Mohanty Liederman And Sen Summary

This book is a crucial dose of reality for those of us that are spoiled by the comforts we have grown used too. Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explain in the book “Half the Sky” why empowering women in the developing world is ethically right and extremely vital.It is a gripping story of how customs and culture have historically oppressed women. The strength of the human rights movement and of actual change across all cultures is going to be asteadfast task of courageous women who give themselves permission to say no to so many years of unthinkable tyrannical cultural customs and fight for a new way of life. Many of us close our eyes

Gender discrimination and violence against women were not part of the Human Rights Agenda until the 1990s when feminists began to push for this change (p84/book). One of the slogans of their campaign was that “Women’s Rights

Women face two key forms of oppression in this world, powerlessness and exploitation. These two forms fall into Iris M. Young’s ideas of oppression in her article “Five Faces of Oppression”. The definition of cultural imperialism and exploitation used in this essay are taken from Young’s essay. Cultural imperialism is where the dominant customs and morals of a society are rendered as the norm and those who are not in the norm are considered others. Exploitation is a form of oppression where a class structure is present and this class structure includes a dominant group of people who are in power of a subordinate group. Two authors, John Stuart Mill and Simone de Beauvoir, talk about how the oppression of women is not due to nature. It is rather, in Mill’s view, due to a premodern law of force which divides men and women between the strong and the weak. Beauvoir sees this oppression of women as a result from socialization, which conformed women to become immanent. Both these authors have reasonable arguments and have a similar understanding that the inferiority of women is not from the simple nature of being women. Other factors come into play when understanding why women are oppressed, and both authors recognize the fact that society and old habits must change for the equality of women and men to become a reality.

Women have been the most discriminated-against group of people in the entire history of humankind. They have been abused, held back in society, and oftentimes restricted to the home life, leading dull, meaningless lives while men make sure the world goes round. It seems strange that half of the world's population could be held down so long; ever since the dawn of humanity, women have been treated like second-class citizens. Only in the past 100 years or so have women started to win an equal place in society in the Western world. However, the fight for equality has not been a short one. The seeds of the liberation movement were planted hundreds of years ago, by free-thinking

Taili Mari Tripp’s essay Comparative Perspectives on Concepts of Gender, Ethnicity and Race articulates that within different countries exists two opposing types of feminism Difference feminism and Equality feminism. Tripp places each type of feminism in the context of different countries to measure their effectiveness and compatibility with the pre-existing political landscape and cultural attitudes. Difference feminism refers to a type of feminism that subverts ethnic, racial, and political differences in order to achieve a common agenda. Whereas Equality feminism, supposes that equality of both the genders individually is necessary for true equality.

Historian Daryl Joji Maeda called the The Asian American movement “a multiethnic alliance comprising of all ethnicities by drawing on the discourses and ideologies of the Black Power and anti-war movements in the United States as well as decolonization movements around the globe.” By the 1960s, a new generation, less attached to the ethnic differences that plagued Asian immigrant groups, began to grow and work together. The black and white binary race treatment in the US alienated Asian-Americans as an other, causing some to begin their own rally for Asian-American civil rights.

During the 1970’s most fail to recognize how the women’s liberation movement resurrected the “woman question. This has then done the job of rebuilding our world with being more conscious of the exploitation and oppression of women. Women never had a strong voice and were never heard. When the mass movements in the 70’s created a differentiation along class and political lines women’s liberation have come to be dominated by a middle class leadership. The whole idea for this era was to raise conscious levels of organizing around someone’s own oppression. Most women around this time had a difficult time admitting that they had been oppressed, when in reality countless numbers of women and not only been oppressed but gathered a larger amount of frustration, anger and bitterness. In Fact while reading the rise and demise of

We are taught from a symbolic interactionist perspective racial socialization often give way to a sense of solidarity, a union with one’s ethnic group which can tribute to the hostility demonstrated towards another group. Another familiar term ethnocentrism, a place of superiority which contains the notion one’s ethnic group is superior while the other is inferior which proves the further we are from human values and the promotion of it peace can never be achieved. The Dalai Lama says if we have peace in us we can be at peace with those around us.

Solnit’s choice of topic and the context surrounding it stem from her knowledge of the extent of the issue and the overarching repercussions that could result. She acknowledges that there are other topics that she would prefer to devote her time to, “but this affects everything else” (530). Through her topic choice and her selection of details, Solnit seeks to reveal the depth of the inequality throughout society. In order to do this, one of the first strategies that Solnit employs is to use examples from all around the globe. She writes this essay under the assumption that the audience is largely uninformed about the sheer extent of violence against women, and is working to remedy that situation. By pointing out the ways in which other countries routinely and systematically discriminate against women, Solnit places under scrutiny the idea that women’s rights are no longer an issue in the United States. Additionally, by presenting her audience with an abundance of headlines and examples of this discrimination, she further validates her argument and purpose of shedding light onto the issue. One other way in which the context of Solnit’s essay advances her purpose is through her creation of ties between the women’s rights movement and the

Early feminism was typically focused only on white women, likely because racism was still extremely prominent at the time feminism began emerging. It was not until Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” in 1989 that feminism started to look at oppressed group’s needs (Nash, 2008, 2). Intersectionality is a way of thinking that acknowledges that when a person has identities that belong to more than one oppressed group, it impacts their quality of life more negatively. In this paper, I will argue that intersectionality is important in the discussion of feminist theories and activism because it ensures that feminism is for all women, not just a select group of them. Intersectionality has changed the way the feminist movement handles the overlapping of different identities, which has helped feminist theorists understand the experiences of women of colour much more clearly. While intersectionality has a very important role in the conversation and practice of feminism, there are certainly critiques of the concept that should be brought up. These critiques, however, can offer a way to improve the study of intersectionality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to main questions. The first part of the paper will define transnational feminism and identify key factors within a transnational perspective. Another part will be discussing some transnational feminist critiques of mainstream “white/Western” feminism and will also give ideas that a transnational feminist would suggest in order to make positive changes for women. The second part of the paper will choose two concepts to define, as well as discuss how they relate to one another from a transnational perspective. In addition, the relation of how they related to gender or affect the political, social, and/or economic status of women in the world will be analyzed.

Lila Abu-Lughod also writes about feminism in regard to culture. “ It has been important for most feminists to locate sex differences in culture, not biology or nature,” (Abu-Lughod, p. 144). There have been many cultural differences between women and men, “ a different voice” perhaps from Anglo-American feminist Gilligan and her followers, (Abu-Lughod, p. 145), as well as an explanation of the differences, “ whether through a socially informed psychoanalytic theory, a Marxist-derived theory of the effects of the division of labour and women’s role in social reproduction, an analysis of maternal practice or even a theory of sexual exploitation,” (Abu-Lughod, p. 145).

“First wave” of feminism in 1920 advocated women’s suffrage, whereas the “Second wave” targets the societal issues that women in the 21st century are facing. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminists Mystique after World War II exposing female repression and later founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) which ignited the second wave of the feminist movement. Consequently, it became noticeable that women were in multiple wars, as a result branches of feminists were formed (i.e. Liberalist, Marxist, and Socialist). Misogyny’s evolution has its own significant role in the feminist movement, stirring conversations today that affect feminist ideologies. However, in order to fully comprehend what affects second wave feminism along with the tactics utilized by feminists, one must first become acquainted with the many forms.

The first assumption argues that “western” feminist discourses emphasize that all women are bound together by a shared oppression and are powerless (53-54). Mohanty systemically explores this theory through an in depth analysis of five categories in which women of the third world are traditionally presented as homogenous victims by “western” feminist. The first two categories, women as victims of male violence and women as universal dependents, arguably offer the most straightforward deconstruction of the gendered body of knowledge that is power. Women, especially women of the third world, are all seen as victims of male violence and control (54). All women are defined as powerless, and all men are defined as powerful (55). Similarly, all women are defined as powerless dependents in the second category. Mohanty argues, “this is because descriptive gender differences are transformed into the divisions between men and women” (55). This division possesses a privileged position as the explanation for the oppression of women (56). Therefore, women are seen as a powerless group no matter what the historical or cultural situation because they are deemed so prior to any analysis (56).

The identity of African women juxtaposed to the Western women’s identity is a hard concept for one to grasp. The word feminism is merely looked at from one perspective, the western perspective. The reality of feminism is that everywhere in the world has a different idea of what feminism is defined as and what it should look like. However there is one central theme that applies to feminists around the world, which is a feminist is someone who goes against traditional roles of a woman in their society to better their gender as a whole.