Repeating Regulations

Response 3

Parker Crowley

Repeating Regulations

Ann Stoler’s article, “Making Empire Respectable” and Laura Briggs’ Reproducing Empire strike poignant notes of colonialism, globalization, and the lingering taste of United States imperialism. Considering today’s U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern political affairs, a historical lens to assess past uses of domination is exceedingly pertinent.  Just as the sun “never set on the British Empire,” the United States’ sway has far reaching affects throughout the globe;  "...virtually nowhere in Latin America is it possible to be outside the influence of the U.S. economy nor immune from its political and military pressure..." (Briggs, 199).  These "pressures" from dominant regimes of imperialistic power run parallel to those of colonization by European empires.  Colonialism depended upon rigid categorization of multifarious peoples, thus empowered systems emphasized gender and racial binaries throughout their colonies; "Colonial politics locked European men and women into a routinized protection of their physical health and social space in ways which bound gender prescriptions to class conventions..." (Stoler, 652).

There is an overarching narrative of the "white man's burden," which was and is used to justify deliverances of "modern culture," via the objectification of women.  Through the strategic "protection" or vilification of female sexuality and reproduction, dominant world powers reify their own systems of power and social categorization.  Stoler writes of European colonialism's adherence to this model;  "...by controlling the availability of European women and the sorts of sexual access condoned, state and corporate authorities controlled the very social geography of the colonies..." (Stoler, 638).  Women were used as building blocks within the construction of gender and racial binaries.  Sharing colonial Europe's objectifying tactics, U.S. imperialism purloined Puerto Rican women's personal agency; "...U.S. imperialism works by, for example, robbing Puerto Rican women of their reproductive ability" (Briggs, 13).  Practices of subjugation and domination within European colonialism and United States' imperialism mirror one another in their representations and uses of women's sexuality and reproduction.