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Transnational feminism
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Academic discourse is the means by which new and old theories may be applied to a topic in order to reach a better understanding or challenge a notion raised within the field. It is through discussing and analyzing these concepts that individual voices may be applied to an academic community, allowing for a wider lens of thought to be picked up and further discussed. Grewal participates in this discourse in her article “'Women's Rights as Human Rights': Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality”. This paper shall analyze and discuss how Grewal applies previous theoretical concepts related to feminist discourse in order to offer a Transnationalist Feminist critique to the Global Feminist notion of Women's Rights as Human Rights.
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...
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...Locations; Global and Local, Theory and Practice, edited by Marianne deKoven, pp 129-146. © 2001 New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press
Butler, Judith “Excerpt from Introduction to Bodies that Matter” in The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy, edited by Roger N. Lancaster; Michaela de Leonardo, pp. 531-542. © 1997 Routledge
Grewal, Inderpal “Women's Rights as Human Rights: Feminist Practices, Global Feminism and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality” in Citizenship Studies, 3:3, pp 337-354. © 1999 Taylor and Francis Ltd..
Mendoza, Breny “Transnational Feminisms in Question” in Femnist Theory, 3:3, pp. 295-314. © 2002 Sage Publications.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1995. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, edited by B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin, pp. 24-28. © 1995 New York: Routledge
Lugones, María C. and Elizabeth V. Spelman (1983) “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman’s Voice’.” Women’s Studies International Forum, 6 (6): 573-581..
Edited by Richard Boyer & Geoffrey Spurling. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Feminism is approached by various meanings. As noted by a Salvadoran feminist activist Gloria Guzman, “It is a proposal for a change in the relations of power between people, men over women, and the relations of power expressed in the different realms of life” (Shayne, 2007).
In many ways, 1980’s feminist theories started to peel back the masculinist surface of world politics to address and bring to the surface these intricate gendered and racialized dynamics. Caprioli amongst many, not only asks that there be room for Tickner’s appeal for dialogue with feminist and IR scholars, but demands this to be necessary. Why is it essential for dialogue between these perspectives? Before answering that, we should first try to understand why it is that international politics was...
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.
The most related terms when women’s right is brought up are feminism and feminist. A feminist, by definition, is someone the fights for feminism. The definition of feminism, one the other hand, is very complex. Throughout history, the word has continuously had bad images and connotations thrown its wa...
The status of women as empowered citizens around the world is yet to be ascertained. Guided by the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it seems as if the trend towards a just social order reflects a better tomorrow, and yet, thousands of women suffer from the brutal crimes and atrocities committed by their male counterparts. Deeply woven into the social fabric of society, women face the onslaught of a patriarchal legal system - be it by the denial of fundamental rights in Afghanistan or the exclusion from property interests in India. Women still struggle as the marginalised gender in many parts of the world. This leaves considerable room for scrutiny of whether gender neutrality of the law is a reality, or indeed, a myth.
...and Society, 8, (1) 33-49 Article form T and F Online last accessed 20 February 2014 at: http://www.tandfonline.com.lcproxy.shu.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1080/14660970600989509.
For this critical analysis two readings, US Third World Feminism: Differential Social Movement by Chela Sandoval and Cultural Feminism versus Poststructuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory by Linda Alcoff will be used to explore the depth of the relation between each authors thoughts an interpretations of feminism. It is obvious from the titles that these two authors clearly are focusing on different aspects of feminism and provide unique insight into the diverse branches of the feminist movement.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author who has received numerous awards and distinctions. Her main argument is that everyone should be a feminist not because of our gender, but because it is what is right. Adichie has been featured in Beyonce’s song, “Flawless”, spreading awareness to the idea of feminism. “We Should All Be Feminists” is a book about her experiences in Nigeria, where men are more powerful than women. The intended audience of the passage is each and every person residing in heavily patriarchal societies. Hesr thesis is “we should all be feminists”.
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)
Women form half of the human beings inhabiting planet Earth. Since human rights are the rights of all human beings, male and female alike, human rights are women's rights. By the same token, a society in which men are not willing to extend human rights to their mothers, the women who bore and nurtured them; their daughters, products of their own loins; and their wives, the women who bear and raise their treasured sons, is a society in which men are unwilling to extend human rights to men of another family, tribe, language, religion, race, ethnic tradition, or nation. If a society does not hold justice and equality for all women in the highest regard, neither will it hold justice and equality for the many varieties of men in high regard. In a very real sense, women's rights are the basis of all human rights. Women's rights belong to women as members of the human family, and, as such, are not dependent either on a woman's marital status or on the number or sex of the children she has borne.
Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women. Studying how the philosophies are constructed and what makes them unjust, this field constantly generates new ideas on how these philosophies need to be fundamentally reconstructed. Liberal feminism, for example, was built around promoting economic and political equality for women. By arguing the older concepts of the split between public and private realms as a way to politically protect male domination of women as “natural”, and ideas about a women’s place in the household, came evidence that supported legal cases leading “to the criminalization in the United States of spousal rape” (qtd. in McAfee). Another completely different approach is radical feminism, which advocates a separation from the whole system, perceiving that the sexual relations between male and female as the basis of gender inequality and female subordination (qtd. in McAfee). Democratic femin...
Feminism encompasses diverse perspectives that are liberal, radical, and postmodern versions. Feminism is placed as a separate critique or even the understanding of conventional international relations theory that offers an alternative perspective and starting point for both theory and also practice (Viotti & Kauppi 2011).
The. Ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. 163 - 184. Print.