Western Feminism and others

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Recommended: Multi cultural feminism and global feminism

• Mohanty~ “Under Western Eyes” •

Transnational Feminism is not monolithic understanding, but an umbrella term–with theories, issues, and concerns revolve around inclusiveness of topics such as activism in women's health, reproductive rights, race, correlation of power and poverty, gender equality, etc. Society has a tendency to lean towards hegemony and imperialism, which endangers feminism. It could be argued that through a transnational lens, feminism is about ending oppressions of us all, that it is a cutting-edge revolution and the fourth wave of feminism that strives for true equality. Sometimes the word feminism has been conditioned to an assumption of western feminism, but transnational feminism facilitates a new ideology of intersectionality, which transcends different boundaries in our lives. In the excerpt from Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes” and Woyingi’s essay review of Angela Davis’ “Women in Egypt” we can better understand the de-conceptualization of “Third World Women’s Issues”, or in the non-West and how we should challenge negative representations and lack of perspective through a transnational lens.
In “Under Western Eyes”, Chandra Talpade Mohanty provides a framework or context in which to view some of complexities over limitations of identity-based knowledge from a feminist perspective. This quote expounds on that idea nicely:
“By contrasting the representation of women in the Third World with– Western feminisms’ self-presentation in the same context, we see how Western feminisms alone become the true “subjects” of this counter history. Third World women, in contrasts, never rise above the debilitating generality of their “object” status. …The application of the notion of women as a homogenous categ...

... middle of paper ...

... Through both Woyingi and Davis’ understanding of gender in an Egyptian framework. The topic of gender oppression is often left to no discussion because of the idea that these narratives will be applicably understood outside negative connotations and this increased the difficulty in addressing that issue in transnational feminist discourse because it will be clouded by hegemonic understandings rooted to feminism and leaves no room to deconstruct that when trying to be intersectional.

Works Cited
"Essay Review: Women in Egypt by Angela Davis." The Woyingi Blog. 10 Sept. 2010. Web. .
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. "Under Western Eyes: Feminist– Scholarship and Colonial Discourses." Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke UP, 2003. 18-42. Print.

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