Within much of western feminist discourse there is a tendency to classify women from the “third world” as exploited, powerless victims. In Chandra Mohatny’s essay ‘Under Western Eyes’ we learn that classifying the experiences of third world women, as a homogenous group is problematic in that it centralizes their experiences even though their histories, oppressions, and interests are different. Third world women are a diverse group with different interests and struggles based on their colonial, political, racial, and ethnic histories. In an attempt to overcome the misrepresentation of third-world women, third-world feminist theory was developed. Although both western and third world feminist theory focus on women’s issues, I would argue that third world feminist theory use an intersectional approach taking into account colonization, race, ethnicity, and class by localizing and contextualizing concepts like reproduction, marriage, family, patriarchy and the division of labor.
Intersectionality is important in analyzing women’s issues within third world feminist theory in that it reveals the interlocking hierarchies of identity, which classify the experiences of individual women. For example by saying women are oppressed because of their gender then we are not considering intersectionality to analyze the oppression of women. If we say that women’s oppression not only depends on their gender, but also depends on their race, class, and historical contexts, then we are applying the theory of intersectionality to analyze the issue of women’s oppression.
Western feminist discourses on third world women categorize third world women as a homogenous group regardless of the diversity in their struggles against racism, sexism and colonialism....
... middle of paper ...
... Western counterparts. Although postcolonial feminism may have intensified the fragmentation of feminism, it has opened up areas and topics for research that provide a more enhanced picture of women’s lives from around the world.
To understand the characteristics of third world feminism, the abovementioned tenets are crucial. Third world feminism focuses on the uniqueness, diversities and differences among third world women. The emergence of third world feminism was important to prevent the misrepresentation and misconception of third world women classifying them as a unitary group. To come up with solutions of the issues that third world women face, accurate comprehension and representation of third world women’s histories, struggles, experiences and interests are necessary, which might be possible by the writings, theories, and discourses of third world feminism.
Tong, Rosemarie (2009) “Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism” & “Postmodern and Third Wave Feminism” In Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. Westview Press; 200-236, 270-291
As Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally’s examples show, the men living in the Mango Street neighborhood persecute their women. The men force their women to stay home. They also restrict their women’s rights by making them speak a new language, and in the extreme case, they beat their women. Although many negative aspects of gender may have lessened over the past few decades, the society should still work toward lessening more of these negative aspects around the world, and especially in the Middle East and North Africa, because extreme gender inequalities still exist today. Treating women inhumanely should be considered as extremely immoral, since we’re all human beings and born to be equal.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991.
First and foremost, what are the concepts of Global feminism and Transnational feminism? Charlotte Bunch explains Global Feminism as something which “has...a way of describing the growth of feminism(s) around the world...” (Bunch 129). The core concept of Global Feminism is that women around the world are united amongst the overarching issue of patriarchy. In this view of feminism, it can be argued, such as theorists Mendoza, Said and Spivak do, that global feminism suffers from a Western perspective, or as Mendoza says, it “produces a global feminism whereby First World feminists are positioned as saviors of their poor Third World sisters” (Mendoza 319). Transnational feminism, as described by Mendoza, can be understood as a view where “the term...points to the multiplicity of the world's feminisms and to the increasing tendency of national feminisms to politicize women's issues beyond the borders of the nation state...the position feminists worldwide have taken a...
Lugones, Maria C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman. Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for “The Woman’s Voice.” Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company: California. 1986. 19-31.
Starting in the 1990’s, third wave feminism brought in various feminist outlooks, some known as “radical feminism”, “Marxist feminism”, or “cultural feminism” (Dorey-Stein, 2015). In radical feminism, the oppression of women is seen as the most central form of oppression and overlooks race, ethnicity, and class. In contrast, “…radical feminism was a movement to transform society, [whereas] cultural feminism retreated to vanguardism, working instead to build a women's culture” (“Kinds of Feminism”, n.d.). While radical feminism was working for social change, culture feminism opted out of it and built alternatives that stayed away from changing the dominant society. Furthermore, Marxism and radical feminism are often seen mirroring one another. Under Marxist feminism is the idea that women are oppressed because of the capitalist system, and that the capitalist system needs to be overthrown for oppression for women to end (“Kinds of Feminism”,
Arguably, the effects which Europe’s global colonialism have had on women of the African diaspora can be most easily seen on the African continent. Kenyan feminist and environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, explores the legacy of colonialism and oppression in her native country through her moving 2006 memoir, Unbowed. Maathai explains that over t...
Intersectionality is a theory which studies how the oppressions and the privileges that a woman faces influence and affect each other to create an individual experience. This idea is well explained by Chandra Mohanty in “cartographies of struggle.” In her book Monhanty writes, “I want to suggest that it is possible to retain the idea of multiple, fluid structures of domination which intersect to locate women differently at particular historical conjunctures, while at the same time insisting on the dynamic oppositional agency of individuals and collectives and their engagement in "daily life.” It is this focus on dynamic oppositional agency that clarifies the intricate connection between systemic relationships and the directionality of power”
In her essay, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Chandra Talpade Mohanty explores the simplified construction of the “third-world woman” in hegemonic feminist discourses. In contrast, in her essay “US Third-World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World,” Chela Sandoval specifically analyzes “US third-world feminism” and how it is the model for not only oppositional political activity, but also consciousness in the United States and how this has not been recognized by hegemonic “western” feminist discourses (). While Mohanty and Sandoval are analyzing and critiquing gender and gender politics, Mohanty is specifically focused on the simplified portrayal in “western” feminist discourses of “third world women” as victims, and Sandoval examines an oppositional mode of consciousness, which she defines as “differential consciousness” and how it is employed by “US third world feminism.” Both authors deconstruct gendered bodies of knowledge with an emphasis on the deconstruction of power, race, and colonialism. It is the deconstruction of these gendered bodies of knowledge that this essay will specifically analyze, as well as the depiction of what each author argues is missing from present discourses on gender, and finally, what they believe would be a better way to analyze gender discourses in a postmodern world. (maybe add another similar point, how western feminists are trying to portray “third-world women” and their motivation behind this act)
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
...er Theory complicated by post-colonial scholars and scholars of race who consider the ways gender intersects with nationalism, class, and race. As feminist critic Theresa de Lauretis suggests, “a new conception of the subject is, in fact, emerging from feminist analyses of women’s heterogeneous subjectivity and multiple identities . . . the differences among women may be better understood as differences within women.” It is important to realize that not only does feminism as a movement exist in the face of these contradictions and complications—within feminist criticism, within gender studies, within individual literary texts and within our understanding of the individual woman as a subject—but that it cannot exist without them. Perhaps, like Wonder Woman, feminist criticism remains vital because it is astonishingly diverse, open, and rigorously self-problematizing.
Feminist and postcolonialist theories share much common ground due to their examination of the voice, and the position of, the subaltern in society. Their critiques of, and struggles against, domination by the white male has led to their alignment and relevant discussions about their similiar problems, affects and strategies. (It may be of interest to scholars in this area that, since the 1980s, there has emerged a divergent element to feminist postcolonial theory which has focused on the 'double colonization' that women colonized by both race and gender have suffered,...
“A feminist is one who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes” (Adichie, 2013). Feminism is not the belief that one’s sexual orientation or one’s power is superior over another. The very meaning of feminism demonstrates a complete resistance to this belief. Throughout the years, a range of categories of feminism philosophy have developed. They consist of goals in objectives, methodologies, and affiliations. Many feminists distinguish themselves with many branches of women 's activist thought. The three forms of feminism that this essay will consider are liberal feminism, socialist feminism, and radical feminism. This essay will argue that liberal feminism is the most valid theory of feminism as liberal feminist’s
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional or philosophical dissertation. It helps to explain the main nature of gender inequality. It further explains the social roles of women in the society such as education, communication, philosophy, sociology and so on (Chodrow, Nancy 1991).
In this text Mohanty argues that contemporary western feminist writing on Third World women contributes to the reproduction of colonial discourses where women in the South are represented as an undifferentiated “other”. Mohanty examines how liberal and socialist feminist scholarship use analytics strategies that creates an essentialist construction of the category woman, universalist assumptions of sexist oppression and how this contributes to the perpetuation of colonialist relations between the north and south(Mohanty 1991:55). She criticises Western feminist discourse for constructing “the third world woman” as a homogeneous “powerless” and vulnerable group, while women in the North still represent the modern and liberated woman (Mohanty 1991:56).