As an educator, I am struck by the number of students who believe that European American women were the first to desire freedom and that their ``poor sisters'' in developing countries will only become emancipated as these countries become modernized and follow the Western model. There is an irony here.

Feminist scholars of colonial history have illustrated that part of the civilizing mission of the colonizers was, in fact, to rid the ``natives'' of their acceptance of women's leadership. Indeed, the Igbo women's war in Nigeria in 1929 was precisely a battle between the traditional Ekwe women's councils and the colonial administration's masculinist model of rule. Yet today, sexist abuses in the Third World, from female genital mutilation in Africa to sati (wife burning) in India, are depicted as rooted in tradition. This portrayal of culture as rigid and ahistorical maintains and exacerbates cultural practices that oppress women.

Take the practice of female genital mutilation. African women's organizations, such as Forward, have demonstrated that the availability of accessible health care, health promotion and girls' education are the strongest indicators of whether local campaigns to eradicate the practice will be successful. Yet centuries of appropriation of Africa's peoples and natural resources have prevented the establishment of an adequate health and educational infrastructure. Foreign debt, another legacy of colonialism, and cuts in public expenditure imposed by the International Monetary Fund have also contributed to underdevelopment.

The existence of female genital mutilation can therefore be seen as a cultural practice sustained and strengthened by colonial rule, the historical undermining of women's power and contemporary economic policies. Once we take off the neo- colonial blinkers, we can see the ways in which the economic practices of the West are fully implicated in the cultural practices we so deplore elsewhere.

To bemoan the oppression of Third World women without acknowledging the role of racism, colonialism and economic exploitation is to engage in what black British feminist filmmaker Pratibha Parmar calls ``imperial feminism,'' a standpoint which claims solidarity with Third World women and women of color, but in actuality contributes to the stereotyping of Third World cultures as ``barbaric'' and ``uncivilized.''

Women of color in the United States are often trapped between imperial feminism and the need to challenge male violence within their communities. For instance, black women are torn between their desire not to send any more black men into a penal system already bursting with wasted lives and the need to use that very system to protect themselves and their children.

Similarly, American Indian women face a difficult dilemma in tackling domestic violence in their communities while denouncing police brutality against Indian men. Both of these cases illustrate the need for the feminist movement to address the nexus of racism-sexism that structures the political choices and practical strategies available to women of color.

Rather than responding to these dilemmas by turning a blind eye to sexism in their communities, women of color have energetically forged an integrated struggle against racism-sexism. Two upcoming events herald this important voice. On April 28-30, the Color of Violence Conference in Santa Cruz will connect all of the forms of violence, including homophobia, prison abuses, environmental racism and domestic abuse. At Mills College in Oakland, Beijing +5, hosted by the Women's Leadership Institute on April 15, will bring together activists and scholars to build a movement beyond imperial feminism.

It is through these multiracial coalitions that a new vision of women's history may emerge.

Julia Sudbury is assistant professor of Ethnic Studies at Mills College and author of ``Other Kinds of Dreams: Black Women's Organizations and the Politics of Transformation'' (Routledge, 1998)

©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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