Week 17 Flashcards
Transnational Feminism
-Examine issues from a global perspective while considering how they intersect with us in North America
-Focus on intersections across nationality (race & ethnicity), sex, gender, & class within the context of the effects of imperialism & colonialism & patriarchy
-Need to understand the various historical events & changes that have led to the way our modern world is shaped
Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1955-)
-“Under Western Eyes” (1984)
-Criticism of the political project of Western feminism & its construction of a category ‘Third World Feminism’ as a homogenous, victimized stereotype that Western feminists must save
-Colonial/Imperial, paternalist & ethnocentric attitude
-Analysis fails to see/understand the unique & different ways women experience oppression - it groups women together as one category of analysis (as the SAME across class, culture, race, etc.)
-Oppression, sexism, structures of injustice are contingent upon historical, cultural & individual reasons - these change with every region & faith across the developing world
Results of “Under Western Eyes” (1984)
-Results in difficulties faced by feminists in the Developing World or the Non-Western world to be heard & included in the broader feminist movement
-Assumption becomes that all women there are oppressed
-Need for a redefining of power relationships between feminists of Developed & Developing Worlds - this discourse authorizes & grants privilege to Developed World feminists
-Need to understand the effects of Western scholarship on the ‘Third World’ - the effects & legacy of colonialism/imperialism
-Personal as political; Demand for intersectionality!
Girl Power & ‘Selfie Humanitarianism’ Ofra Koffman, Shani Orgard, Rosalind Gill (2015)
Question the intentions & effects of images of girl power used by NGOs to raise awareness of humanitarian crises
Girl Power & ‘Selfie Humanitarianism’ Ofra Koffman, Shani Orgard, Rosalind Gill (2015)/ Argument
the new ‘girl power’ approach is giving rise to a self-oriented media campaign/production that has a focus inward, & utilizes images & words of the privileged & not those who are actually in need
“While engaging in an effort to help others, it is supporters’ own images or images of their lives that are made publicly visible, rather than the recipients who are in need.” - focus is on projects of self & not on justice
Selfie Humanitarianism (2015)
Commodification of girl power via the Girl Up campaign - capitalism for a cause
“I matter, so does she!” - this omits the differences between celebs & CEOs of multinational companies & girls in Developing World countries; glosses over the various kinds of oppression girls & women suffer by region, faith, class, culture, etc.
