gender relations in varieties of contexts. The element of ‘authenticity’ inherent in the cultural identity of the nation, is tested by its safe passage from generation to generation, the primary responsibility of which rests on the women. Woman as a repository of cultural values is exemplified by her assumed role as the carrier of such values as she gives birth to the next generation. Religious customs, traditions, familial values, particular ways of living and similar cultural values are passed on to the future generations and thus preserved. In a sense, women as the assumed representatives of culture are accorded the burden of its preservation as well as continuation. Being safeguards of cultural identity also implies that women are construed as symbolic bearers of a community’s honor including that of a nation. The women embody the nation’s collective identity as well as honor. Symbolic reference to one’s nation in terms of a figure of a mother is common. Preserving honor of women of a nation is akin to preserving honor of the nation. This also implies that the honor of a rival national collective, or any other community for that matter, can be destroyed or defiled by attacking their women. Nationalist agendas of war and invasions are often justified on the pretext of protecting the ‘women and children’ of the nation. A code of ‘proper behavior’ is sanctioned for the women folk because it is in keeping with the honor of the community. Women are tortured and killed when they transgress this set moral code because it brings shame and dishonor to the community. Therefore, in a number of ways, control and exploitation of women are accorded moral justification on the pretext of preserving honor of the nation or community. As bearers of a collective’s honor and pride, specific roles are expected of

women. Women are assigned the role of keeping this ‘honor’ safe and pure. The violent history of partition of Indian subcontinent is full of stories of women who were encouraged to kill themselves or were murdered by their own kin, rather than lose their honor by falling into the hands of the rival community. Political use of rape and sexual violence against women in cases of caste-based conflicts or violent pogrom against religious minorities is everyday news. Construction of womanhood as embodying the nation’s honor, especially in cultural imaginings, includes processes to keep this honor intact and secure. Such objectification of woman effectively means that her body and life are subjected to constant surveillance and scrutiny. This also implies that the right of a woman to participate in the national life with a voice of her own is effectively curtailed. The imagination of an ‘ideal’ or ‘proper’ woman represents the essence of the nation and in this sense it constantly faces threat from attack by an ‘outsider’ or the ‘other’. Therefore, the cultural production of the identity of the woman as representative of the essence of a national collective co-produces the identity of the ‘other’. This identity of the ‘other’ as a potential threat to the nation is often perceived in quite sexualized and racial terms.

4.  2. Nation and the ‘Other’: Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion

Deployment of gendered categories to construct the identity of a nation, and its consequent distinctness from other rival collectivities, is depicted in the image of the perceived ‘other’. As said earlier, the image of the ‘other’ as a perceived threat to the nation is understood in sexualized and racial terms. For the European colonial rulers, the exoticized images of the ‘mysterious’ cultures of the East, fed on images of the colonized as the ‘other’ with unknown, mythical powers that was to be feared. Yet the innate primitiveness, ignorance and inferior status of the colonized race were also a part of the same essentialized image of the ‘other’. With seemingly untamed physical and sexual prowess, the image of the ‘other’ as a probable rapist or sexual predator, or one with mythical sexual liaisons with women of hegemonic collectivity are some dominant perceptions that go into the making of identity of the ‘other’. This constructed image of the ‘other’ poses as the biggest threat to the superior status of a hegemonic nation. Within the boundaries of a nation too, the image of the ‘other’ is deployed to identify and target elements of dissent to cultural hegemony of a dominant community. Politics of suppression and silencing all opposition is accorded moral legitimacy on the pretext of saving integrity of the nation. The internalization of  the image of the ‘other’ on the part of the ‘other’ also has historical precedents. The social reformers in colonial India struggled to reform Indian society from within to escape emasculinization at the hands of the colonial rulers. The manner in which Indians treated their own women; and were chained by their own regressive social customs and traditions, was indicative of only one thing: disempowerment. An ‘effeminate’ colony like India could prove its worth only by pursuing the most ‘masculine’ project of a fast-paced industrial development.

Sexualized and racialized image of the ‘other’ has a pivotal role to play in contemporary global political economy. The ever expanding economies of sex-tourism, pornography as well as human trafficking employ the exoticized and eroticized image of the ‘other’ to boost business. Sexual fantasies, which otherwise are considered improper for women of one’s community due to issue of honor, are consumed without hesitation when performed by women from ‘foreign’ lands who crowd porn industries in several countries. Sex-tourism, as a site of accumulation of most marginalized of labor in countries like Thailand, Philippines and South Korea, is developed as recreation on the basis of same sexualized image of the ‘other’.

The cultural construct of the image of woman as personifying a nation’s honor and that of the ‘other’ as a probable threat to that honor, correspond to the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This essential dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’ sets the boundaries of each, and specifies limits on any kind of social interaction. A constructed sense of constant threat from the ‘other’ provides legitimacy to nation-states to arm and militarize themselves, including attempts to go nuclear. The relationship with the ‘other’ is one that is mediated by violence and lack of social responsibility. However each of these images is essential to reinforce the other, and together they feed into a discourse of nationalism at any given historical time.

5. Citizenship and Nationalism

The category of a ‘citizen’ fetches in another set of qualifications that define belongingness to a nation. Being part of the national collective means that a certain set of duties and role-fulfillment are expected from men and women who belong to that nation. The criterion of citizenship is againa historically contested terrain. All those within the boundaries of a nation are not its citizens. Processes of ‘otherization’ are constant within the boundaries of the nation, so that hegemonic power relations are maintained and all opposition to it is effectively neutralized. The identity of a citizen is, therefore, marked by a set of strains: while on one hand, there is constant struggle to make it more inclusive by accommodating differences; on the other hand, the ideological construct of a citizen with an allied set of rights and duties, is used as a mode of ‘othering’ itself. For example, service in the military or army of the nation has been historically constructed as the civic duty of the citizen. While participation in military is not compulsory for a citizen in most countries, yet it is indicative of a position of an enhanced civil status. The coercive authority of the state depends upon its army; consequently, challenges to the hegemonic power of the state may find their origin in the same. Therefore, it is essentially binding upon the nation state to encourage its citizens to actively participate in the army in service of the nation. The ideological identity of a citizen with the highest aim of protecting one’s nation is pressed into service, and this also accords legitimacy to the ideological construct of the nation.

5.  1. Armies and Wars: Interspersing of Class, Gender and Nationalism

The nation-state is swayed by a variety of historical reasons to recruit its citizens in the army in the particular way that it does. Recruitment in army is defined by intersections of class, ethnicity and gender. Call for participation in the army is more binding for certain ethnic, religious minorities in order to prove their ‘loyalty’ to the nation. Stereotypical and racialized image of certain communities as ‘fierce and dangerous’ may induce their recruitment within the army as a special regiment or corp. There have been historical examples, where certain communities have been encouraged, and even coerced, to ‘volunteer’ for the army more than any other groupings. The inferior position of these very communities within the hegemonic collective of a nation is reflected in the fact that they are employed as ‘cannon fodder’ within the militaries and these are the groups which face maximum casualty in event of a war or any other national project.

The recruitment process within the armies all across the world are visibly gendered processes. Women’s participation in the armies is of a specific nature; duty in a very specific sense is expected of women. Within the armies, women are recruited primarily as nurses, teachers, and civil personnel which reinforces the gender stereotype that women being physically inferior to men, are not meant to kill and fight in wars. As a citizen of the nation, a woman is expected to play the role of a supporter, a wife and mother, who keeps the home running while the husband goes to fight war. The stereotypical image of a woman as a weak docile being, apt for lighter chores of the household, in need of constant protection, is utilized to bring out or enhance the ‘machoism’ of the men in the armies. The construct of the ‘feminine’ is constantly invoked to press differences between the female soldiers and their male counterparts, and this serves twin purposes: on one hand, the raw ‘masculine’ power of the male soldiers is honed against the impotent ‘feminine’, with latter requiring constant patronage and protection. On the other hand, the inferior positions within which women are recruited in armies keep a check on any possible attack on traditional power structure at ‘home’.

Armies are not the only medium which shapes up women’ experiences in situations of conflicts and wars. The effects of displacement and destruction caused by wars are very different for women as compared to men. Traditional structures of power which forbid women from joining armies, result in women being left at home with children and the elderly when the male members are mobilized to join armies and fight wars for the nation. In such situation, women are left to fend for themselves and rest of the families. The biggest casualties in wars are probably the men who fight in armies; in cases of military invasions, it is the men who are rounded up, tortured, killed and made to ‘disappear, however, the after-effects of the war are borne acutely by women and children who are left behind. Refugees all over the world consist of more and more women and children. Added to this, is the fact that in face of military aggression, women are exposed to systematic rape at the hands of the invading army. The women are at the receiving end of violence of rape as a mode of torture, or that perpetrated with the intention of violating the ‘honor’ of the community. Women, who are rape victims in situations of war, face the threat of abandonment by their surviving families and communities because of the preoccupation with questions of honor and shame. Children born to rape victims are not often owned up by the families because of the same reason. The violence of displacement and forced migrations that wars and military aggressions cause is made conspicuous by its gendered effects. The burden of reconstructing or starting life afresh, in a new place and altered circumstances, rests with the women more than anyone else. The gender dimension of impacts of war is also class-mediated. The identity of a ‘refugee’ in war-torn countries has become a permanent identity of its people, especially the women.

6.  Third-world Nationalisms: Implications for the Feminist Movement

           The preceding pages give an account of the different ways in which gender identities are employed to give shape to a particular discourse of nationalism. A host of social identities created by such a discourse lend credence to ideological construct of a nation. The status and role of a woman in society is a determined by a host of social, political and economic factors that go into the cultural construction of nation. The identity of a woman, including the question of her right over self and body are socially mediated as well as socially determined. The privileged identity of woman as the biological reproducer of the nation has consequences in terms of a rigid control over something as basic as her reproductive rights. The historical preservation and reproduction of a nation’s identity and ‘honor’ are assumed to be the responsibility of the women folk. This incidentally, is also the historical framework that defines the citizenship status of women which invokes an entirely different set of role, duties and rights for women, as compared to men. In contexts like these, the primary struggle for any feminist or women’s movement is for an autonomous space and identity against the hegemonic discourse of a nation. The feminist movement channels its fight to attain equal individual rights, which otherwise stand displaced in the name of the community, nation and state. The question is whether this dominant stream within feminist movements, especially in that of western countries, be generalized for women who are part of oppressed nationalities as well? Are experiences and concerns of women in post-colonial societies, reeling under neo-colonial relations of suppression and domination in a rapidly globalizing world, the same as those of the so-called first-world feminists? The subjugated nationalities in contemporary times, in which women along with their male counterparts face the brunt of new forms of oppression, their stance towards issues of nationalism are very different from the conventional opposition that is perceived to exist between the discourses of feminism and nationalism. Feminists from the so-called Third world accuse their western counterparts of looking at the specific problems and experiences in solely ‘cultural’ terms. The overwhelming context of a white liberal democracy, in which feminism of the west is located, serves only to ‘essentialize’ the identity of the woman in the Third-world. The socio-economic and political context of a woman located in the Third world is very different from her counterpart in the advanced West. Therefore, the responses of the former category of women to questions of liberation, rights and autonomy will be of a different nature than that contained in the discourse of western feminist movements. Similarly, for women of oppressed nationalities who are part of the struggle for national liberation, their relationship with the state  and nation is of a very different nature. For a feminist movement to be inclusive in substantial terms, these differences between women belonging to different historical contexts must be given due cognizance.

Further Reading

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 1997. Gender and Nation. New Delhi: Sage

·         Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias (eds). 1989. Woman-Nation-State. London: Macmillan

·         Nira Yuval Davis. 2003. Nationalist Projects and Gender Relations,Nar. umjet, 40/3. pp.   9-36, available at:\http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1993.9993800#.VTN6dNKqqko accessed on 19.4.2015

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 1996. Women And The Biological ‘Reproduction’ of the Nation, Women’s Studies International Forum, 19/1-2, pp.17-24

·         Nira Yuval-Davis and Marcel Stoetzler. 2002. Imagined Boundaries and Borders, A Gendered Gaze, The European Journal of Women’s Studies, 9/3, pp. 329-344

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 1980. The Bearers of the Collective: Women and Religious Legislation in Israel, Feminist Review, 4, pp. 15-27

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 1991. The Citizenship Debate: Women, Ethnic Processes and the   State,Feminist Review, 39, Shifting Territories: Feminism & Europe, pp. 58-68

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 1997. Women, Citizenship and Difference, Feminist Review, 57, Citizenship: Pushing the Boundaries, pp. 4-27

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 2011. Power, Intersectionality and the Politics of Belonging. Aalborg: Institut for Kultur og Globale Studier, Aalborg Universitet

·         Nira Yuval-Davis. 2007. Intersectionality, Citizenship and the Contemporary Politics of Belonging, in Jennifer Bennett (ed.) Scratching the Surface: Democracy, Traditions, Gender, Pakistan: Heinrich Boll Foundation, pp. 7-22

·         Kumari Jayawardena. 1986. Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London: Zed

• Partha Chatterjee.  1994.  The  Nation  and  Its  Fragments:  Colonial  and  Post-colonialHistories. Princeton: Princeton University Press
• K. Sangari and S. Vaid (eds). 1990. Recasting Women in India: Essays in Colonial History. NJ: Rutgers University Press

Web links:

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