Canadian Race Relations Foundation

The authors of 'Anti-Racist Feminism' focus on issues such as, gender, racism, oppression, and exploitation. They also delve into Canadian and Québec national identity and socio-economic conditions of women. The work’s vigour also centers on history, immigration policies, the labour force, and health care.

During the colonial regimes, white feminists portrayed Hindu women 'as victims of barbaric cultural customs from which they needed help to escape' and French photographers/painters (among other Europeans) protrayed African and Arab women as sexualized, cloistered or both. These racist photographs/paintings were also used as postcards, serving as an intrusive mechanism to 'open up' the 'colonized' society to the colonizers. (p. 31) The history of Aboriginal peoples in Canada and the experiences of Black Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians and South Asian-Canadians with respect to Canadian immigration policies reveal the extent of exploitation, domination and racism hat has characterized the relationship between the dominant whites and others. (p.118)