Feminism and Other Cultures

1
Feminism and Other Cultures Feminism is a
universal concept applicable to all women under
various local traditions and ways of living all
across the world. Or is it?
2
Feminists are critical of patriarchal traditions
within many (often Non-western) cultures
3
When charges regarding the patriarchal
tendencies of these cultures are made, people
(often also women) object to these charges,
saying that Feminism has come out of a Western
tradition and tries to impose Western/European/Whi
te assumptions and solutions on other peoples.
People who object in this way, say that Feminism
is itself an imperialistic instrument and
attempts to subjugate or colonize
local/indigenous/other cultures.
4
Many Feminists in turn call these objections a
form of Cultural Relativism (my culture and
practice is mine, your is yours and you cannot
judge mine, nor can I judge yours, so let us do
our own practices whatever they are and do
not charge mine with patriarchy and try to apply
a universal ethic to mine. These Feminists say
Cultural Relativism does not allow for the
emancipation and empowerment of women within
their cultures and within the world today. They
say that we DO NEED a universal Feminism that can
allow us to object to obvious patriarchal
oppression within local cultures but we must be
very careful how that is done.
5
Nussbaum and Okin are both trying to grapple with
this problem and Abu-Lughouds article is also
about this problem.
6
Nussbaum ''I may die, but still I cannot go
out. If there's something in the house, we eat.
Otherwise, we go to sleep.'' The speaker is a
young widow from Rajasthan, India her husband
died a little while ago, and she belongs to a
caste whose women may not work outside the home.
Her elderly father comes a hundred miles to plow
the little plot of land she lives off. When he
dies, she and her children may very well die with
him.
7
Why? What, or who, prevents Metha Bai from going
out to work? Not a shortage of work not her own
incapacity. The ''what'' is the local culture,
and the ''who'' includes her own relatives, who
will beat her if she tries to leave her
house. This little horror story anchors the
second of the themes that sustain the book. Local
cultures are not sacrosanct they license any
amount of cruelty, oppression and misery.
Identity is much overrated, especially for women
who in most cultures find their identity
construed in relation to fathers, brothers and
husbands.
8
In the name of what, though, are we to condemn
local traditions? Does it not show an
unpleasantly chauvinistic, even imperialist
attitude to object to the ways in which other
societies make sense of their daily lives? Is it
not an outdated Enlightenment view that there is
a unitary human nature that in all times and all
places needs the same things? Is it not the sort
of simple-minded liberalism that we have rightly
learned to reject -- individualistic,
rationalistic, obsessed with freedom of choice?
9
Nussbaum's response is unflinching. It is not
true that the world divides neatly into
individualistic, choice-obsessed Westerners and
contented traditionalists. The girls who suffer
clitoridectomy -- firmly labeled female genital
mutilation by Nussbaum -- do not volunteer for
it they are forcibly mistreated, and would
plainly wish to have a choice in the matter.
Metha Bai plainly wants to have the choice
between starving to death in accordance with
tradition and doing something to keep herself and
her children alive.
10
Okin What is multiculturalism? 2 types An
example of the first type? Multiculturalism in
Education multiculturalists have claimed that
the great books leave out women, people of other
races, gays and lesbians, formerly colonized
peoples, ethnic and religious minorities, and
Indigenous peoples. Multiculturalism when it
refers to indigenous peoples and others with
DISTINCT CULTURAL TRAITS. (Women would not claim
distinct cultural Rights as would people of a
certain community Or religion)
11
How are they in conflict? Since there is a lot
of culture based gender construction and
inequality, attacking these oppressions amounts
to attacking The culture. Or defending the
culture amounts to upholding these oppressive
traditions
12
Culture and Gender and interrelated in a complex
way such that gender inequality is only one of
the various inequalities that a culture
mandates. Cultures regulate domestic life in
different ways Consider the major Western
religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam All
attempt to control reproduction (story of Abraham)
13
In a liberal environment, many exceptions are
made for Cultures a Sikh man is allowed not to
wear a helmet, a Muslim man may have time off to
pray on Friday. Most of the practices that are
problems, however, have to do with women
Polygamy, anti-abortion, sexual harassment,
clitoridectomy
14

• How should this be integrated into the larger
  culture?
• Should everyone be legally allowed to practice
  what they do?
• 2) Should they be banned?
• 3) Should they be ignored but women from those
  cultures supported when they complain?
• 4) Should we allow only those cultures that are
  internally liberal to have rights?

15
Abu-Lughod   It was understood that the US is
saving Afghan Women from their terrible
oppression by the Taliban. While Lughod does not
deny this oppression from the Taliban, she is
critical of the way in which many of us
understand this saving.
16
When reporters questioned Abu-Lughod (she is an
Expert on Middle Eastern culture), they gave
precedence to questions about women and Islam and
Islamic culture rather than questions of
repressive regimes in these places, the role of
the US in its history.
17
Lughod asks why Afghan Women became so crucial in
this cultural explanation and how the Fight
against terrorism is also a fight for the rights
and dignity of women. Pictures of Afghan women
in burqas symbolize the oppression of these women
for the West. However, the veil has many other
meanings portable seclusion, symbol of
virtue, does not imply a lack of agency,
ultimately it is only a dress with which the West
seems obsessed.
18
How can we have respect for other cultures
without resorting to the apathy of cultural
relativism?
19
Instead of trying to save Muslim Women from
Muslim Men, we should consider how they can be
saved from hunger, poverty, war, foreign bombing,
or foreign occupation. Instead of expecting them
to be like us upon the removal of the Taliban, we
must allow indigenous and local (even religious)
forms of Feminism and human rights to develop and
come into play rather than imposing a secular and
commercial framework from outside.
20
We should NOT want them to start dressing and
consuming like Western women after all they
have their own cultural ways can we learn to
respect those cultures? Making the world a more
just place does not mean imposing our own culture
on others.