Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism

by Aileen Moreton-Robinson

Overview

A twentieth-anniversary edition of this tour de force in feminism and Indigenous studies, now with a new preface 
 

The twentieth anniversary of the original publication of this influential and prescient work is commemorated with a new edition of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman by Aileen Moreton-Robinson. In this bold book, of its time and ahead of its time, whiteness is made visible in power relations, presenting a dialogic of how white feminists represent Indigenous women in discourse and how Indigenous women self-present. 

Moreton-Robinson argues that white feminists benefit from colonization: they are overwhelmingly represented and disproportionately predominant, play the key roles, and constitute the norm, the ordinary, and the standard of womanhood. They do not self-present as white but rather represent themselves as variously classed, sexualized, aged, and abled. The disjuncture between representation and self-presentation of Indigenous women and white feminists illuminates different epistemologies and an incommensurability in the social construction of gender.

Not so much a study of white womanhood, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman instead reveals an invisible racialized subject position represented and deployed in power relations with Indigenous women. The subject position occupied by middle-class white women is embedded in material and discursive conditions that shape the nature of power relations between white feminists and Indigenous women—and the unjust structural relationship between white society and Indigenous society. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781517912284
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Series:	Indigenous Americas
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	822,862
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Goenpul woman of the Quandamooka people (Moreton Bay) and professor of Indigenous research at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She is Australia’s first Indigenous Distinguished Professor and a founding member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. In 2020, she was elected an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Her books include The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty (Minnesota, 2015); Critical Indigenous Studies: Engagements in First World Locations; and the Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies.

Table of Contents

20^th Anniversary Preface Aileen Moreton-Robinson xi

Preface Karen Brodkin xix

Introduction: Talkin' the Talk xxi

Chapter 1 Tellin' It Straight: Self-Presentation within Indigenous Women's Life Writings 1

Chapter 2 Look Out White Woman: Representations of "The White Woman" in Feminist Theory 32

Chapter 3 Puttem "Indigenous Woman": Representations of the "Indigenous Woman" in White Women's Ethnographic Writings 72

Chapter 4 Little Bit Woman: Representations of Indigenous Women in White Australian Feminism 94

Chapter 5 White Women's Way: Self-Presentation within White Feminist Academics' Talk 126

Chapter 6 Tiddas Speakin' Strong: Indigenous Women's Self-Presentation within White Australian Feminism 150

Chapter 7 Conclusion: Talkin' Up to the White Woman 179

Notes 187

References 192

Index 219

Whiteness Matters: Implications of Talkin' Up to the White Woman 235

Acknowledgements 255

Editorial Reviews

In Moreton-Robinson's experience with white feminists in Australia, the actions of middle-class white women who believe they are countering racism are frequently viewed very differently by indigenous women. In her examination of feminist discourse, Moreton-Robinson (a Koenpul woman who teaches at Griffith U., Brisbane) argues that white feminists in academia are still unable or unwilling to challenge the power and privileges attached to whiteness or its status as the measure of what is "normal." She develops the concept of intersubjectivity, or the importance of white feminists being able to see themselves and indigenous people through indigenous eyes as a way to recognize their everyday participation in practices of racial domination. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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