Challenging the image of third-world women in western feminism: A lesson from Mohanty

Postcolonial feminist scholars have pointed out the hegemony of western feminism within feminist discourses and practices. One of the most influential scholars in this field is Chandra Talpade Mohanty, with her famous article "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse." Although the article was published in 1984, it is still relevant in describing the ways in which western feminism homogenizes the oppression of women of color and neglects their cultural and sociological values.

Mohanty (1984) suggested a homogenous notion of the oppression of women has produced the image of “average third world women.” Such an image combines a western assumption about feminine gender in the non-western context as sexually constrained and "third world," which is assumed to be uneducated, tradition-bound, and victimized. As a result, women in the Global South were often described as victims who have a lack of agency and the ability to act independently and make their own free choices. Problems of gender inequality, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, are considered as if they belonged only to the Global South even though the problems are actually pervasive in the Western world too. I did an experiment on Google to search for images on child marriage. As you can see below, most of the pictures were dominantly represented women of color as the victims of child marriage: 

 

It is not a coincidence that women of color were portrayed in such ways. Mohanty blamed colonialism as the root of western hegemony, which established a hierarchal position between the North and the South within feminist discourses. While women in the Global South were represented as weak and lacking agency, Western women were implicitly represented as strong and having the freedom to make their own decisions. In other words, women in the Global South were considered inferior to women in the Global North. Such an assumption overlooked the social and cultural diversity of women in the Global South and placed western women as the standard of ‘empowered women.’ For example, veils become the symbol of oppression in the West, whereas Muslim women may consider it as the symbol of their identity.

Mohanty argued that we need to continually challenge western feminist theories that portrayed women in the Global South as ‘traditional’ and politically immature who need to be versed and schooled in the ethos of western feminism. The unique traditions and characteristics of women in the Global South must be recognized as part of diversity rather than deficiency. Therefore, we need to see western feminism as partial knowledge and bring the voices and experiences of women in the Global South into feminist scholarship. We also need to continually problematize the stereotypes and generalizations towards all women across cultures. Women must not be unified in a single category. As feminists, we need to acknowledge women’s different experiences and use them as resources to address social injustice collectively.

References:

Mohanty, C. T. (1984). Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary 2, 12(3), 333-358.