Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons
Above, Lila Abu-Lughod, a Palestinian-America anthropologist, speaks at Columbia University.
By Zora Lotton-Barker ’25
Staff Writer & Copy Editor
Feminism has made great strides to become more inclusive, but there is still work to be done.
Intersectionality within the feminist movement cannot merely be shaped by acknowledging the existence of marginalized groups, and must go beyond the confines of Western ideals. Rather than attempting to create universal feminist ideals, it would be more effective to allow feminism to be situational within the varying dynamics of cultural locations. The female experience should not be considered monolithic, and feminism cannot be centered solely on how certain Western feminists define liberation.
Third wave feminism, as discussed in “Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies” by Miliann Kang, is summarized as the idea that “feminists have increasingly realized that a coalitional politics that organizes with other groups based on their shared (but differing) experiences of oppression, rather than their specific identity, is absolutely necessary.”
Even though third wave feminists strive to be inclusive of all identities in conversations on gender abolition, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, modern feminism is intrinsically Eurocentric as it was founded on the basis of the Western values of self-actualization and individuality.
In the first chapter of “Politics of Piety,” titled “Subject of Freedom,”’ Saba Mahmood argues that feminist scholars are only willing to give women agency when they are pushing against patriarchal instruments of oppression.
“One of the most common reactions is the supposition that female Islamist supporters are pawns in a grand patriarchal plan, who, if freed from their bondage, would naturally express their instinctual abhorrence for the traditional Islamic mores used to enchain them,” Mahmood said.
Western feminism often fails to place the Islamic tradition within its cultural bounds, and instead polices the culture according to Western customs. By doing so, some feminist scholars distort the experience of Muslim women by misinterpreting cultural practices as a self-inflicted reinforcement of opression.
Lila Abu-Lughod is another anthropologist who has analyzed Western feminism in relation to Muslim women.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Lughod wrote the article, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,” in critique of the obsession that Western feminists had on the liberation of Muslim women.
In regard to global events involving Muslim countries, public interest often focuses on cultural or religious differences, rather than exploring political and historical factors. Frustrated by this tendency, Abu-Lughod refuted the correlation between Muslim women and bombings in Afghanistan.
“The question is why knowing about the ‘culture’ of the region, and particularly its religious beliefs and treatment of women, was more urgent than exploring the history of the development of repressive regimes in the region and the U.S. role in this history,” Abu-Lughod said. “Such cultural framing, it seemed to me, prevented the serious exploration of the roots and nature of human suffering in this part of the world.”
Abu-Lughod exemplified her point by noting that the First Lady at the time, Laura Bush, spoke to the American public on national radio to attempt to justify an American invasion to save Muslim women.
“Instead of political and historical explanations, experts were being asked to give religio-cultural ones,” Abu-Lughod said. “Instead of questions that might lead to the exploration of global interconnections, we were offered ones that worked to artificially divide the world into separate spheres.”
To Abu-Lughod, concern for Muslim women was used as an imperialist ploy to justify the United States’ continued involvement in Afghanistan.
“We need to work against the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women’s unfreedom, even if we object to state imposition of this form, as in Iran or with the Taliban,” Abu-Lughod said.
Abu-Lughod warned against ascribing one attitude or way of thinking to mass groups of women.
“We must take care not to reduce the diverse situations and attitudes of millions of Muslim women to a single item of clothing,” Abu-Lughod said. “Perhaps it is time to give up the Western obsession with the veil and focus on some serious issues with which feminists and others should indeed be concerned.”
To create a world in which women are free from oppression, it is vital that one form of liberation is not given more value than another. The reformation of how women’s studies departments teach feminism is an important step to de-centering Western values in feminist scholarship.
Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology at Syracuse University, Chandra Mohanty gave a possible solution to the flaws of Western feminism in her essay, “Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anti-Capitalist Struggles.”
Mohanty advocated for an “anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and contextualized feminist project to expose the various overlapping forms of subjugation in womens’ lives.” To Mohanty, this project would require feminists to analyze the “concrete effects of global restructuring” on all women within all spheres of society.
She also promoted the “comparative feminist studies” model of teaching. This model “assumes a comparative focus on the directionality of power, no matter the subject, and assumes both distance and proximity.” In all contexts, Mohanty claimed, differences and commonalities exist in relation to each other. She also noted that “there is an emphasis on mutuality, co-responsibility and common interest which then anchor the idea of feminist solidarity.”
The lens of feminist solidarity that Mohanty promotes will be vital to decolonizing Women’s and Gender Studies departments across the West. The experiences of women cannot be viewed through one ethnocentric lense. It would be hypocritical of feminists to acknowledge the overlapping identities that shape women’s experiences within the United States or Europe without allowing for the same nuance and complexity when examining the lives of women in other parts of the world. Efforts to liberate women cannot have a one size fits all approach, because the oppression of women is not uniform. Feminism must meet the needs of women within their context.