How Feminist Scholar Looks the Women of Color - Essay Example

& How Feminist Scholar Looks the Women of Color Feminism is a movement against discrimination based on one’s sex; exploitation and oppression due to person’s gender. In his introductory part, Hooks says that most of the people talk of evil of feminism. They are labeled as being anti-men and that they go against the nature and even God. However, most of these critics admit to have never read an article on feminism. They just learn about feminism from the mass media of women asking for equality; equal rights, equal pay and even those who want contribution of men and women equally in household activities and parenting (Hooks 1, 2). There were many causes as to the origin of feminism and feminist. The main issue that acted as a catalyst to the foundation of feminism was sexuality. Women wanted to decide when and with whom to have sex with (Hooks 25). During this time of sexual revolution, the issue of ‘free to love’ came to the limelight, the question of unwanted pregnancy. The feminist theory relies heavily on principles and understanding of feminism. These principles are based on the following beliefs that; Women should be handled in the same way as men in the society, that they are not inferior to men and that the main goal of feminism is bring out the issue of gender inequality being practiced on daily bases in the society. Discrimination based on one’s race had existed in the US for a long time. Therefore, women were and are still viewed as facing discrimination from two angles; race and gender. Due to the many challenges that the women of color continue to face, Women of Color in US Society has been established to among other things try to come up with a alternative understanding of the social world (Zinn and Dill, 3). According to Combahee River Collective, Black feminism is founded on the fact of African American women continuous powered effort for survival and liberation. The strongly negative relationship between the African American women and the American political system as they put it, has been effected by their membership in two exploited and oppressed racial and sexual castes. This essay is going to look at how different feminist scholars look at the women of color from their own different approaches Kimberle in her article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” looks mostly in the violence against the women and especially the minority. This article also looks at the identity politics and its failure to offer solution to the intra group differences mostly in violence perpetrated against women of color. She is able to bring out the intersection of color and gender for non-white women around domestic violence. In the thesis, Kimberle states her objective as “to advance the telling of that location by exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color.” The “location” as she says is the point which makes the political experience of the women of color distinct from the white women’s experience. Zinn and Dill, in their article entitled ‘Difference and Dominion’, state that it is through the experiences of the women of color which played an important role in making the feminist scholars look at the relation between one’s sex and race from another angle (3). They continue to say that, with exception of women who are purely white, sex based discrimination is the largest of all the social injustices that the women face. The experience of gender depends on the role it plays in presence of other inequalities. Kimberle divides intersectional into structural and political intersection. Kimberle demonstrates the difference on how domestic violence is handled for colored women and the white women. On the political intersection side, the experience of the women of color as far as racism and sexism is different from the white women. As far as racism is concerned, they have the black man to fight for it, and in case of sexism, there are white feminist. This is in agreement with Butler’s article, ‘Women of Color and Feminism: A History Lesson and Way Forward’ where she talks about the division that exists in the feminism cause due to racism. She says the tension between the feminist movement and women of color has been boosted by the existence of race, class, and positionality. She holds the view that white women feminist should become aware of their internalized concession to the “ism” which is the dividing factor in the overall feminist world. In the article “Hetero-patriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” by Andrea Smith, she brings a closer picture of the women of color. She bases her argument on the fact that women of color are not victimized in the same way. Kimberle also looks the handling of inter-racial rape cases. She sees disparity in how the case of rape of white woman in New York is handled differently from that of black woman in the same. Lindsey Yoo in her article “Feminism and Race: Just Who Counts as a Woman of Color?” is worried that the Asian culture is not being considered as distinct from the Whites, though they are different. The Asian culture is ignored even by the learned professors. The absorption of the Asian culture in the White culture is an indicator that the women of color are not treated the same. Andrea comes up with three pillars of white supremacy; slavery/capitalism, genocide/colonialism and orientation/war. From the three pillars, Andrea is able to show that black woman will be victimized more than other women of color. In addition, Zinn and Dill observe that the average income earned by women of color is the lowest, that they do the worst jobs in the society and that they have a higher frequency of being unemployed. Infant mortality rate among the women of color is higher together with the births out of wedlock (4). This is in agreement with what Oliver writes in his article, “Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics”, as he tries to show the relation between race and class. Cox considered race as being most important artifact in the dynamic of the capitalist labor. Oliver, is also able to how racial is an alternative of proletarianization and in a society that is divided on the line of color represents a form of class system. Cox and Andrea are in agreement on the use of black people as source of labor. They are also in agreement that white person as being more educated and civilized than the black one. In “The Hypersexuality of Race”, the writer, Shimizu, requests for a change of what people think about sexualized representations of the Asian/American film, video and theatre. She admits her love and affection for the sexy Asian women on stage going round in bikinis as in Miss Saigon (1989), prancing across elaborate Oriental sets in the film The Thief of Baghdad (1924), in addition to the singing on the abandoned love in Madame Fly (1924) (Shimizu 1,2). Cruz, in his article Critic-at-Large: A Contrary View of Miss Saigon observes racism as demonstrated by the role that the Asian woman and character in general is given. In general, the Asian woman in most movies is given roles that portrays her as being a prostitute, as a frequent in the bars, as a pimp and many other demeaning roles. He further observes that none of the Asian characters plays or is portrayed to poses any redeeming human quality. However, Shimizu dismisses the argument that the musical as portraying racist and sexist text. She fails to admit the performers’ limited authorship. She points out to the use of sexuality by the performers as “technology of personal strength and self-authority". She continues to say that the specific decisions that the actresses made possess the potential of an actress to go against what the producer intended originally as their roles (51). Shimizu therefore is looking at the role given to the women of color in films by the film makers at a different angle from a majority of other feminist scholars. Birth control and its campaign according to Davis came as a result of the demands that were made in the 19th century by the feminists of the time (353). Birth control referred to as ‘voluntary motherhood’. However, this policy was not accepted easily by the society. Davies emphasizes that birth control is the universal, necessary and important factor for setting women free. Abortion is used as a way of controlling birth. However, it was illegal in the US until 1970s. Hook concedes that, it is the freedom of the woman to choose between procuring an abortion or not, that is the only one indicator of reproductive freedom for women (29). A closer look at the ranks of the abortion rights campaign showed under representation of women of color. This was justified by the fact that the composition of Women’s Liberation movement members featured few women of color. The main reasons given by then were that they were busy fighting racism and therefore didn’t have enough time to even participate in the movement and that they had not become aware of the issue of sexism. They didn’t find it worth fighting for gender equality. The failure by the women rights movements to do good research led to them concluding that the black woman was against abortion. This is as Linda Tuhiwai Smith demonstrates in her article “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples”. She researchers on four different but importantly interrelated areas of interest; the methodology used by the colonizers and travelers on “research” on indigenous people, the view of the West and this affected Western travelers understanding of the indigenous people, the definition given by Western studiers of what they encountered and finally how they tried to adjust it to meet their needs and assumptions. Therefore, researches that were carried on indigenous and those in primitive areas were a wrong representation of the real people. Linda identifies the driving force as being the pursuit of “new scientific knowledge” (78) and “God’s work” (79). She is able to show the biasness in the assumptions of the Westerners. However, the high number of blacks who procured abortions on its legalization proved them wrong. In the ‘The Combahee River Collective Statement’ one of the major topics that they look into is that concerned with the challenges faced in organizing black feminist. They note that, for them, one of their main political challenges is that they face oppression on many fronts. They have a lot of oppressions to address (Combahee River Collective). Therefore, this many fronts meant their role in the Women’s Liberation movements was limited. Among the different women of color feminists, Mohanty seems to be the most critical. In the ‘Under the Western Eyes’, Mohanty is criticizing the practice of generalization of women in the third world by the Western feminists who mainly dwell on the women in third world countries (336). She says that her work is based on three analytic principles as seen in Western feminist dialogue in the third world. The writer bases argument on her encounter with the Western feminism on some texts produced by Fran Hosken, M. Cutrufelli, Juliette Minces, B. Linsday, and P. Jeffery and published by Zed group (338). The writer is critical of women being referred in terms of their object status. That is, referring to them based on how different institutions and systems affect them or not. She says these amounts to use of “women” as analysis category. There is need for the naming and challenging of this objectification with reference to the third world woman. Mohanty also tries to look at relationship between woman; first as a culture and then as an ideology composite. Mohanty talks about Hosken’s work on the relationship between human rights and female genital mutilation as a representation of woman as a victim of male violence. She is concerned that Honsken bases her topic of genital mutilation on one assumption that the main reason for genital mutilation is “to maim the sexual fulfillment and pleasure of woman”. This leads her to the conclusion that the women’s reproduction and sexuality is controlled. Honsken claims that “male sexual politics”, not only in Africa but also in the whole world have a similar political goal: guarantee female reliance and subsistent at any and all costs. Physical abuse of the women by men, she adds, is hence undertaken with “an astounding agreement among men”. Women are shown as being always the victims of male control; as the sexually oppressed. This therefore presents women as being “objects-who-defend-themselves” and the men are seen as “subjects-who-perpetrate-violence” and every community is divided into two; powerful(men) and powerless(women) (Mohanty 339). Mohanty is also concerned about Lindsay’s work in “Comparative Perspectives of Third World Women: The Impact of Race, Sex and Class” where to her, women are shown as being universal dependents. Mohanty critically looks at the conclusion and states: “... dependency relationships, based upon race, sex and class, are being perpetrated through social, educational, and economic institutions. These are the linkages among Third World Women." (339). Mohanty’s interpretation is that Lindsay is implying that the women in the third world are grouped together as dependent. According to Mohanty, if dependency is to be used to group, then the third world appear as group without any subject status (339). Mohanty is also critical of Linsday statement about the existence of differences in culture and language among women of Black and Vietnamese American origin, though they have shared characteristic of being victims of color, gender and class. Therefore, Linsday is using the Vietnamese and Black woman status of being victims to group them which Mohanty strongly opposes. Maria Rosa Cutrufelli in her book ‘Women of Africa: Roots of Oppression’ contains this kind of generalization. Perdiat Houston, in “Third World Speak”, says her main objective is to explain the development process’ impact on the “family level and its specific members”. She restricts her work on women in Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Mexico. She points out at challenges that these women face as being associated with; learning and training, job and salaries, reach to healthcare and other amenities, legal representation and political participation. Mohanty observes the assumption of women as a cogent group. Houston in this bases her argument on the assumption of uniformity on the challenges women in third world face and a result they have the same goals and interests. This move according to Mohanty restricts the explanation of female subject to gender identity, and hence overlooking the social class and identities based on ethnicity. Mohanty looks at Maria Mies work as having not fallen to the trap of generalization of women in third world. In her study on the lace-makers of Narsapur, India, she tries to keenly analyze a small industry where “housewives” are involved in production lace doylies for world market consumption. Mies is able to demonstrate exploitation and the effect on work and standards of living the concerned and involved in it. Furthermore, she analyses “ideology of the housewife,” as bringing the required subjective and socio-cultural component in the development of production process that helps keep women disorganized as workers. Mohanty views Mies’ work as demonstrating construction of women category in different political fronts that exist interchangeably and covered on top of each other. Generalization is not demonstrated in Mies’ work. Works Cited Butler, Anthe. RH Reality Check. Women of Color and Feminism: A History Lesson and Way Forward. July 2013. Web. Nov. http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/07/28/women-of-color-and-feminism-a-history-lesson-and-way-forward/ Combahee River Collective. The Combahee River Collective Statement. April, 1977. Web http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html Cox, Oliver. Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics New York. Doubleday & Co Inc. 1948. Review. Web http://monthlyreview.org/2001/02/01/race-and-class-in-the-work-of-oliver-cromwell-cox Cruz, R. I. Critic-at-Large: A Contrary View of Miss Saigon. March 2008. Web http://criticplaywright.blogspot.com/2008/03/contrary-view-of-miss-saigon.html Davis, Angela. Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights. Web. . Hooks, B. Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. 2000 South End Press, Cambridge Web. . Kimberle, Crenshaw,. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Review. Web http://jackiecaror1b.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/kimberle-williams-crenshaw-summary/ Mohanty, Chandra. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. 1988. Web. < http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/RaeSpot/under%20wstrn%20eyes.pdf> Shimizu, Celine. Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene. Duke University Press. 2007. Print. Smith, Andrea. Hetero-patriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy. Summary. http://justicejustis.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/summary-three-pillars-of-white-supremacy-and-heter-patriarchy/ Smith, Tuhiwai . Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999. Print. Yoo, Lindsey. Feminism and Race: Just Who Counts as a Woman of Color? Sept. 2013. Web http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/09/12/221469077/feminism-and-race-just-who-counts-as-a-woman-of-color Zinn, B. M., and Dill, T. B. Difference and Opinion. Nd. Web. 2013. Read More