Women in Burmese Days

Orwell criticizes colonialism and attempts to expose “the lie that [colonizers are] here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them”, but his critique of the evils of colonialism is confined to the male-centred world. Orwell does not extend the same critique to colonialism’s complicity in reinforcing the subjugation of women. This disparity is embodied in Flory’s treatment of indigenous men, striking friendships with Veraswami and other indigenous men while simultaneously mistreating Ma Hla May like a domesticated pet-slave; he purchases her from her parents and describes her as having “rather nice teeth, like the teeth of a kitten”. The manner in which Flory mistreats and abuses Ma Hla May serves as a parallel to Elli’s misogynistic contempt for indigenous women. English colonizers exert ‘control’ over indigenous women’s bodies by commodifying their bodies. The multiplicity of women’s identities is embodied in Ma Hla May; she is “the woman”, “mistress”, “concubine”, “wife”, “prostitute” depending on how the Englishman defines her or how she defines herself in relation to the colonizer.

In Burmese Days, both European and indigenous women are subjected to the oppression of the male colonizers. The club functions as the symbolic space in which imperial superiority and more significantly, white-male authority is reinforced by its’ exclusive “clubbability”. It is a place where misogynistic jokes are exchanged and while European women are admitted into the club, they are excluded from the right to vote, a privilege reserved exclusively for English males. The club serves as “the Indian marriage-[meat] market” where single white females are objectified as “carcasses of frozen mutton, to be pawed over by nasty old bachelors”. The symbolic oppression of women’s freedom becomes a literal imprisonment when “in cases of riot European ladies were always locked inside the jail until everything was over”. So, Orwell was anti-imperialist and as some called him, a socialist but women are excluded from his campaign against oppression. . . Hmmm. . .

ps/ sorry my quotes do not have page references cos I read the text online...