“Many feminists from Third World contexts confront voices that are eager to convert any feminist criticism they make of their culture into a mere symptom of their “lack of respect for their culture,” rooted in the “Westernization” that they seem to have caught like a disease.”
It seems as if those who do express their feminist ideas are treated as if they have some type of disease. This supposed disease happens to be referred to as Westernization, as if thinking for themselves is some type of disease. I feel like Narayan hit the nail on the head with this one. We’ll take the United States as a prime example for Westernization. In the United States women are, for the most part, treated equally and are allowed to speak their minds. It is also true that the Unites States is an egalitarian country and that is the norm here. In places like Ghana, Africa though this isn’t true. Ghana is a male dominated society and women there are to obey their husbands and question nothing. So it makes sense when I think about how insane it would seem to men if women fought back and spoke their mind, to them it would very much seem like some kind of disease. The truth is though that these women aren’t just following the example of American women, it’s entirely possible that they’ve figured out they shouldn’t be treated that way all on their own.
“I also remember my mother saying years later, as a put down for my being argumentative and critical, contrasting my character unfavorably with hers, with a pride and satisfaction that were difficult for me to understand, “When I came to Bombay right after I was married, I was so innocent I did not know how to even begin to argue…” My earliest memory is of seeing you cry. I heard all your stories of your misery. The shape your ‘silence’ took is in part what has incited me to speech.”
I find this passage both upsetting and moving. Narayan’s mother believes that she is innocent because she didn’t know how to argue. She listened to anything people would tell her because she truly believed that’s how things should be done, and who could blame her that’s what she was taught, but she acts as if she is better than her daughter for it which is so wrong. In that culture though that is the norm so I can’t really blame the mother.
In my reality innocence has nothing to do with whether or not you’re outspoken. I picture a child as innocent because they haven’t been corrupted by the world yet, and truth be told children certainly don’t remain silent and they aren’t submissive! Then later in the text Narayan described her earliest memory and it’s of her mother crying. She watched her mother suffer and from that she learned to speak up and be “argumentative” as her mother said. As I said in the previous passage these women aren’t learning from the western world, they’re learning at young ages by watching their mothers crying alone.
“Thus, both my mother and specific cultural context in which I was raised saw education as a good thing for daughters, encouraged us to do well at our studies, saw it as prudent that daughters have the qualifications necessary to economically support themselves…At the same time, they were critical of the effects of the very things they encouraged-nervous about our intoxication with ideas and our insistence on using ideas acquired from books to question social rules and norms of life…”
Here is where it kind of gets a little funny. Parents, friends, and all those who blame western life for the defiance of these third world feminists don’t even realize that their very social institutions are setting this in motion.
These people are truly in denial. They don’t want anyone to get new ideas but at the same time they want them to be properly educated, which is pretty much a contradiction. These mothers want their daughters to get the proper skills to find a job but it’s almost like they don’t want them to enjoy it. As soon as their daughters start to look at their careers as more than an instrument to get money they get all upset because they don’t think things should work like that. This all seems so crazy to me! It makes complete sense though because that’s how the mothers were raised and that’s what they know.
“…our points of view are no more able to be “outside” those who would dismiss us, and our points of view are no more able to be “outside” our cultural traditions, than the perspectives of those who label us “Westernized…” we know only too well that our criticisms and contestations are not uniquely “representative” of our culture, we have the power and the ability to question whether the voices of our critics are any more uniquely “representative” of our complex and changing cultural realities.”
I feel like she’s really bringing it home here. She’s not even attacking those who view differently which would be so easy because that’s all she’s heard all her life! All she wants people to know is that she does think differently and she’s not the only one. Nobody is right in this situation and it’s wrong to dismiss anyone’s beliefs. She refuses to believe that those who dismiss her are representative of her culture. Narayan has opened her mind and is refusing to let others tell her that she’s wrong which is really inspiring, especially when you consider how difficult that must be when your family rejects your ideas.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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2 comments:
I am glad you made a little more sense out of this chapter than I did. I do agree though, that the way she made Third World Feminism sounds was as if people thought it was some sort of disease that was going to ruin things.
I like how you gave a good size quote and then talked about what you got out of it, such as the idea that third world feminism has roots close to home and has roots that are from family upcoming. However I didn't seem to learn a lot from this, but I guess it was interesting how she put it into more of story.
I do agree with her however that it is mothers and mothers daughters that give rise to all this feminist stuff.
Other than this I didn't get much out of the reading, except that she is basically trying to stand up for third world feminism and westernization. MOre power to her.
I found this reading very intriguing and something I found to definitely catch my interest. Through studying other cultures you always come to be aware of the different traditions and expectations of those cultures and in the societies that the people from them are raised in. I however, was never aware of how certain cultures, such as India, found modern ways of living, such as in the a Western Culture to be considered a symptom of third world feminism. In the readings, it seemed as if they did not want to contribute their new ways of living through things like modern technology as an excuse for why there has been a greater feminists outreach in their countries. It seems as if they want to blame it as being an effect of “Westernization”. Not taking into account how their own actions are affected the way woman are learning to think.
I liked the opening quote given, which you wrote how the author talked about feminist ideas being treated as a disease. It gets the point straight across about the author’s opinion, and helped to keep that in mind while reading the rest of the writings of how the idea of third world feminism was going to be portrayed.
One part in written by Narayan, that caught my attention especially was the idea of bringing raised in a contradictory culture. The women in India, as she stated, were encouraged to see education as a good thing and embraced the idea of their daughters being able to support themselves. However, at the same time they were nervous of their daughters being, “intoxicated with ideas.” I find that it would be hard to have to grow up in such a contradictory household.
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