Post for 4/20

Extra Credit Post
The authors of today’s readings provide unique criticisms to how the US targets foreign issues, particularly bringing to light the limited role that feminists have on US foreign policy. Bunch in “Whose Security,” argued that the US foreign policy has not helped to advance the global women’s movement because the media has been dominated by powerful male figures who do not address the major problems surrounding women in other countries, but rather focus on terrorism, war, national security, and defense.

I agree with Bunch that we need to find a successful feminist approach to make a difference in foreign policy issues. A strategy that will involve working cross-culturally and cross-nationally to recognize the interrelationship between human rights and human security will be advantageous. We must not make any generalizations but rather understand that each culture is extremely different in terms of customs, religion, politics, etc. Holding events to create awareness of different issues and struggles women face in various areas will be important to create a “rich global dialogue and networking among women across national lines” (5).

Bunch’s outlines for solutions seem vague and somewhat weak. However, as discussed in class, we must recognize that this is the first step towards raising awareness that women’s rights are in fact human rights. Bunch is preaching a form of activism, however small or big as it may be, and the mere fact of just talking about this particular issue is a necessary first step.

I read this article where I learned about the steps that Bunch has taken to combat this issue. She is working “at the UN on a campaign called Gender Equality Architecture Reform that aims to combine the several smaller offices that currently handle women’s rights issues into one large agency.” As the UN stands now, it has several different agencies that deal with women’s issues that are small and underfunded. I think that the introduction of the GEAR campaign holds promise by unifying the different agencies. This will help get women’s rights to the forefront of the UN’s policy decisions.

Mohanty’s piece relates to Bunch’s ideas, but focuses on western feminist discourse on women in the third world. She articulates the problems with certain western feminist approaches to third world women's issues. The main problem I got out of her reading is that western feminists have universalizing tendencies in their theoretical work.

While she recognizes western feminist discourse is not “singular or homogenous in its goals,” there has been a “crucial presupposition that all of us of the same gender, across classes and cultures, are somehow socially constituted as a homogeneous group” (75). I have always assumed that feminists all had the same goals in mind without really taking into account the diverse backgrounds that they each come from. This has led me to conclude that women are in no way homogenous. We must understand that feminism is very complex and varies between women of different ethnicities and in different parts of the world. For instance, it is not right to assume that African American women share the same feminist perspective as white women. In fact, African Americans suffer from struggles that those of white middle-class women do not. In my previous blog post, I talked about Patricia Hill Collins, Maxine Zinn, and Bonnie Dill. These women have made great strides in showing the differences between women across different ethnic groups. Collin’s uses the “matrix of domination” term to describe the intersectional perspective on the interlocking systems of race, class and gender and Maxine Zinn and Bonnie Dill’s analyze “multicultural feminism,” which stresses the importance of “race as a power system that interacts with other structural inequalities to shape gender.”

The inequality seen between women is also evident in Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay "Maid to Order." Within the US itself, she talks about domestic work and the problem of choice for some women. For example, the upper middle class women are able to enter the workforce and hire a maid for domestic labor, while there are women, particularly those of the lower-class who do not have the choice. This is yet another example that adds to the inequalities that exist between women. By ignoring these differences, we are preventing real lasting change. We must create public discourse to open the space for discussion of our differences.

With this inequality in mind, going back to Mohanty’s piece, I can see how the impact of western feminism on third world women has been met with some criticism. I think that while western feminists appear to dominate international arena, their approach is somewhat flawed. They refuse to treat third world women as equals, even as they claim to fight for their human rights. We must get rid of the “paternalistic attitude towards women in the third world” (80) and understand the “local cultural and historical contexts” (75) that these women face. I believe education is key to be able to understand “the contradictions inherent in women’s location within various structures that effective political action and challenges can be devise” (74). In addition, I think it is also up to third world women to specify the kind of support needed, and lead their own battles. The western feminists can then step in to help them with their efforts.