Western Feminism’s Ethnocentric Ideals and Lack of Intersectionality in Itself are not Qualifications to Define Women as a Whole

Feminism and women as a category should not be defined by one of the many hundred cultures our world holds.

One major assumed component of feminism is that it unifies women through the commonality in their struggles in modern society. In our media and real life surroundings, we are given images of groups of predominantly white women joining together, raising their voices at the inequalities they face as a group in both the public and private sphere.

Now to dissect what I have just said. This unity of women makes the assumption that women can so easily be unified into a singular group, each member easily fitting into the definition of the group’s title. The common struggles that gives individuals the qualification to be included in said group are assumed to be so “common” that no call is made to look deeper into the history of each and every individual of this group. These struggles and inequalities are applied to each and every individual that identifies as a woman, because its what “women” face day to day. That is, day to day in western society. “Women” are usually represented in white, western women using their western ideology to call for a change to western workings of politics and society.

As brought up in Mohanty’s Under Western Eyes, because this is how women are usually represented, by those very women themselves that I mentioned this creates an inadequate inclusions of women that exist outside that of western society. “Third World women” then become different from “women”. They become their own category, and one that victimizes them in almost every sense of the “third world” society they live in. Western feminism displaces them from feminism as an all-encompassing term. They are simultaneously victimizes by their assumed oppressive culture and traditions, and victimized by western feminism that labels them as needing to be saved.

One common piece of evidence for this is categorizing women by one broad definition of a“third world” culture, making the assumption that all of it is the same regardless of how individual counties, states, or communities differ from one another. Mohanty brings up the example of “African women”. The use of this term immediately puts all women from Africa into one category, one type of woman. Western feminism then takes this category and uses it to apply their own agendas and perspectives on all the women of Africa, in the sense that they see them as being sexually oppressed, politically oppressed, poor, uneducated, and in need of help from a much more “developed” society to get them to the same level of “freedom” that they are at. This way of thinking from western feminism completely disregards the individual cultures that live inside the continent. In the same way that U.S. citizens do not identify themselves by the entire continent of North America (even so, western feminism, which so quickly defines women by the broad and large areas of the world they live in, is also quick to lump their own neighbors from Mexico into that category) “African women” cannot properly define all the women that live there. This includes all their experiences and struggles that they deal with. When western feminists look at “African women”, what they should really be doing is looking at the context of each of these women's’ lives. By looking at the lives of women through their own culture, we gain a better understanding of what it is that they really need or want, and how their everyday traditions actually affect them. Western feminists have been able to go as far as acknowledge that they are different from other women in the world, now what is needed for them to acknowledge that because of these differences, western point of views cannot be applied or forced upon those differing women.

To understand the points that Mohanty makes, a smaller example can be used that exists even in western culture, and that is the idea of intersectionality. This idea brings up the importance of acknowledging everyone has different experiences, influenced by other aspects of their lives such as cultural background, family, where they live, and so on. It comes to no surprise that western feminism so easily lumps women of vastly different cultures into one inadequate label, as the same is done to women in those western societies themselves. In the U.S., there exists different cultures, living inside each of it’s citizens, and specifically for women, these cultures create different sets of inequalities and societal struggles that they face. So easily do we see major feminist movements being made and led by a set of goals that are applied to all women in the U.S. These goals don’t take into account how women of color go through different experiences than white women do. The same women that so proudly take part in women’s marches will easily take no part in the Black Lives Matter movement, or protest on immigration related issues like the recent immigration ban. They displace themselves from these spheres, and deem them to be something different, not their problems, and therefore have no relation to their feminism.

By acknowledging that intersectionality exists, there is possibility to develop the capability to acknowledge all the other culturally influenced experiences women have throughout the world. But we must also draw attention to the issue of western feminism applying it’s perspective on all other cultures, and how feminism does not look the same in every part of the world, and instead should take into account that the category of “women” should be intersectional and inclusive to different contexts.