Table Of Content‘Highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates through professionals,
this book contains an excellent, extensive bibliography that will provide the
advanced student or scholar with numerous resources for in-depth analysis of
many important contemporary issues.’
– G.M. Greenberg, Choice
‘Gender and Colonialism provides an excellent overview of liberation psychol-
ogy from a feminist perspective. In the fashion of a Psychological Bulletin arti-
cle – extended to book format – it gives a meaningfully organized, well-written,
systematic and creative summary of the literature in this research domain.’
– T. Teo, Theory and Psychology
‘It is a wide-ranging reference text, excellent for teaching purposes.’
– M. McDermott, Women’s Studies International Forum
‘Moane’s book makes a significant contribution to a necessary discussion of
oppression and liberation in psychology.’
– S. Austin, Feminism and Psychology
‘Moane’s book will appeal to a wide audience ... her book is thus both practical
and visionary.’
– B. Bayer, Irish Journal of Feminist Studies
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Also by Geraldine Moane
CARE PROVISION AND COST MEASUREMENT: Dependent Elderly People at
Home and in Geriatric Hospitals (co-author)
SUPPORT SERVICES FOR CARERS OF ELDERLY PEOPLE LIVING IN THE
COMMUNITY (co-author)
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Gender and Colonialism
A Psychological Analysis of Oppression
and Liberation
Geraldine Moane
University College Dublin, Ireland
Foreword by Mary Daly
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© Geraldine Moane, 1999, 2011
Foreword © Mary Daly 1999
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1999
This revised paperback edition published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–0–333–69966–9 hardback
ISBN: 978–0–333–99429–0 paperback
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Foreword by Mary Daly vii
Acknowledgements ix
1. Women, Psychology and Society:
The Personal is Political 1
2. Hierarchical Systems: Patriarchy and Colonialism 27
3. Psychological Patterns Associated with
Hierarchial Systems: The Cycle of Oppression 57
4. Breaking Out: The Cycle of Liberation 89
5. The Personal Level: Building Strengths 116
6. The Interpersonal Level: Making Connections 136
7. The Political Level: Taking Action 155
8. Liberation Psychologies in Action: Local and
Global Examples 176
9. Interconnections between Personal and
Political Change: Towards an Egalitarian Society 208
References 231
Index 258
v
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Figures
1. E xamples of six modes of control found in colonialism
and patriarchy 180
2. Psychological vulnerabilities and strengths:
The cycle of oppression 182
3. Changes in the personal, interpersonal and
political spheres: The cycle of liberation 183
vi
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Foreword
This is an important book for all who want to face and understand the
dilemmas posed by living in patriarchy, the state of possession. It is
about the struggle to survive and thrive on the Boundary, to Realize
a New Reality that is based on biophilia, or love of life, that is in har-
mony with the Dance of the Universe. This involves understanding that
patriarchy is characterized by oppression, repression, depression, with
increasingly destructive forces bringing us nearer to global ecological
collapse than ever before.
This state of possession stultifies women, who have layers of crippling
thought-patterns comparable to the footbindings which mutilated mil-
lions of Chinese women for over one thousand years. These thought-
patterns are mindbindings comprised of masterminded myths and
ideologies meant to mummify the spirit and maim the brain. Women
must break out of these mindbindings, for at a time when life on this
planet is threatened it is increasingly clear that the cause of women and
the cause of ecology are profoundly connected.
What Geraldine Moane succeeds in doing is showing women how
to cast off these mindbindings. She manages to do this first by cre-
ating an awareness in the reader of how the state of possession infil-
trates and permeates the lives and experiences of women. She describes
in a scholarly and thorough manner how the overarching myths and
structures of patriarchy enclose and stifle the impulse to liberation. She
suggests specific and practical steps for moving to the Boundary – the
new time/space created by women surviving and thriving. Following
the methods described by Geraldine Moane, women can learn to real-
ize their own power and communicate contagious courage and pride
even in the midst of oppressive conditions. Drawing on the cauldron of
women’s experiences, she aims to shatter the casings that keep women
from discovering the source of deep purposefulness that makes possible
growth, adaptation and creation. Her goal is to cause volcanic eruptions
in women’s psyches so that they can whirl away in all directions from
the death-march of patriarchy.
I am particularly impressed by the practicality of her book. She identi-
fies the important interconnecting mechanisms of patriarchal control,
including violence, political exclusion, economic and sexual exploit-
ation and dissemination of phallocratic ideology. She specifies in detail
vii
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viii Foreword
how patriarchy grinds women down physically, mentally, emotionally
and spiritually. Standing firm in her belief that ‘You can’t keep a good
woman down’, she proposes and spells out strategies which can spark
a tremendous uprising of women, such as building self-confidence,
developing a sense of history, cultivating creativity, making connec-
tions and fostering solidarity. These strategies can enable women and
all who resist the state of possession to join together, to overcome sep-
aration and fragmentation, to realize our connectedness and powers of
creation, to craft the New Reality that we long for so deeply.
Geraldine Moane’s analysis and directives are based on years of
experience in the Irish and American women’s liberation movements.
Recalling the powerful events of the seventies and beyond, she reminds
wild women of our great and ancient heritage. Refusing to be defeated
by the doldrums of the ‘millennial times’, she catches the torch passed
down by her foresisters through the ages. She urges her readers to wake
up and continue the struggle for liberation.
MARY DALY
Crystal Lake,
Newton Center, MA
Mary Daly, who died in January 2010, was a leading radical
feminst who published eight books, describing herself as a
Positively Revolting Hag and a Crafty Pirate/Voyager.
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Acknowledgements
This work began with what seemed like a simple question, asked a long
time ago, namely, why is it that a small number of people can keep a
large number of people in a state of oppression? Over the years, this led
to the related questions of what is involved in breaking out of oppres-
sion and how can we bring about the radical social transformations
that are now so badly needed. While these questions are of concern to a
great number of people in different locations, this book focuses particu-
larly on the role of psychology, and of psychological understanding, in
addressing these questions.
The first edition of this book was the outcome of a long period of
engagement with questions about oppression and liberation that
began in the post-colonial Irish context of the 1970s, a period of eco-
nomic underdevelopment combined with the (re)emergence of liber-
ation movements informed particularly by socialist and feminist ideas.
Teaching in the fields of psychology and women’s studies along with
political activism provided a crucial catalyst for clarifying the ideas and
for furthering the analysis. Writers who were particularly influential in
the development of the analysis include Mary Daly, Jean Baker Miller,
bell hooks, Frantz Fanon, Mary Robinson and Steve Biko, along with
numerous other writers in feminist and post-colonial theory and psych-
ology. I adopted the phrase ‘liberation psychology’ which at the time
had origins in several different contexts and has since been increasingly
associated with the writings of the Latin American psychologist Martín
Baró and colleagues.
Publication of the first editon in 1999 coincided with the flourishing
of women’s studies in Ireland and internationally, and also with increas-
ing efforts to develop psychologies that would engage with oppression,
liberation and social justice issues. Writers in these areas that were par-
ticulalry helpful include Erica Burman, Rose Capdevila, Michelle Fine,
Lisa Goodman, Sheila Greene, M. Brinton Lykes, Maritza Montero, Isaac
Prilleltensky, Ral Quiones Rosado, Rhoda Unger, and Sue Wilkinson.
Along with many others in Ireland and internationally, I have had
the opportunity to put liberation psychology into practice in several
different contexts, and these experiences have contributed immeasur-
ably to greater understandings of oppression and liberation that have
been incorporated into this second edition. I would particularly like to
ix
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