This spring, I was lucky enough to be introduced to the work of one of the most radical, dynamic thinkers of transnational feminism, Chandra Talpade Mohanty. If you haven’t read any of her work, you’re missing out (try starting with “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/RaeSpot/under%20wstrn%20eyes.pdf). Lately I’ve been gorging myself on one of her books, Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. So far, I’ve enjoyed it probably a little too much, but I ran into a little terminology trouble in the second chapter.
On page 49, Mohanty comments that the terms “women of color” and “Third World women” are interchangeable, in that both are “sociopolitical designation[s] for people of African, Caribbean, Asian, and Latin American descent, and native peoples of the United States” (49). I’m not sure I agree.
It seems to me that the phrase “Third World woman” is, for better or worse, inextricably linked with certain characteristics (i.e. ignorant, primitive, oppressed) in neo-liberal parlance. For Western women of color—particularly those several generations or more removed from the geographical “Third World”—to appropriate the title is to suggest a shared experience, an assumption I do not buy. I would argue that the systems of privilege and oppression faced by Western women of color, while brutal, are vastly different from those experienced by geographically Third World women.
What do you think?
One of the most noticeable changes is the fertility rate for "westernized" women of color. In the USA, our poor have higher fertility rates (pervese incentives of the welfare system?) then the middleclass and the wealthy and the poor disproportionately are made up of people of color. But even so, fertility is much lower than in the 3'rd or developing world.
Perhaps it is higher levels of education and our economy which offers more economic opportunity combined with our materialistic culture that causes fertility rates to fall. And of course there is greater access to birthcontrol and abortion. Whatever the cause, not having responsibiliy for the care of a huge brood of children has a distinctly liberating effect.
Beyond just the fertility rate, our society is becoming increasingly more fair to people of all colors. It would be ridiculous to call Michelle Obama a 3rd world woman and there are lots and lots of blacks and hispanics like her that are breaking into the middle and upper classes. Not to say that there is not room for improvement but there has been ENORMOUS change in my 50 year life.
I would find it hard to accept the term for any woman who does not live in a Third World country.
Just curious, you used the term "women of color." I used the term "people of color" to encompass all people who are not white in a class forum and a classmate got really offended. I was actually quoting our textbook when I used it, so I thought it silly of her, but honestly, is that really such a terrible term?
"O, I'm sorry you took that, -I meant that for the Devil, and you have stepped in and taken the blow. Don't get between me and the Devil, brother, and the you won't get hurt." --Billy Hibbard