Premium Essay

Mohanty and Cohler

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Submitted By dkdk1388
Words 641
Pages 3
Mohanty argues in her literary work, Under Western Eyes, that Western feminists should be more perceptive on the political suggestions of their literatures on non-western women. Western feminist’s views of non-western women are often shaped by presumptions about women and feminist ideals that might connect a certain colonial authoritative connection between the “first world” and other countries. Mohanty points out the common errors in western feminist’s writing, without arguing that any studies on “third world” women by western researchers are unrelated. Without making the mistakes that Mohanty is arguing against, she provides examples of studies that are related. Mohanty doesn’t only focus on what other researchers are doing wrong but provides a good example of what constitutes to good research in her own opinion. Mohanty points out that more than often; western feminists tend to view all women as having the same goal throughout the world which is the feminist movement. This movement often suggests that there is a transnational male-controlled collusion against women, which all “sensible women” should want to resist against in the same way and that these women should become self- capable, in control over their own bodies, and non-religious. Simply put, these women should become like the classical image that “first-world” feminists portray themselves. This process of thinking often overlooks that there is no such thing as a class of “women” outside of cultural, chronological, and socio-economical environments. Rather, the classification of women is “created” within these constructions, which associates that authoritative relations between the sexes might work otherwise in changed circumstances. For example, Mohanty points out that this has implications for the way we view women in the Middle-East. She explains first that it is rather too informal to express of

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