How right Ms. Chandra Talpade Mohanty when she said that "colonization has bene use dto characterize everything fromt he most evident economic and political hierachies to the production of a particular cultural discourse about what is called the 'third world." Here goes my story lol... I grew up in a LARGELY predominent Caucasian area. Well actually I was the first African-American to attend my high school since it had been open since 1964. My mother who is also partly Caucasian did her best when it came to rasing me making sure that regardless of where I was now I knew where I came from in reference to her background and my father did his part in reference to his background. But of course when my friends were using Herbal Essenses shampoo and I wanted to my mother did not allow me to because I did not have "that kind of hair." When kids were dying their hair crazy colors... I wanted to. When girls were wearing little spaghetti straped shirts... I wanted to... but couldn't. My mother always referred to it as my stage of colonization and recognizing the way life is.
When Mohanty was talking about feminist scholarship not being the mere production of knowledge about a certain subject but a political and discursive practice in what is purposeful and ideological I got kind of lost. What I think she was talking about was that when it comes to women being intelligent and smart is cannot just be us wanting to be smart but it is something we have to do in order to have some type of power?!?
According to this I'm a "third world woman" based upon the fact that I am open about sexuality and Western women are not. They are educated (me too), modern (kinda), has control over their own body (I do), and sexualities (I do too... I just like to educate and discuss all realms of sexuality). We as women are oppressed just as Mohanty stated it's a "shared oppression." Sitting in on a Men in Society class at Morehouse the professor wrote the word women on one side of the board and men on the other. The guys in the class were instructed to get up and write whatever came to mind in reference to their opinion of both sexes. Most of the things regarding women were emotional, dependent, powerless, sexy, child-bearers, smart, teachers, nurses, etc. and men were depicted as being strong, athletic, money-makers, supporters, etc. This bring a strong tie to Mohanty when she said that men exploit and women are exploited. Sitting in that class seeing as though it wasn't my class I did not want to say anything but I had to. I stopped the professor immediately and asked if he thought that both cross-sectionally women and men could both be all those things and he said "Yes, but I feel one is more so than the other." Argh!
Yet, sometimes in WESTERN society that so many try to get most women to conform to it is those women that are the instigators (spelling) that perpetuate those types of opinions. I just wish more men were interested in taking classes and readings things of this nature so they too could understand and could open their eyes to "Western Eyes."
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