Womens Involvement in British Imperialism Essay

Womens Involvement in British Imperialism - Essay Example Consequently. This school of thought was much against the political freedom and equality for women. However, another band of feminists advocated for political equality, though they firmly believed in the superiority of the white race. This school of thought believed that whites were on a civilizing mission in the world through their imperialistic conquests. Despite support to racism and imperialism, they struggled for their political liberty. The third category of influential women was the suffragettes who discarded the principles of imperialism and considered it as a hurdle in the attainment of complete liberty and equality, in terms of race and gender. Campaigners for the same cause had very different perspectives, notions and tactics. (Imperialism and Gender, http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/histcourse/womwn/hannam/hancore.htm#part 3) Suffrage and imperialism had a very ambivalent relationship - many feminists were arch-imperialists and racists, partly because they felt that the raci al hierarchy might outweigh the sexual one, but some saw discrimination against women and the fundamental racism of colonial society as two sides of the same coin. As Du Bois and Karl Marx emphasized, capitalism has been an international system from its very beginning. The methods of operation start from identifying cheap labour, exploiting natural resources and finding the right band of consumers to sell these products. This exploitation took the form of colonization way back, a sophisticated version of slavery and plunder. Imperialism is not a stage, not even the highest stage of capitalism, it is inherent in capitalism. Imperialism is the systematic appropriation of cheap labour, resources and markets of less developed regions and countries to satiate the profit-making tendencies of the ruling regions, mostly the developed countries. Historically speaking, imperialism has racial overtones. There are various instances of racial and cultural discrimination by imperial powers. As imperialism ramified and reached a stage further, it did something that can be called one of the biggest problems that humankind has been confronted with - the overwh elming polarization of the world that has made only a small portion of the entire world population as the real beneficiaries of the utilities and facilities. Colonialism was not a phenomenon that emerged overnight as a conscious policy of Britain. As J.R. Seely, the famous historian remarked, " It happened in a fit of absence of mind." Sometimes the flag followed the trade and sometimes the trade followed the flag, but the flag ended up just about everywhere. What began as an economic quest, became a political ambition and finally an imperialist realization. The British regime was one of the most powerful imperial power till the mid 1900s. In fact, it ruled the seas! There was a time when imperial history lacked a perspective on its various dimensions. With more research and academic insights into the subjects, several complicated and convoluted observations and analyses have been made. The former perspective was very congenial to the promoters of the empire. However, it came under radical attack by liberalists like Hobson and was seen as the cause and consequence of several events and phenomena. The British hegemony was not limited to political and economic expansions, but also had a cultural dimension to it. The spectrum of cultural diversity started fading and a focus on cultural imperialism found representation.