5. Postcolonial feminism

‘Postcolonial feminism’ asks: What makes postcolonial feminism ‘postcolonial’? Can it be distinguished from such categories as ‘third-world feminism’ or ‘women in third-world politics’? At its most general, postcolonial feminism involves any challenge to dominant patriarchal ideologies by women of the third world. The specific conditions for women in postcolonial states, or the postcolonial conditions in metropolitan states for migrants, vary according to location, with the result that there cannot be a single form of postcolonial politics. Postcolonial feminism has never operated as a separate entity from postcolonialism; rather it has directly inspired the forms and the force of postcolonial politics.