"Ideologies of womanhood have as much to do with class and race as they have to do with sex"

“Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism”

By Chandra Talpade Mohanty [Abridged Version] 

The US and the USSR are the most powerful countries

in the world but only 1/8 of the world’s population.

African people are also 1/8 of the world’s population.

Of that, 1/4 is Nigerian. 1/2 of the world’s population is Asian.

1/2 of that is Chinese.

There are 22 nations in the middle east.

Most people in the world are Yellow, Black, Brown, Poor,

Female, Non-Christian and do not speak English.

By the year 2000 the 20 largest cities in the world

will have one thing in common.

None of them will be in Europe, n

one in the United States.

 - Audre Lorde, January 1, 1989

The Urgency of Our Predicament in a Eurocentric World

I begin this essay with Audre Lorde’s words as a tribute to her courage in consistently engaging the very institutional power structures that define and circumscribe the lives of Third World women. Her words provide a poetic cartography of the historical and political location of Third World peoples and document the urgency of our predicament in a Eurocentric world. 

In fact, one of the distinctive features of contemporary societies is the internationalization of economies and labor forces. In addition, the massive migration of excolonial populations to the industrial metropolises of Europe to fill the need for cheap labor has created new kinds of multiethnic and multiracial social formations similar to those in the United States. 

‘Third World Feminism’: Questions of Definition 

Charting the ground for an analysis of Third World women and the politics of feminism is no easy task. First, there are the questions of definition: Who/what is the Third World? Do Third World women make up any kind of a constituency? Can we assume that Third World women’s political struggles are necessarily ‘‘feminist’’? How do we/they define feminism? 

These are all questions of great importance in this particular cartography of Third World feminisms. I write this cartography from my own particular political, historical, and intellectual location, as a Third World feminist trained in the United States, interested in questions of culture, knowledge production, and activism in an international context. 

Histories of Third World Women’s Engagement with Feminism: In Short Supply 

Definitions: Third World Women and Feminism Unlike the history of Western (white, middle-class) feminisms, which has been explored in great detail over the last few decades, histories of Third World women’s engagement with feminism are in short supply. 

There is a large body of work on ‘‘women in developing countries,’’ but this does not necessarily engage feminist questions. 

Third World Women as a Political Category 

Just as it is difficult to speak of a singular entity called ‘‘Western feminism,’’ it is difficult to generalize about ‘‘Third World feminisms.’’ 

In much of my scholarship, I have chosen to foreground ‘‘Third World women’’ as an analytical and political category; thus I want to recognize and analytically explore the links among the histories and struggles of Third World women against racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism, and monopoly capital. 

Nation-States that Constitute ‘Third World Peoples’ 

Geographically, the nation-states of Latin America, the Caribbean, subSaharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, China, South Africa, and Oceania constitute the parameters of the non-European Third World. In addition, black, Latino, Asian, and indigenous peoples in the United States, Europe, and Australia, some of whom have historic links with the geographically defined Third World, also refer to themselves as Third World peoples. 

With such a broad canvas, racial, sexual, national, economic, and cultural borders are difficult to demarcate, shaped politically as they are in individual and collective practice. 

Suspicion over the term ‘Feminism’ 

The term ‘‘feminism’’ is itself questioned by many Third World women. Feminist movements have been challenged on the grounds of cultural imperialism and of shortsightedness in defining the meaning of gender in terms of middle-class, white experiences, internal racism, classism, and homophobia. 

All of these factors, as well as the falsely homogeneous representation of the movement by the media, have led to a very real suspicion of ‘‘feminism’’ as a productive ground for struggle. Nevertheless, Third World women have always engaged with feminism, even if the label has been rejected in a number of instances. 

Major Areas of Concern for Third World Feminism in the US 

Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa delineate the major areas of concern for a broadbased political movement of U.S. Third World women: 

1.      how visibility/invisibility as women of color forms our radicalism;

2.      the ways in which Third World women derive a feminist political theory specifically from our racial/cultural background and experience;

3.      the destructive and demoralizing effects of racism in the women’s movement;

4.      the cultural, class, and sexuality differences that divide women of color;

5.      Third World women’s writing as a tool for self-preservation and revolution; and

6.     the ways and means of a Third World feminist future. 

Political Struggles of Women in India, Indonesia and Korea: The Common Link 

The common link between political struggles of women in India, Indonesia, and Korea, for instance, is the fight against racist, colonialist states and for national independence. 

To sum up, Third World women’s writings on feminism have consistently focused on the idea of the simultaneity of oppressions as fundamental to the experience of social and political marginality and the grounding of feminist politics in the histories of racism and imperialism; the crucial role of a hegemonic state in circumscribing their/our daily lives and survival struggles; the significance of memory and writing in the creation of oppositional agency; and the differences, conflicts, and contradictions internal to Third World women’s organizations and communities. 

Third World Women’s Argument for Rewriting of History 

In fact, the challenge of Third World feminisms to white, Western feminisms has been precisely this inescapable link between feminist and political liberation movements. 

In fact, black, white, and other Third World women have very different histories with respect to the particular inheritance of post-fifteenth-century Euro-American hegemony: the inheritance of slavery, enforced migration, plantation and indentured labor, colonialism, imperial conquest, and genocide. 

Thus, Third World feminists have argued for the rewriting of history based on the specific locations and histories of struggle of people of color and postcolonial peoples, and on the day-to-day strategies of survival utilized by such peoples. The urgency of rewriting and rethinking these histories and struggles is suggested by A. Sivanandan in his searing critique of the identity politics of the 1980s social movements in Britain. 

But how do we attempt such a history based on our limited knowledges? After all, it is primarily in the last two or three decades that Third World historians have begun to reexamine and rewrite the history of slavery and colonialism from oppositional locations, especially on the significance of writing for Third World feminists - the significance of producing knowledge for ourselves. 

Ideologies of Womanhood: Class, Race & Sex 

Ideologies of womanhood have as much to do with class and race as they have to do with sex. Thus, during the period of American slavery, constructions of white womanhood as chaste, domesticated, and morally pure had everything to do with corresponding constructions of black slave women as promiscuous, available plantation workers. It is the intersections of the various systemic networks of class, race, (hetero)sexuality, and nation, then, that position us as ‘‘women.’’ 

‘Production’ of Knowledge ‘about’ Third World Women 

Anthropology and its ‘‘nativization’’ of Third World women thus forms a significant context for understanding the production of knowledge ‘‘about’’ Third World women. 

Knowledge production in literary and social-scientific disciplines is clearly an important discursive site for struggle. The practice of scholarship is also a form of rule and of resistance, and constitutes an increasingly important arena of Third World feminisms. 

After all, the material effects of this knowledge production have ramifications for institutions (e.g., laws, policies, educational systems) as well as the constitution of selves and of subjectivities. 

Conclusion 

To summarize, this chapter delineates the urgency and necessity to rethink feminist praxis and theory within a cross-cultural, international framework, and discusses the assumption of Third World women as a social and political category in order to suggest new beginnings and middles, and to argue for more finely honed historical and context-specific feminist methods. 

I also write out of the conviction that we must be able and willing to theorize and engage the feminist politics of women, for these are the very understandings we need to respond seriously to the challenges of race, class, and our postcolonial condition.