Neoliberalism has taught us to be consumerist, self-serving and competitive. Many of us women of the middle and upper classes are content with the perceived ‘benefits’ of its systems afforded to women: economic independence, entrepreneurial confidence, rewards for merit and commitment, the possibility of rising to power within its structures, and most of all, the illusion of liberation from domestication. Neoliberalism, like all ideologies shaped by patriarchy, is effective in its invisiblisation of systemic power – the key ingredient in sustaining existing power structures. We don’t realise we – our bodies, our minds, our labour – are merely trapped in another kind of patriarchal machine. It offers itself up as the solution to our problems, convincing us to see our problems as individual, and not related to systemic power relations and structural injustice. (Wijesiriwardena, 2016)
This chapter begins with a quote from a 2016 blog post titled “It’s Really Time We Stopped Rejecting Feminism” by Subha Wijesiriwardena, a feminist writer and performer from Lanka. Wijesiriwardena (2016) discusses activism that challenges sexist and gender-based marginalisation and argues that such activism informs what feminism means in particular contexts. This kind of activism, she argues, echoes historical and geopolitical contexts with a sense of solidarity through shared political struggles and celebrations. Wijesiriwardena notes that many who challenge sexism do not necessarily frame their activism as feminist. My thesis findings resonate with this and provide profound insights into how activists manifest subaltern feminisms which continually evolve through time and space.
The activists in this research did not identify with universalised or hegemonised interpretations of feminism because they cannot be directly translated or applied in their particular contexts. My findings show that it is pivotal to look deeper to understand different interpretations of feminism and what they offer in order to envision justice and better futures for the marginalised peoples. Wijesiriwardena (2016) critiques neoliberal thinking that reproduces patriarchal values and structures, highlighting the importance of avoiding getting trapped in these manifestations. Similarly, the activists critiqued organisational structures and functions – often based on neoliberal frameworks of development – that perpetuate existing forms of marginalisation. The activists’ experiences shed light on the importance of critiquing practices – the fourth and final thread of consciousness – to transform individuals and society.
In Chapter 6, I showed how activists engagements produce subaltern feminisms as a powerful tool to manifest imaginaries of justice. In this chapter, I offer interpretations of their application of subaltern feminisms. Drawing on the activists’ experiences, I weave in the final thread of consciousness that produces the necessary transformations and desired growth. The final sub-research questions guide this inquiry:
iv) Have activists been able to broaden their conception of inequality and marginalisation? If yes, how?
v) What is their relationship with groups and/or collectives that work on different forms of marginalisation?
I show that critiquing practices initiated by activists paves the way to being conscious of experiences and voices that are often left out. As I showed in Part I of this thesis, the legacy of Lanka’s brutal history of ethnic war still dominates Lankans’ consciousness and casts a tall shadow over the other injustices and inequities of Lankan society. Hence, everything activists do to get in touch with those who have been left out of dominant narratives, even within activist spaces, is hugely important. The tool that drives them towards this awareness is the desire to
critique their practices and look deeper to reveal who is being silenced by processes, initiatives, and interventions, such as those addressing gender-based discrimination, that are meant to be making a difference to the lives of the marginalised. The following sections add further insights into how this final thread of consciousness operates.
8.1 THE NEED FOR CRITIQUING PRACTICES
Due to the prolonged ethnic war (early 1980s–May 2009) and the impact of natural disasters (especially the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami), the Lankan state has long relied on the support of international, national, and local (community-based) developmental agencies to address the needs of society, especially the directly affected communities. Globally, scholars from multiple disciplines have critiqued the concept of development, with many using a top-down approach to understand people’s struggles and the need for intervention in the absence of specific histories and the nuances brought out by the intersectional aspects of various forms of marginalisation (Chhachhi & Herrera, 2007; Hintjens, 2014; Kylasam Iyer, 2017; Okin, 1989). However, neoliberal development models have caused enormous challenges, including invisibilisation and silencing, for social movements, the survival of activists, and community-based activism (Divakalala, 2008, 2009, 2014; Divakalala & Rajany, 2010; Saroor, 2014; Wijesiriwardena, 2016).
In recent decades, the international institutionalisation of social movements has been systematically prioritised (Wijesiriwardena, 2016). The development approaches behind the United Nations Millennium Development Goals profoundly influenced small-scale community-based activism (Samuel, 2006). Even the usage of language changed, indicating a shift from movement-based thinking to neoliberal models. For instance, ‘activists’ came to be known as ‘civil society actors’ (Divakalala, 2008, 2014; Saroor, 2014). The focus of all interventions was slowly shifting from social transformation to short-term project deliverables.
The concept of equity was narrowed down to equality, and the language of emancipation was replaced by that of empowerment (Saroor, 2014). The support structures within and between communities that had been in existence for decades were mainstreamed and started to compete with one another for funding opportunities. The movements based on ideologies, including feminist ideologies, have suffered the most. The survival of a movement is a constant challenge (Divakalala, 2007, 2014; Samuel, 2006; Saroor, 2014).
As Wijesiriwardena (2016) points out, the awareness of systemic power relations and structural injustice highlights the need for critiquing one’s activist practice. The activists in this
research echoed this argument. Their experiences as people marginalised by a whole gamut of factors such as internal discrimination due to sex, gender, sexual identities, displacement, violence, caste, religion, and language (factors explored in Chapters 5–7) have contributed to their awareness of the need to constantly critique their practices when attempting to build a better future. For many activists from the North, their experiences of marginalisation have always been based on more than one aspect of their lives or the identity they carry or the one enforced on them by others. Hence, they are well qualified to seek out the marginalised within the marginalised. The tool they use in this search is critiquing their own understandings of inequality and marginalisation based on who is still being left out or is on the margins of their work. They question their own privileged positions to identify social relations of power and hierarchies among themselves. This practice of critiquing helps them to identify the layers of complexities, situate them historically, and elucidate profound understandings.
Over the years, critiquing their understandings and their activism for social change has helped them to create the space for all forms of marginal experiences to be expressed. The activists’ experiences show that working within hierarchical structures is deeply limiting and discriminatory. They saw the increasing institutionalisation of activism as a significant threat to the sustainability of their own social movements. This awareness helps them critique interventions, especially those designed for them but not by them or in the absence of their voices. The activists were also critical of having to fight for limited resources and funding opportunities. They critiqued these developments as the normalisation of hierarchies and silencing practices in the activist space. Often, they expressed feeling overwhelmed and betrayed. The activists do not use the word ‘neoliberalism’. However, the manifestations of their critiquing practices attacked neoliberal thinking, as activist scholars like Wijesiriwardena (2016, 2022) point out.
Feminist scholars share the same concern. Sunila Abeysekera, the late eminent feminist scholar from Lanka who worked tirelessly across the complex intersections of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, and language, argues that women who belong to marginalised communities are often faced with the detriment of having to navigate a critical sense of community and solidarity (see srilankandiasporaweb, 2011). For instance, Tamil-speaking women from Northern Lanka, being the allies of class struggles of Sinhala or Muslim women and others from the South or the East, can be treated as traitors within their own communities for allying with perceived enemies based on historical community conflicts. Abeysekera (2003) shows that some women’s groups have maintained their connections beyond such divisional and authoritarian influences, and the feminist tradition of being critical of such influences helps
them to nurture their sense of solidarity (Abeysekera, 2003). The next section provides further insights on this.
The findings show that critiquing practices often commence upon the realisation of how narrow the dominant interpretations of women’s lives are, interpretations that are predominantly framed in the neoliberal language of women’s empowerment (Divakalala, 2005, 2009, 2014). The activists in this study had critiqued the concept of women’s empowerment.
They shared that it has been limited to a singular interpretation which does not actually reflect the reality of Lankan women’s lives or their wellbeing. They noted that most micro-credit programmes imply that women’s empowerment is achieved simply by generating their own income. However, there seems to be almost no consideration of who has access to women’s income and who decides how that income is spent. The high rates of domestic violence against women are also ignored. Often, what is done in the name of empowerment only increases women’s likelihood of being exposed to violence and vulnerability, given that no other aspect of discrimination against women has been challenged or changed. In order words, the overall wellbeing of women and marginalised persons is often omitted in the generalised and limited narratives of empowerment (Divakalala, 2008).
Margret shared her criticisms of many organisational spaces where she felt ignored and was marginalised for speaking up. She has also been harassed and felt violated. Margret’s desire to work with non-government organisations (NGOs) was characterised by idealism – she thought that NGOs were the best tools to hold the government accountable by promoting the community’s actual needs. Her idealism was based on a belief that the pathos of people’s realities could inspire opportunities for positive social change. Marginalisations do not just victimise people, especially the marginalised sections of society. They also make them strong enough to practise their agency through negotiations, adjustments, and transformations. The need to work with the broad objectives of challenging patriarchal and other marginalising norms and structures and ensuring human rights through various means could not be more urgent (Divakalala, 2008, 2014). Based on her experiences of working for a few NGOs over several years, Margret said that “this idealism of mine was proven wrong a few times”.
Margret identified as a feminist and preferred to use different understandings of feminism as tools to interpret her realities and work towards change. Her interpretation of feminism fits that of the feminist philosopher Serene Khader (2015). According to Khader, feminists need to differentiate between oppressive practices and those that are not oppressive based on sexism. She argues that feminist projects are those that oppose sexist oppression. In other words, she argues that the question of feminism needs to take a substantive standpoint
where the underlying conceptual concern becomes sexist oppressions. Khader (2015) also points out the need to reject the assumption shared by many Western feminists that traditions are inherently patriarchal. This substantiates my claim that subaltern feminisms show that traditions and practices are not inherently patriarchal. The interpretations can be patriarchal and normative, along with many other discriminatory ideologies across time and space.
Based on her realisation with regard to NGOs, Margret’s critiquing practices started with questioning misogyny in organisational structures, values, practices, and attitudes towards women in the workplace. She has held positions such as Livelihood Coordinator, Women’s Empowerment Officer, and community worker roles. Often, she was forced to quit her job after advocating for her rights and those of her colleagues. Her experiences have repeatedly proven that there is no legal protection for employees from specific identities and social locations, which, she said furiously, “is a huge problem in Sri Lanka”. Her search for a job at a community-driven organisation continued:
I did not lose faith in working for a non-government organisation. A few months later, I found a job at another organisation that work with fishing communities. My role was to support the fisher women. I liked the job as it is not a common one where fisher women get supported. Fishing is usually dominated by men. A few months later, I began to notice that financial mismanagement and fraud at the office. I collected information and made a complaint to the head office in Colombo. I have learned financial management. So, I identify when there is corruption. But the head office did nothing. I left the organisation as I did not want to support corruption or be associated with it.
Margret’s experiences with several organisations have caused her to question and rethink some of the prevalent understandings of the role of NGOs, and their accountability and transparency in Lanka. In Lanka, NGOs are contested spaces with specific mandates and controls imposed by the government due to the generalised belief that most NGOs are anti-government with skewed socio-economic and political perspectives (Akurugoda, 2014). There are various kinds of NGOs, and “their involvement in local government and their contribution to local development indicate their potential role working as intermediaries to promote effective local governance” (Akurugoda, 2014, p. 14).
According to Margret, the NGO sector is dominated by heterosexual cismen from specific classes, castes, and religions in Northern Lanka. Most of them are Tamils and Muslims who speak the Tamil language. In the South, most of them are Sinhalese, and they often speak English. She has worked for several corrupt people and organisations. If you look deeper, they often come across as homophobic, anti-women, anti-trans, anti-intersex, classist, casteist, and racist. However, on a superficial level, they might seem benevolent. Margret thinks that this is
characteristic trait of contemporary Lankan society where people have learned to exist on the surface. The internal conflicts – even within the same family – on myriad issues are seldom expressed or addressed. This awareness shapes Margret’s consciousness of critiquing practices.
She believes this needs to change if the country wants to prosper after the three-decade-long violent conflict.
Online violence is slowly being recognised as a crime in Lanka (S. Perera & Ibrahim, 2021). A few organisations focus on finding justice for people affected by cybercrime and violence. The affected population are mostly women and LGBTQIA+ persons. Margret had been subjected to sexual harassment and bullying by her co-workers. They had misused the group photos taken for organisational purposes and used Margret’s image to bully her and open fake accounts with her image. Her online privacy was violated. People also repeatedly threatened and blackmailed her. Margret made many complaints to the heads of organisation she worked at. She never got any justice. The violations did not stop, and Margret had to leave the job eventually. This raises concerns about institutionalised violence and the safety of employees from marginalised sections of society. Margret’s firm belief in social and community work has never waned despite these adverse experiences. Currently, she is working for a charity organisation in Northern Lanka: “I am happy to have this job and the people who work there. We get along well.” She found the job through personal contacts.
Mala’s role with an informal group of environmental activists with a specific interest in voicing violence against girls and women did not turn out as she had expected. Looking to avoid working within a restrictive organisational structure, Mala found to her surprise that the informal group had a similar structure, despite saying at the outset that they were challenging power relations and hierarchies. Mala explained: “I was shocked that even a group that says that they work against some discriminatory practices could still have discriminatory values and practices towards certain other sections of our society.” When Mala tried to point this out to them, she was not heard. Instead, they did things to make her feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. Eventually, Mala shared, “I stood on my grounds until the very end, and when I knew that my time spent with them was becoming very toxic and unproductive, I left that group.”
Margret’s and Mala’s critiques of hierarchical structures based on patriarchal and other marginalising norms and values were echoed by other activists. Their experiences support the claims of feminist thinkers from various locations, and they can be seen to be making sense of feminism through their experiences of marginalisation. According to Mala, “When I met the feminist friends’ group, it felt like I finally found my people and the tools to understand power
structures better. I was able to understand discriminatory values and practices in more depth.”
In the next section, I put some of these thinkers in dialogue with activist narratives to produce a deeper understanding of subaltern feminisms.
Daya’s critiques of structural injustices are insightful, especially with regard to the Lankan health sector. According to Daya, policies and practices need to be critiqued from trans and intersex people’s perspectives:
I have worked on the national STD and AIDS prevention programme in the North. As I mentioned before, there are no statistics on how many trans or intersex persons are there in the North or even in the whole country. The only available stats is based on how people reach out for help, which we all know that is only tiny percent of the actual population of trans and intersex persons. There are grave stigmas and taboos around their identities across the country. I feel like it is more in places like Jaffna with a heavy focus on culture and religion. Also, as a result of the war, even the national census data is not accurate. There is no option to record trans and intersex persons on the form filled by the GS [Grama Sevakar – the local government official accessible at the community level and on whom everyone relies for services provision and intervention programmes].
Daya highlights that demographic information is still limited to the binary of sexes and genders in Lanka. Also, that information is unreliable due to the existing forms of marginalisation.
Hence, intervention programmes cannot be based on these statistics. They have to generate their own, and most programmes cannot do that due to limited resources. In Daya’s experience, only a few trans persons have changed their names and sex on their national identity cards since the 2016 circular issued by the Lankan government (General Circular No.: 01-34/2016).
According to this circular, trans persons can legally change their names and sex on their birth certificates and get their national identity cards corrected. Daya stated that “there is a lot of confusion around this circular and not many trans persons even know about it.”
Daya continues to highlight the loopholes in this circular. Although she thought it was an improvement, she did not welcome the fact that there is a clause that says “changed from a man to a woman”. Many trans persons she works with do not like this either. Daya speaks on behalf of her community:
We do not know why they have to mention this. We have changed, and now we are women. Why does it have to say that we used to be men? We see this as discrimination against us. This gives away the fact that we are trans, which might have negative consequences. It does protect us from being confused about how we look or behave. It is not the solution we seek. It only makes us more vulnerable.
Daya’s critical consciousness has informed her decision not to transition medically. She is one of the few transwomen in Lanka who looks masculine in appearance with a moustache and a beard. Daya has contemplated medical transition for years. The awareness of malpractice