Question

Summarize chandra talpade mohanty Under Westerm Eyes- Feminist Scholarship & Colonial Discourses article. 600 words.

Answer 1

The aticle talks about women across the world and finds parallels in various experiences and observations which are essential to understand women in the third world countries

''Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses'' (1984) is an academic essay by Indian-American feminist scholar Chandra Talpade Mohanty. In this essay, Mohanty presents the argument that Western feminist scholarship has reduced all women of the third world into a single, collective other. She critiques the approach to third world women and feminism, arguing for more nuanced scholarship from Western scholars.

Let's start by fully defining Mohanty's argument, as well as the terms she employs. In ''Under Western Eyes,'' Mohanty explores how Western scholarship treats women of the third world, what we call developing countries (specifically those of Africa and South/Southeast Asia). Her thesis is that Western feminism has a habit of treating third-world women as a homogeneous group. This means that Western feminist scholars tend to see all third world women as essentially the same. These women can be sorted into one single category that applies to all non-Western women universally, thus creating a singular idea of the average third-world woman and ignoring the diversity of experiences within this group.

So, what does this average third world woman look like? In much of Western feminist scholarship, she is assumed to be sexually constrained, uneducated, often ignorant of her own subjugation, bound by family and tradition, domestic, and victimized. By presenting the average third world woman in these assumed terms, the Western woman thereby becomes implicitly defined as the opposite: educated, modern, with control over her body and life choices. According to Mohanty, since the homogeneous third world group of women is largely defined by universal oppression, they therefore (implicitly) need to be saved by Western feminists.

This brings us to the major point of the argument. Mohanty claims that this homogeneous approach to non-Western women amounts to an act of colonialism in Western feminist discourse. Mohanty defines colonialism as a ''relation of structural domination, and a suppression ... of the heterogeneity of the subject(s) in question.'' In this case, many Western feminist scholars reduce the diverse heterogeneities of women in the third world, colonizing it by forming it into a homogeneous category for Western scholarship to use. Mohanty's argument takes a critical look at Western feminist scholarship's approach to third world women. So, how does she defend this?

Throughout her essay, Mohanty focuses on examples of this analytic discourse found in existing Western feminist scholarship. Specifically, she focuses on the Zed Press ''Women in the Third World'' series, in which various scholars examine women's lives in third world countries and regions. Some of the main scholars that Mohanty critiques include Fran Hosken, Maria Cutrufelli, Juliette Minces, Beverly Lindsay, and Patricia Jeffery.

To organize her critique, Mohanty claims that she has identified three main analytic principles used by Western feminism in regards to the third world. They are:

1. The assumption that ''women'' is an existing, coherent, universal group with identical interests, needs, and desires across cultures.
2. An uncritical use of methodologies in order to prove the above principle.
3. An implied model of power and struggle based on both previous principles that creates the idea of the average third world woman.

This aricle has had significant impact and has been extensively studied and cited to undesrtand feminist movements and women empowerment goals globally.