56 Power, Representation and feminist Critique they imply and suggest. I argue that as a result of the two modes-or rather, frames-of analysis described above, a homogeneous notion of the oppression of women as a group is assumed, which, in turn, produces the image of an"average third world woman. This average third world woman leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained )and her being third world"(read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family-oriented, victimized, etc. ) This, I suggest, is in contrast to the(implicit)self-representation of Western women as educated as modern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the freedom to make their own decisions The distinction between Western feminist re-presentation of women in the third world and Western feminist self-presentation is a distinction of the same order as that made by some Marxists between the main- tenance"function of the housewife and the real"productive"role of wage labor, or the characterization by developmentalists of the third world as being engaged in the lesser production of"raw materials"in contrast to the real"productive activity of the first world. These distinctions are made on the basis of the privileging of a particular group as the norm or referent. Men involved in wage labor, first world producers, and, I suggest, Western feminists who sometimes cast third world women in terms of ourselves undressed"(Michelle Rosaldo's [1980 term),all construct themselves as the normative referent in such a binary analyti Womenas Category of Analysis, or: We are All Sisters in Struggle By women as a category of analysis, I am referring to the crucial assumption that all of us of the same gender, across classes and cultures, are somehow socially constituted as a homogeneous group identified prior to the process of analysis. This is an assumption which characterizes much feminist discourse. The homogeneity of women as a group is produced not on the basis of biological essentials but rather on the basis of secondary sociological and anthropological universals. Thus, for instance, in any given piece of feminist analysis, women are characterized as a singular group on the basis of a shared oppression. What binds women together is a sociological notion of the"sameness"of their oppression. It is at this point that an elision takes place between women"as a discursively constructed group and"women"as material subjects of their own history. 6 Thus, the discursively consensual homogeneity of"women"as a group is mistaken for the historically specific material reality of groups of women. This results in an assumption of women as an always already constituted group, one which has been labeled"powerless, ""exploited, sexually harassed, "etc. by feminist scientific, economic, legal, and so ciological discourses. (Notice that this is quite similar to sexist discourse
UNDER WESTERN EYES labeling women weak, emotional, having math anxiety, etc. )This focus is not on uncovering the material and ideological specificities that con- stitute a particular group of women as"powerless' in a particular context It is, rather, on finding a variety of cases of"powerless"groups of women to prove the general point that women as a group are powerless In this section I focus on five specific ways in which"women"as a category of analysis is used in Western feminist discourse on women in the third world. Each of these examples illustrates the construction of third world women"as a homogeneous"powerless"group often located as implicit victims of particular socioeconomic systems. I have chosen to deal with a variety of writers-from Fran Hosken, who writes primarily about female genital mutilation, to writers from the women in Interna tional Development school, who write about the effect of development policies on third world women for both Western and third world audi- ences. The similarity of assumptions about"third world women"in all these texts forms the basis of my discussion. This is not to equate all the texts that I analyze, nor is it to equalize their strengths and weaknesses The authors I deal with write with varying degrees of care and complexity however, the effect of their representation of third world women is a coherent one. In these texts women are defined as victims of male violence (Fran Hosken); victims of the colonial process(Maria Cutrufelli); victims of the Arab familial system Juliette Minces); victims of the economic development process( Beverley Lindsay and the [liberal] WID School); and finally, victims of the Islamic code(Patricia Jeffery). This mode of defining women primarily in terms of their object status(the way in which they are affected or not affected by certain institutions and systems)is what characterizes this particular form of the use of"women"as a cat- egory of analysis. In the context of Western women writing/studying omen in the third world, such objectification(however benevolently motivated) needs to be both named and challenged as valerie amos and Pratibha Parmar argue quite eloquently,Feminist theories which ex amine our cultural practices as ' feudal residues or label us traditional also portray us as politically immature women who need to be versed and schooled in the ethos of Western feminism They need to be contin ually challenged.. (1984, 7) Women as Victims of male violence Fran Hosken, in writing about the relationship between human rights and female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East, bases her whole discussion/condemnation of genital mutilation on one privileged premise: that the goal of this practice is to mutilate the sexual pleasure and satisfaction of woman"(1981, 11). This, in turn, leads her to claim
Power, Representation and Feminist critique that woman's sexuality is controlled, as is her reproductive potential According to Hosken, male sexual politics"in Africa and around the world "share the same political goal: to assure female dependence and subservience by any and all means"(14). Physical women(rape, sexual assault, excision, infibulation, etc. )is thus carried out with an astonishing consensus among men in the world"(14). Here, women are defined consistently as the victims of male control-the sex ually oppressed. 7 Although it is true that the potential of male violence against women circumscribes and elucidates their social position to a certain extent, defining women as archetypal victims freezes them into objects-who-defend-themselves, men into "subjects-who-perpetrate violence, and (every)society into powerless(read: women) and powerful (read: men) groups of people. Male violence must be theorized and in- terpreted within specific societies, in order both to understand it better and to effectively organize to change it. Sisterhood cannot be assumed on the basis of gender; it must be forged in concrete historical and political practice and analysis Women as universal dependents Beverly Lindsays conclusion to the book Comparative Perspectives of Third World Women: The Impact of race, Sex and Class(1983, 298, 306) states:"dependency relationships, based upon race, sex and class,are being perpetuated through social, educational, and economic institutions These are the linkages among Third World Women. Here, as in other places, Lindsay implies that third world women constitute an identifiable group purely on the basis of shared dependencies. If shared dependencies were all that was needed to bind us together as a group, third world women would always be seen as an apolitical group with no subject status Instead, if anything, it is the common context of political struggle against class, race, gender, and imperialist hierarchies that may constitute third world women as a strategic group at this historical juncture. Lindsay also states that linguistic and cultural differences exist between vietnamese and black American women, but both groups are victims of race, sex and class. Again black and vietnamese women are characterized by their victim status Similarly, examine statements such as "my analysis will start by stat ing that all African women are politically and economically dependent Cutrufelli 1983, 13),Nevertheless, either overtly or covertly, prostitu tion is still the main if not the only source of work for African women Cutrufelli 1983, 33). All African women are dependent Prostitution is the only work option for African women as a group Both statements are illustrative of generalizations sprinkled liberally through a recent Zed
UNDER WESTERN EYES Press publication, Women of Africa: Roots of Oppression, by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, who is described on the cover as an Italian writer, sociologist, Marxist, and feminist. In the 1980s, is it possible to imagine writing a book entitled Women of Europe: Roots of Oppression? I am not objecting to the use of universal groupings for descriptive purposes. Women from the continent of Africa can be descriptively characterized as"women of Africa. It is when"women of Africa"becomes a homogeneous socio- logical grouping characterized by common dependencies or powerless ness(or even strengths) that problems arise-we say too little and too much at the same time This is because descriptive gender differences are transformed into the division between men and women. Women are constituted as a group via dependency relationships vis-a-vis men, who are implicitly held re sponsible for these relationships. When"women of Africa"as a group (versus"men of Africa"as a group? )are seen as a group precisely because they are generally dependent and oppressed, the analysis of specific his torical differences becomes impossible, because reality is always appar ently structured by divisions-two mutually exclusive and jointly ex- haustive groups, the victims and the oppressors. Here the sociological is substituted for the biological, in order, however to create the same-a unity of women. Thus, it is not the descriptive potential of gender dif ference but the privileged positioning and explanatory potential of gender difference as the origin of oppression that I question In using"women of Africa"(as an already constituted group of oppressed peoples)as a category of analysis, Cutrufelli denies any historical specificity to the location of women as subordinate, powerful, marginal, central, or other wise, vis-a-vis particular social and power networks. Women are taken as a unified"powerless"group prior to the analysis in question Thus, it is then merely a matter of specifying the context after the fact. Women are now placed in the context of the family, or in the workplace, or within religious networks, almost as if these systems existed outside the relations of women with other women and women with men The problem with this analytic strategy, let me repeat, is that it as sumes men and women are already constituted as sexual-political subjects prior to their entry into the arena of social relations. Only if we subscribe to this assumption is it possible to undertake analysis which looks at the 'effects'of kinship structures, colonialism organization of labor, etc,on women,who are defined in advance as a group. The crucial point that is forgotten is that women are produced through these very relations as well as being implicated in forming these relations. As Michelle Rosaldo ar- gues, woman's place in human social life is not in any direct sense a oroduct of the things she does(or even less, a function of what, biolog- ically, she is)but the meaning her activities acquire through concrete social
Power Representation and feminist Critique nteractions"(1980, 400). That women mother in a variety of societies is not as significant as the value attached to mothering in these societies The distinction between the act of mothering and the status attached to it is a very important one-one that needs to be stated and analyzed contextually Married Women as victims of the Colonial process In Levi-Strauss's theory of kinship structure as a system of the change of women, what is significant is that exchange itself is not con stitutive of the subordination of women; women are not subordinate be- cause of the fact of exchange, but because of the modes of exchange instituted, and the values attached to these modes. However, in discussing the marriage ritual of the Bemba, a Zambian matrilocal, matrilineal people, Cutrufelli in Women of africa focuses on the fact of the marital exchange of women before and after Western colonization rather than the value attached to this exchange in this particular context. This leads to her definition of Bemba women as a coherent group affected in a particular way by colonization. Here again, Bemba women are constituted rather unilaterally as victims of the effects of Western colonization. Cutrufelli cites the marriage ritual of the Bemba as a multistage event whereby a young man becomes incorporated into his wife's family group as he takes up residence with them and gives his services in return for food and maintenance"(43). This ritual extends over many years, and the sexual relationship varies according to the degree of the girls physical maturity. It is only after she undergoes an initiation ceremony at puberty that intercourse is sanctioned, and the man acquires legal rights over her This initiation ceremony is the more important act of the consecration of women's reproductive power, so that the abduction of an uninitiated girl is of no consequence, while heavy penalty is levied for the seduction of an initiated girl. Cutrufelli asserts that the effect of european colonization has changed the whole marriage system. Now the young man is entitled to take his wife away from her people in return for money the implication is that Bemba women have now lost the protection of tribal laws. How ever, while it is possible to see how the structure of the traditional mar riage contract(versus the postcolonial marriage contract)offered women a certain amount of control over their marital relations, only an analysis of the political significance of the actual practice which privileges an initiated girl over an uninitiated one, indicating a shift in female power relations as a result of this ceremony, can provide an accurate account of whether Bemba women were indeed protected by tribal laws at all times However, it is not possible to talk about Bemba women as a homo geneous group within the traditional marriage structure. Bemba women