Week 4 Reading

In Under Western Eyes, Chandra Talpade Mohanty explains how women of Third World countries suffer in a different, yet similar way. She explains how there is still horrendous situations happening in Africa and the Middle East that many people don’t address or want to acknowledge. One thing that she states that continues to go on is female genital mutilation/circumcision. In the West, people are so caught up on how horrible it is, yet she states in the countries that these situations are being practiced, the women are seen as pure and worthy of marriage. Which, gets to the issue that men are seen as the controller of the situation.

One part of the article that was really interesting was on page 73. Mohanty explains how western women see Third World women’s issues and they are very similar in many countries. However, she states that western women believe that since the problems are similar, all Third World women must want the same solution. Women from the Middle East would not want the same solution as women from Africa do. These are multiple countries, in two different continents, with different cultures. It was enjoyable to read, however, that she states that in all over the world, somehow all women do share some similar types of issues. No woman in this world is completely free. All women must share a similar type of struggle.

One thing that is noticed though, is that western feminism does not take into all consideration the unique struggles that feminism in the third world has. Actually acknowledging the problems that western feminism has are a big issue. An example that she writes about is how western feminism and Third World just within its name. Mohanty states, “This average third-world woman leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained) and being 'third world' (read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc.). This, I suggest, is in contrast to the (implicit) self-representation of western women as educated, modern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the 'freedom' to make their own decisions. The distinction between western feminist re-presentation of women in the third world, and western feminist self-presentation is a distinction of the same order as that made by some Marxists between the 'maintenance' function of the housewife and the real 'productive' role of wage-labour, or the characterization by developmentalists of the third world as being engaged in the lesser production of 'raw materials' in contrast to the 'real' productive activity of the first world. These distinctions are made on the basis of the privileging of a particular group as the norm or referent,” page 65. I appreciate that she states this because it shows that there is this idea that women in poor countries must have no rights and absolutely no control of their own bodies. Also, stating that women who work in the poor countries are less important than women who work in rich countries.

To conclude, I don’t think western feminism should make decisions on how oppressed women are in Third World countries. Granted, that women in those countries are suffering, women from western countries should listen to what women in those countries actually need and support that.