ABSTRACT
This is a chapter which has been the most difficult one to write. It is here where concepts, attitudes and practicalities get impossibly complex. The notion of feminism alongside colonialism is not easy. As Audre Lorde suggested a long time ago now in her essay “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”(1984), gender is one marker but it does require acknowleging the white privilege before one can proceed at all (Lorde 2012: 66). This can be painful for Western women, as we too undoubtedly have been discriminated against by patriarchal systems. This “acknowledging” can sometimes feel like a necessary ritual which has gagging properties – a white person can say nothing at all without acknowledging the white privilege. I accept this position and I have done many a time in this book and will do so again in this chapter. However, as a Polish woman who has had to struggle very hard against numerous forms of discrimination in my adopted homeland, Britain, I do feel the rising protest inside me too as I do this acknowledging, but I do perform it sincerely, nonetheless – more of it later.
