The orientalization of gender

Said’s critique of Orientalism provokes a comprehensive review by post-colonial theorists of the bulk of western knowledge regarding non-western countries. This Orientalist literature buttresses the colonial notion of a civilizing mission, which is also supported by many western feminists who provide theoretical grounds to such colonialist perceptions. Such post-colonial feminists as Gayatri Spivak, Chandra Mohanty, and Rajeswari Rajan analyze western feminism’s ideological complicity with Orientalist and imperialist ventures

Transforming “Them” into “Us”: Some Dangers in Teaching Women And Development

Book Chapte

From The Sea Wall to The Lover : Prostitution and Exotic Parody

This analysis of the two novels highlights Marguerite Duras\u27 equivocal stance with regard to colonial Indochina where she grew up at the beginning of the century. As The Lover rewrites The Sea Wall in the autobiographical mode, the emphasis shifts from an explicit denunciation of colonialism and an implicit subversion of the Lotilian novel, to a parody of exotic themes and narratives. However, by focusing on the two young protagonists\u27 construction of themselves as femmes fatales and prostitutes, this discussion reveals that the politics of gender and race remain at odds in Duras\u27 fictional autobiographies. The cultural other (qua a passive indigenous population in The Sea Wall, qua eroticized oriental[ized] bodies in The Lover) remains a measure of the protagonist\u27s construction as a female subject; a measure, in Chandra Mohanty\u27s words, of the liberated western woman\u27s discursive self-presentation

Increasing women's representation in France and India

Cet article présente la question de la représentation politique des femmes en France et en Inde. Tout d’abord, il vise à mettre en évidence comment la représentation des femmes était inscrite à l’agenda politique de chaque pays. Ensuite, il propose un examen critique des arguments utilisés pour justifier la demande d’une meilleure représentation ainsi que de ceux pour s’y opposer. Enfin, il considère les conclusions que l’on peut tirer de ces deux cas. Dépassant les cadres comparatifs traditionnels utilisés par les féministes occidentales et en contestant l’insistance française sur l'idée d'une France unique, cet article identifie les particularismes et les points communs de chaque cas, pour tenter d’atteindre à ce que Shirin Rai appelle “un dépassement enraciné des frontières culturelles, historiques et politiques.” (Rai, 2000: 15)

From Aloneness to all-Oneness: Evelyn Shakirs Bint Arab as a Site of Settled Places and of Border-Crossings

Evelyn Shakir s Bint Arab 1997 2 which follows the journeys and un homed experiences of three generations of Arab-American women and their search for self identity and voice puts a human face to borrow Taynyss Ludescher s words 3 on Arab-American fiction and presents multiple perspectival narratives and subject positions which depict the stories utterances fractures slippages and exilic consciousness of Arab- American women and their attempts to negotiate an inbetween space for themselves in which a potentially vast number of relations coalesce Shakir s narrative not only seems to echo Bakhtin s heteroglossia as it permits a multiplicity of social voices 4 but it also seems to resonate with recent scholarship on the ethics of literature particularly with Martha Nussbaum s claim that narratives formally construct empathy and compassion in ways highly relevant to citizenship

Transnational

The scholarship of transnational feminisms is organized by arguments about even its most basic terms and ethical orientation. Some scholars write that it is an exciting, positive intervention that replaces a hackneyed and unsustainable notion of international female sameness as “global sisterhood” (i.e., Morgan 1984), restores socialist feminism to its rightful place in feminist thought, re-centers US Third World feminism and internationalist solidarity for decolonization, and draws attention to the often brilliant activism of feminists in the global South focused on issues like food justice and water (Mohanty 1984; Grewal and Kaplan 1994; Kaplan and Grewal 1994; Basu 1995; Das Gupta 2006; Swarr and Nagar 2010; Blackwell 2014). Others mistrust it on opposite grounds: it is liberal, Western, white, and through nongovernmental organization (NGOs), private foundations, and even explicit alliance, linked to international organizations (IGOs) such as the World Bank, to globalizing capital, and imperial militaries (Spivak 1996; Alvarez 2000; Fernandes 2013). These two positions, although sometimes opposed to each other, might also both be true: global capitalism and imperial ambition could be the conditions of possibility for transnational feminisms, from below or even alongside (Naples 2002)

Postcolonial Theory

Colonialism and its aftermath prompt a form of cultural studies that seeks to address questions of identity politics and justice that are the ongoing legacy of empires. Postcolonial theory has its origins in resistance movements, principally at the local, and frequently at nonmetropolitan, levels. Among its early thinkers, three seem of special importance: Antonio Gramsci, Paulo Freire, and Frantz Fanon. Antonio Gram sci ( 1891- 193 7) was a founder of the Communist Party in Italy. In his Prison Notebooks (1971 ), he wrote insightfully about the proletariat, designated by him as subalterns; his thoughts regarding the responsibilities of public intellectuals inspired many, and his notion of hegemony and resistance proved influential. Paulo Freire ( 192 1- 97) was a Brazilian with a special interest in education. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed ( 1970) seeks to restore subjectivity to objectified, oppressed classes in society. Frantz Fanon ( 1925- 6 l) was a psychiatrist of Caribbean descent who participated in the Algerian independence movement. His two books, The Wretched of the Earth ( 1963) and Black Skin, White Masks ( 1967) inspired many anticolonial struggles and investigations of racism\u27s many manifestations