Gender-Specific Sexual Sanctions of Intimate Relations and Imperially Oppressing Political Sphere

Tural Abbasov

ENG 450B

Prof. Donette A. Francis

March 13th, 2008

Gender-specific Sexual Sanctions of Intimate Relations and Imperially Oppressing Political Sphere

As a literary genre, romance or chivalric romance we refers to the heroic writing style and free verse narrative. Modern times have altered the ways women are portrayed in movie industries’ romantic genres. With the wave of feminism and colonial desire we are able to identify specific genre of romance in films that we have watched and chapters we have read. It is this romance between characters that lives on despite the many differences that prevent them from living “happily ever after.” Births of feminism and romance have played a major role in adaptation of female qualities in such films as Chocolat and Heading South. Not only do these two films portray women’s place in society but they also depict different racial divides that kept sexuality and romance forbidden between the characters. While reading two chapters by Ann Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power” and “A Sentimental Education” in contrast to the two films my mind viewed things from a female perspective in their fight for feminism and freedom of expressing their romantic love towards different racial and ethnic individuals. We are able to follow the romance genre in colonial intimacy and challenges it brought upon different individuals.

In “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender and Morality in the Making of Race” we are introduced to a system where Asian women from lower social status are brought to European men of higher social status for an outside marriage. As Stoler describes in the text, these were just words, in actuality it was a way for already married European men to get easy sexual access to non European women as well as demands on her labor and legal rights to the children she gave birth to. These Asian women would conceive a child for them and by civil code of 1848 native women had no rights over children recognized by a white man (Stoler, 49). I felt outrageous after reading this section. These women were literally used by European men while their husbands and families back home could feel more “privileged.” This was a system of brainwashing by the dominant white male race. Another benefit from having intercourse with Asian women was that it lowered the number of syphilis cases. Prior to import of these women, it was clear that resorting to prostitution tremendously increased the number of syphilitic cases and raised a lot of health questions in the colonial life (Stoler, 48).

This kind of treatment of women still exists today as a result of poverty and misinformation. Many people are still uneducated and misinformed of reality and less fortunate ones are easy targets of propaganda. This was done deliberately as means to oppress these women and their cultures. It was a strategic movement under oppressive conditions. One may consider these women to be strong-minded and full-spirited. They were willing to sacrifice their lives and pride in order for their families to gain a step up in the social class.

In contrary women were portrayed as being more dominant in two of the films we watched. It was men that were of lower social status. In the film, Heading South we are introduced to three white American ladies, Brenda, Ellen and Sue, who travel to Haiti in the midst of danger that existed in late 1970s. Their exploration for romance brings them to contact with men of African-American descent. The central purpose of their presence in Haiti lies in total disregard of their men back home. They are making this trip in search of love, romance, sex, and fun in the sun. These women have strong attractions towards exotic races and end up meeting a young man named Legba. He is a handsome young man who they shower with gifts and money. This film raises many points. This film shows us that there is a female counterpart to male sex tourism. The film is also about love tourism, as evident from crushes that these women on Legba. We may wonder if this is just another form of imperialism or is it more complex than that? Why is it that in certain parts of the movie we pity these women, while as a society we are accusing men in the same situations? Why do these women have to travel in search of exotic men? If that is their soul desire they could do that in the states. It is possible that as white women upper social class, they don’t want to be seen with ethnic men. That is why they feel the need to escape from their native country in order to fulfill their sexual desires.

We feel pity for these women because we are being taken into their feelings.