Victimization of Women

Stoler asserts that European women were controlled and 'policied' "by reaffirming the vulnerability of white women and the sexual threat posed by native men" (60). This positioning of women as weak, vulnerable and fragile has been and still is repeated across various instances of war.

In A Passage to India, we have the incredulous belief that "the darker races are physically attracted by the fairer" (222), thus placing the European woman as vulnerable to the sexual appetite of native men.

Part of Hilary Clinton's speech at the First Ladies' Conference on Domestic Violence, 17 Nov 1998: "Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat".
http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/generalspeeches/1998/19981117.html

In an article titled, "The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women’s Role in Peace-building", Rafeeuddin Ahmed, Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim says: "In retrospect, I realize how much of my perception about women in war was influenced by the media. The incessant images of desperation and victimization tell only part of the story. The other part, the strength, courage and resilience, is rarely captured".
http://www.es.amnesty.org/uploads/tx_useraitypdb/women_war_peace.pdf

Women are constantly positioned and depicted as victims. However, I feel that Elizabeth of Burmese Days is somewhat a robust character. She appears to be a rather 'strong' character in the sense that she does not burst into tears (chapter 23 when Verall leaves at the train station, rather than bawling "she would betray nothing"), instead she is rather aggressive and assertive.

Therefore, what I mean to say is that Orwell doesn't really depict the vulnerability of European women (as per the character Elizabeth). But what is interesting is the vulnerability of European men to the sexual threat posed by native women is instead presented to us readers.

P.S. The darn page has an error and so I wasn't able to italize or underline anything properly. Dang it.