Blog #15 - Mohanty, Bunch

In the article Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, the author Chandra Mohanty criticizes western feminists for homogenizing third world women, and defining them as one singular group of women with identical goals and struggles. The major fault of many western feminists is that they assume that all women have the same priorities and objectives. Mohanty blames these middle class feminists for presuming that they are the norm and for creating an agenda that they expect all women to follow. Mohanty describes this as a form of ethnocentric universality, in which western feminists believe they are the standard model for all women, and despite differences in race or socioeconomic status all women share the same beliefs and goals as western middle class feminists. Mohanty argues that western feminists designate women from developing nations as the Other according to what is know as the “third world difference”. The third world difference is used by western scholars to compare the average third world woman who is uneducated, poor and victimized to the average western woman who is educated, independent and progressive. The west has created a consistent image of third world women based on the ways that they are oppressed sexually and politically by their patriarchal societies. Despite cultural, geographic and economic differences all women from developing nations are portrayed as victimized and powerless. Mohanty is arguing that western feminists are ignoring the differences between third world women and characterizing them as one homogenous mass.

Chandra Mohanty’s idea is reminiscent of the ideas discusses in Audrey Lorde’s article, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. In this piece Lorde addresses the underlying racist views of women in the feminist movement. Lorde argues that a major tool of our patriarchal society is the ability of men to “divide and conquer” or emphasize the gender, class, racial and sexual differences among people, in order to create a hierarchy in which white middle and upper class males are in control. The statement, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” conveys the idea that women will never be able to overcome our patriarchal society if they create a hierarchy within the women’s movement and ignore the voices of women with different races and economic statuses. Mohanty also blames western feminists for creating a hierarchy in which third world women are considered to be at the bottom. Middle class white women need to recognize that not all women from developing nations are the same, and that they have different goals and priorities that are separate from those of western feminists.

Charlotte Bunch’s article, Whose Security, addresses the ways in which the Bush administration has disregarded human rights for the purpose of national security. Bunch argues that in the wake of 9-11, the United States could have become more empathetic to countries that face terrorism every day and could have begun to fight terrorism in a diplomatic and peaceful way. Instead, the Bush administration chose to ignore multilateral politics and proceeded into a disastrous and costly war. In an attempt to combat terrorism, the United States has become a reckless force in the Middle East and a hindrance to development of human rights for women in developing nations. In disregarding many human rights agreements created during past administrations, President Bush has set an example for other countries who now feel that they can also ignore human rights legislation without risking punishment from multi-national organizations. Bunch writes, “Indeed, the erosion of the US commitment to human rights helps legitimize the abuses of governments that have never fully accepted or claimed these standards. For while the US government has often been hypocritical in its human rights policies, open disregard for international standards goes a step further and thus strengthens fundamentalist governments and forces that seek to deny human rights in general, and the rights of women in particular.” The Bush administration has pledged to improve the rights of women in the Middle East. However, that goal has been abandoned and women in the region are still suffering from limited human rights.