WEEK #2- Paradigms of Study (blog #1-Aug.28th)

 In the articles assigned this week, they all promote challenge to the ideas, knowledge, and hegemony circulated around the “wo-man.” In the first article, “Under Western Eyes”, Mohanty approaches her agenda by relating to the idea of Third-World women and the forced agency upon them by Western and U.S. feminists in their writings and interests. She begins to identify the monolithic thought process conditioned about Third-World women. My interests in this article were of high demand in relation to the relationship among women in historical contexts. She quotes, “This connection between women as historical subjects and the re-presentation of Woman produced by hegemonic discourses is not a relation of direct identity, or a relation of correspondence or simple implication…” This quote brings an overarching investigation and question among feminist’s writers in Western thought, the singularity given to third-world women and their identity conditioned historically, and hopes of erasing Eurocentric knowledge and thought produced for and about ALL third-world women as a combined group.

            The idea of all of these readings I think, is to allow a sense of plurality among all women nationally and transnationally; however, the more focus seems to target third-world women and their particular culture, religion, de-colonialized way of thought, and present a voice for each of these women. Women in Saudi Arabia, India, Asia, Bombay, etc. have all been categorized as a group of women whose culture and creed are created by difference and unfamiliarity other than simply a way of life not experienced by some, when witnessed in writings by first-world women.

            In “Contesting Cultures”, Narayan gives the many different positionalities of herself in response to her piece. I like the way she expounds upon “her” history, her present location and space, and the dimensions to which how she has shaped her life. In this, the idea of culture and tradition among third-world women (Indian women) is emphasized authentically, and yet still questioned because of the Westernized way of knowledge gained later in life. Narayan gives culture true meaning and understanding in third-world realms and allows the development of a patriarchal society to be criticized and compared. It’s as if, she allows for a more political correctness among certain groups, class, and gender of Indian women from her background, but also proposes a response to the further difficulties women face in general in all different walks of life. The idea of “difference” is not difference in her piece. The reality of ignorance on certain third-world women and their culture is somehow erased, identified, and acknowledged. At first, this piece seemed like another identity formulation among a certain woman with many cultural beliefs, but later I began to ask the question based on Narayan background, “if this writing, her speaking from a particular class and group of Indian women, was ok to do? It reminded me of Linda Alcoff’s, “Speaking for Others.” Should she be able to speak on behalf of her mother and grandmother? Some would say yes, but how can other third-world women relate, take a standpoint, or question her presented invents with her living presently now in the U.S.? Are her thoughts biased or one of determination to NOT follow in the footsteps of her mother, cousin, and grandmother which in return questions whether she truly relates to an Indian culture and ALL of its traditions?

            In the last piece by Grewal and Kaplan, they also continue speech on feminists critiques transnationally. They speak on how some feminist’s writers continue to use the term “colonized” with “woman in response to post-modernity and modernity. Modernity presents a hybrid; however seems to flow in the direction of the West. This article questions the center and the peripheral of images, identities, and practices transnationally among women but in a world of the “rest.” The example given about the Cabbage Patch doll and Barbie in India, but wearing American clothes signifies the dominant ideas of modernity created world-wide. Limitations among certain cultures and traditions need to be erased and given new philosophies to which to expound; in other words, create a new form of modernity which exemplifies ALL cultures and traditions. Or is this possible?