Mohanty reading

In this week’s reading I found it interesting that Mohanty critiques ‘western feminism’ and the ideological colonial implications of the hegemonic imperialism that homogenizes what is considered a ‘third world woman’, without analyzing the strategic advantage of western feminists doing so. Mohanty explores both the ‘explanatory potential’ and the ‘political effect’ of western-based scholarship, but I would argue that the homogenization of women’s experiences is strategic rather than just that of privilege. For example, the homogenous characterization of Afghan women as ‘female gendered slaves’ that need to be liberated from the Taliban was critical in creating and maintaining support for the ‘War on Terror’.  The mobilization of troops to ‘save’ these women represents the Western appropriation of the narrative of these women’s lives under the guise of the paternal liberal neutral subject. The notion that all Afghan women are oppressed under the reign of the ‘abjectified other’ is an example of the way rhetorical violence by ‘western feminists’ can be strategically used to best advantage the hegemond while disenfranchising these women of their own narratives. 

I also think that it this article is interesting in conjunction with the article that we read last week in WGS 563, Maid in LA by Pierrette Hondagneu. In her piece she outlines a number of different female migrant workers lives; starting from their original geographical location, their motivation for leaving, their education, family, and many other contributing factors to their lives past and present. In our class discussion of this piece the rhetoric “they came from nothing” became so pervasive that Professor Savci had to interject and remind the class that, that was actually false many of these women were very educated and had good jobs but were seeking either safety, proximity to friends/ family, or just a new life. I think that it is interesting that in a women and gender studies class we performed the violence that Mohanty is describing by erasing the stories of these women’s lives.  But if we think about colonialism and the way that the paradigm of colonialism is so pervasive that it affects our education and our understanding of the world the ‘other’ the micro aggression that happened in class is indicative of that. It is also strategic in that it this rhetorical characterization of these women elides over the direct devastating effect that colonialism had on these women’s lives, and that we are all currently living in the legacy of colonialism which projects the disenfranchisement of these women.