Under Western Eyes

I found Chandra Mohanty’s article – “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse” – to be an extremely enlightening and a fresh change of pace from our previous readings. In class, we consistently have had to negotiate with many of the readings between their validity and tendency to speak from a predominantly white, middle-class perspective (i.e. Levy). However, not only does Mohanty’s article address this line of discourse, she also suggests that this tendency has in fact had a large effect on how the ‘Third World Woman’ has been constructed. At the heart of her argument, Mohanty argues that “it is in the production of this ‘Third World Difference’ that western feminisms appropriate and “colonize” the fundamental complexities which characterize the lives of women of different classes, regions, cultures, races, and castes” (335). Not only is Mohanty’s argument useful for us in moving forward in this class and studying women and global politics, but I also find her argument to be an appropriate framework through which we may retroactively assess past readings that have promulgated this ‘ethnocentric universalism.’

Mohanty presents three main principles that are present in Western feminist discourse on women in the Third World. First, the category “women” in itself suggests that that women are an “already constituted, coherent group with identical interests and desires” (337). Second, there exists a variety of methodologies to demonstrate “the universal cross-cultural operation of male-dominance and female exploitation” (346). Lastly, the issue of presenting women as subjects of power is also discussed.

In all, Mohanty presents some intriguing examples that she has isolated in the current literature that highlight these three principles that she sets forth. Her discussion definitely raises some important points that I definitely believe will be useful to keep in mind when reading not only feminist works that deal with the Third World, but also as I personally evaluate the text for my Global Feminism Project.

** Note: posted late b/c Blackboard was down, and I only read the Mohanty b/c I was unable to fine the Bunch online.