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Letter to the Editor Women’sStudicsInt. Forum, Vol. 14. No. 2, pp. 505-513, 1991 0277-5395/91 13.00 + .OO Printed in the USA. 0 1991 Pergamon Flrss plc LETTERS To THE EDITORS Editorial Since its inception in 1978, WSIF has been was her second language. This culminated in very concerned about systemic male violence a paper given by Anna Yeatman at the Na- against women which knows neither class, tional Women’s Studies Conference in Mel- race nor cultural boundaries and in that time bourne, October 1990, which rendered Topsy we have published many articles on this top- Napurrula Nelson invisible and further im- ic. We therefore welcomed Diane Bell’s and pugned Diane Bell’s work. Meanwhile, male Topsy Napurrula Nelson’s important article violence against Aboriginal women contin- on intra-racial violence against women in ues. Australia: “Speaking about rape is everyone’s What follows is the correspondence WSIF business” (WSIF2(4), 1989). Reactions to received by Jackie Huggins et al., Topsy Na- the article were many, mainly positive: grate- purrula Nelson and Diane Bell. Contrary to ful for the authors’ courage to discuss a ta- rumours circulating in Australia, we never re- boo subject. A group of Australian Abori- fused to publish the letter by the Aboriginal ginal women, however, took issue with Bell’s women. But we felt that the debate deserved and Napurrula Nelson’s article: not with the more than an unsigned letter with typed reality of rape- this fact, as with rape of names, and no return address( Robyn women globally, remains uncontested-but Rowland wrote twice asking for a more de- with the question of authorship. They chal- tailed response that debated the points in lenged Diane Bell (a white anthropologist) Bell’s and Napurrula Nelson’s article with and Topsy Napurrula Nelson (an Australian which the urban Aboriginal women took is- Aboriginal woman from the Northern Terri- sue. When this did not eventuate our Manag- tory) about the “right” to speak out about ing Editor wrote twice to Jackie Huggins the distressing evidence of intra-racial rape. asking her to sign and fill out a copyright Specifically, they accused Diane Bell of “us- form with all the signatures as is standard ing” Topsy Napurrula Nelson, thereby practice. Neither response nor signatures misrepresenting the nature of the long-stand- were forthcoming. Consequently, we had to ing relationship between the two women and ask our publisher to seek legal advice in or- patronizing Napurrula Nelson as a “tradi- der to protect the 12 writers as well as the tional” Aboriginal woman from their stand- journal in case of legal action. point as “urban” Aboriginal women. We think that both the problem of intra- For those of us in Australia (Robyn racial violence and the question of who is Rowland and Renate Klein) it has been dis- allowed to speak out about male violence heartening to see, since the publication of against women are crucial topics. We still Bell and Napurrula Nelson’s article, white hope that we will receive (an) article(s) on feminists organizing panels at conferences, these topics from Aboriginal women. We but not thinking it proper to share the ensu- greatly appreciate that despite the way Diane ing “dialogue” with Diane Bell or Topsy Na- Bell has been misrepresented-in her ab- purrula Nelson. Importantly, it was not the sence-in white feminists’ fora in Australia, issue of steadily increasing intra-racial vio- she has taken the time to further develop her lence against Aboriginal women that was at analysis of these issues in “Intra-Racial Rape issue, but a condemnation of Diane Bell as Revisited: On Forging a Feminist Future be- exploitative and Topsy Napurrula Nelson as yond Factions and Frightening Politics” incompetent to speak on this topic as she was which we are publishing in this issue of “merely” a traditional woman and English u(sIF. We find it deplorable that speaking 505 506 Letters to the Editors out about rape still means paying a price- and still are, part of that colonising force. even in feminist circles. Our country was colonised on both a racially We are deeply distressed about these hap- and sexually imperialistic base. In many penings but more than ever determined to cases our women considered white women continue publishing radical analyses of the worse than men in their treatment of Abori- grim realities women continue to face global- ginal women, particularly in the domestic ly. We urge our readers to send us papers on service field. violence against women: we must continue to Which brings us to the point of Topsy Na- speak out in order to devise strategies to stop purrula Nelson as Bell’s co-author. We find it the abuse of women. amazing and unethical that her name has RENATE KLEIN (On behalf of the Editors) been placed as an author rather than that of chief informant. With all due respect, Topsy is an older traditional Aboriginal woman who speaks English as a second language [nd.] and the analysis of the type in Bell’s article is highly academic. Further, Topsy’s quotations Dear Editors, in the paper have little relevance to the chap- We wish to respond in order to make an ter and nothing to do with rape at all. objection to a recent article “Speaking About Bell also states she met Topsy “during an Rape Is Everyone’s Business” appearing in eighteen month stint of participant observa- Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. tion” (p. 405) and like so many anthropolo- 12 No. 4, 1989 by Dianne [sic] Bell. gists this provides the nexus whereby they Although some choose to call us “hostile become the experts at documenting and black urban Aboriginal women” (p. 405) let transposing an alien culture into western pa- us say we have the undisputable right to triarchal and feminist interpretations. This is speak as Aboriginal women also. We have not acceptable to us and is highly dangerous been aware for a long time that non-Abori- if cultural sensitivity to all Aboriginal Au- ginal researchers and workers in Aboriginal stralians irrespective of where they come communities have attempted to create “geo- from does not prevail. graphical and blood-line” divisions between It is our business how we deal with rape traditional and urban Aboriginals. Being ur- and have done so for the last 202 years quite ban does not imply we are any less Abori- well. We don’t need white anthropologists re- ginal than our traditional counterparts. porting business which can be abused and As the majority of us have University de- misinterpreted by racists in the wider com- grees we are able to analyse the article more munity. They feed like parasites to this type closely and we find it totally abhorrent and of thing. disagree with many of the assumptions Bell Another point we would like to address is makes-the largest being the title of her arti- that, yes, we find more cohesion with social- cle. We dispute the central proposition that ist feminists than radical feminists (p. 410) as rape is “everyone’s business.” What this re- our fight is against the state, the system, so- flects is white imperialism of others’ cultures cial injustices, and primarily racism, far in which are theirs to appropriate, criticise and excess of patriarchy. We continually find we castigate. One may well see rape as being ev- are being jockeyed into the position of fight- eryone’s business from a privileged white, ing and separating from our men and we will middle-class perspective, however, when you not. We are women and men together who are black and powerless it is a different story. have suffered grave injustices by the white Blacks have to face the individual, commu- invaders. We have all suffered. nal and societal consequences that whites Some of us were present at the 1984 Wom- don’t have to endure. en and Labour Conference in Brisbane (p. We realise that our internal conflicts have 415) where we were set up by radical femi- been exacerbated by colonisation and white nists who opportuned an old traditional lady women have always been a part of that pro- to give consent to a paper which we had cess. So just because you are women doesn’t agreed on earlier with the presenter not to be mean you are necessarily innocent. You were, made public. At no stage did we agree that a Lettersto theEditors 507 senior Aboriginal woman be present during Dear Editors, the address. We do not forget these incidents, How I might best deal with the controver- for we know the games whites play in setting sy (at least as far as I understand it) currently blacks against blacks and we feel that this swirling around publication of “Speaking article creates those divisions even further. about Rape is Everyone’s Business” (Bell & Bell’s paper makes us not want to work Nelson, 1989) has consumed my time and with white women, thus destroying some of energy for some time. Emotions have been the already good work that has gone before. running high and the mode of disputation We don’t need any further intrusions which since the letter of Jackie Huggins et al. (Feb- make life more difficult for us than it is now. ruary, 1990) began circulating, has been You must listen to us also for we are Abori- largely counter-productive (see Larbalestier, ginals who have felt the effects of colonisa- 1990; Bell, 1990). Thus, after careful consid- tion far worse than our traditional sisters and eration of counsel offered by colleagues, law- brothers.
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