Racism versus Sexism?
Issues arising in addressing the two
Sexism is a form of oppression, specifically it is a set of ideas, attitudes and assumptions which operate against the interests of women and the power of men to enforce these in ways that undermine, restrict and control women, socially, ideologically, economically, physically and sexually. --Mega Jones and Ashley Smith
Racism is a specific form of discrimination usually based on skin colour or membership of a minority ethnic group. Racism is a system of group dominance. This system is both structural and ideological. That is, it embodies political, economic, and socio-cultural structures of inequality, and processes and practices of exclusion, oppression and marginalisation, as well as socio-cognitive representations required by these structures and processes.--Platform Against Racism
Traveller WomenIt is important to understand the burdens of gender and ethnic oppression experienced by Traveller women. The liberation of Traveller women from these burdens must come from an understanding of sexism and racism and a commitment to challenge and change the current situation. But what is important to stress is that in addressing the complex issues arising from sexist and racist attitudes and behaviour Traveller women are not forced to prioritise one form of oppression over the other.
Traveller GroupsTraveller groups have created a space for Travellers to come together to discuss, highlight and seek redress to the issues that are important for them as Travellers. Many groups through the organisation of women's development courses have provided a space for Traveller women to discuss and examine a range of women issues. What is important is the creation of a third space: one where Traveller women can raise issues of concern for them as Traveller women through the recognition and inclusion of a women's dimension to the work with Travellers and the recognition and inclusion of a Travellers' dimension to the work with women.
The challenge for settled people involved in work with Traveller women is how to support Traveller women to identify and use this space in a manner that is conducive to positive change. Questions that Travellers and settled people involved in the work must ask of themselves with regard to their fight against oppression includes:
Sexism & Racism"What are we doing that could be maintaining the oppression?"
"What are we doing that could be managing the oppression?"
"What are we doing that would be challenging the oppression?"
This is by no means easy as "Black and minority group women have extensively documented the interplay between, and contradictions of addressing, gender oppression and racism in their lives. This can involve these women in invidious choices between raising the issue of sexism within their own community and being in solidarity with their own community in resisting external oppression." (The Task Force Report on the Travelling Community p283).
It requires work with Traveller women, Traveller men, settled women and settled men: raising their consciousness of the complex issues involved; naming the challenges and identifying the appropriate spaces in which they must be addressed. It will involve on-going examination of the work undertaken by Traveller groups: one useful mechanism would to look at the knowledge and skills learnt and used in the internal space (the home and community) and the external space (local, national or international levels) and the potential for positive change that could be realised by transferring skills and knowledge between these two spaces.
Human rights & CitizenshipAll citizens have rights - these rights also involve duties and responsibilities. Members of the majority population have a responsibility to become involved in supporting minorities to achieve their rights as citizens, working with them in solidarity.
Access to the resources that enable people to meet their basic needs, to reach a socially acceptable standard of living and to live with dignity in society, is essential in order for people to be able to achieve and exercise their rights. Travellers' rights as individual citizens and as a group with a distinct culture and identity need to be acknowledged and supported: this includes the collective right to maintain and express their culture and identity.
Oppression arises from the inequalities within societal structures: collective action on many different fronts is required to ensure that there are no hierarchies of inequalities.
women's rights are indivisible from other human rights and Traveller women's rights are indivisible from Travellers' rights. Traveller women need to be supported and encouraged to take collective action on issues facing them. One of the basic civil and political rights available to citizens is the right to vote. Traveller women need to be informed of this right, of how the electoral system works and the importance of exercising this right given that the frame work in which policy decisions affecting their daily lives are made by those elected at local, national and European levels.
If the feminist principle of establishing egalitarian practice in our theoretical work is correct, then we must conceptualise the problem itself in egalitarian terms. That means that we do not impose a hierarchy of order on the different forms of oppression.
--Lena Dominelli & Eileen McLeod
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