Right Of Equal Divorce example essay topic

A Post-Modern Analysis of Women in the New Eastwood intentions do not beget positive results. Indeed what may seem to be good from one perspective may be seen as the complete opposite from another. Case in point: Western Feminism. To prove my point I will analyze the work of Ruth Frances Woodsmall, Women and the New East, written in 1960 as a feminist work, from a post-modern feminist perspective, and using works from Coco Fusco (English Broken Here) and Trinh Minh-ha (Women Native Other). One of the first problems encountered in Woodsmall's work is in the delineation of her methodology. She writes that she began her study for each country with", ... the selection of a number of women leaders as advisers on the study as a whole and on specific phases...

The individual advisers were very helpful in making contacts, in giving advice about special interviews, suggesting institutions and projects and interpreting the general situation". (v.) These women that she chose as her starting point from were most likely how many of the other informants and sources of information were found and therefore must have had a serious affect on the results of her research. These women are leaders, and therefore not accurate representations of the average women of Turkey. Indeed in the biographical appendix Woodsmall lists some of these leaders and not only do they all have "careers", but they are all centered in military or scientific areas - not exactly a cross section of any society. This means much of this work was funneled through one class, and Fusco in her work exemplifies how class can make a difference in cultural views". The reactions of Latin Americans differed according to class. Many upper class Latin American tourists... voiced disgust that their part of the world should be represented in such a debased manner.

Many other Latin Americans and Native Americans immediately recognized the symbolic significance of the piece, expressing solidarity with us... ". (56) This means that what Woodsmall really wrote about was Westernized women in the new East. This was not a view of all the women in the Muslim world and India as Woodsmall attains, but just those that had been educated and influenced by the West.

In the section entitled "Political Status", Woodsmall delineates the "progress" of Turkish women in attainment of equal political rights when she writes", The number of women in the Grand National Assembly is not a final criterion of progress. The election of eight women after hard personal campaigns... indicates more advance than the election of sixteen women through the special selection basis of the former one-party system". (29) That it's not just the quantity but also quality of women in parliament that measure how successful feminism is. And Minh-ha argues this point somewhat sarcastically when she writes", Natives must be taught... they are, indeed, in this world of inequity, the handicapped who cannot represent themselves and have to either be represented or learn how to represent themselves", (59) Women do not always want the same rights - the idea that equal rights happen only with same rights is folly. And that is what Minh-ha is attacking with that quote. This idea that these "natives" need to be taught to represent themselves, since there exists the idea in modern feminist theory that not representing oneself in the Western sense is not representing oneself.

Woodsmall makes an interesting comment in the section on religion and women, which oddly enough is under the heading "Political Status". She attempts to illustrate that male Muslim Imams are trying reassert their control over the women through the veil, seen in the West as a physical sign of oppression". ... the Imams are now bringing pressure on women to resume it [veil], appealing to superstition and ignorance by asserting 'that the veil is necessary to ensure entrance to paradise. ' This fanatical teaching probably will not have any social effect on the middle and younger generation but the Imam will undoubtedly exert considerable power over the simple village women". (Woodsmall 32) Not only does Woodsmall view religion in Turkey as divisive, but she also believes that only those that would be affected by those who are poorer and not as well educated in the Western sense. Indeed it seems to be the poor village women that most likely have the least Western contact who are always being most "oppressed".

Coco Fusco in writing her thoughts on her performance art of a newly discovered Amerindian tribe, attacks the notion that the West and the rich are informed and educate the non-West and poor, when she writes", A MacArthur Foundation representative came to the performance with his wife and they took it upon themselves to "correct" interpretations in front of the cage. In a meeting after the performance, the Foundation representative referred to a "poor Mexican family" who was deeply grateful to his wife for explaining the performance to them". (54) Fusco is poking fun at the representative who in an attempt to educate the "uneducated" interprets what is in anthropological essence fiction. It is a wonderful example showing how those in the "educated" and West may think they know what they are seeing and doing and not realize it is something completely else, and then they try to (sometimes successfully) that knowledge on the "uneducated" and non-West. Truth is relative.

The right of equal divorce is something that is very much assumed in the West to be a point of equality, and that not having the equal right of divorce subjugates and oppresses women. This is evident when Woodsmall writes on women gaining the equal right of divorce in Turkey". This is for Turkish women a character of freedom and equality, one which women in other Moslem countries have long struggled to attain". (3) However she does not support her statement that women in other Muslim countries have struggled at all to attain the equal right of divorce whatsoever. This leads one to believe that this statement is merely an assumption, claiming she knows what Muslim women want. Fusco provides a good example of how assumptions such as this are easily wrong.

In describing the comments made by the audiences of her performance art she mentions this one". 'Don't you realize,' said one English gentleman to the zoo guards in Covent Garden, 'that these poor people have no idea what is happening to them?" (52) Indeed "those poor people" did know what was going on. What's more is that he in reality did not know what was "happening to them". The irony here is intense. The man assumed he was "knowing" and they were "unknowing" about their situation, from only a brief amount of viewing, while in fact Fusco and her partner were the "knowing" and he was "unknowing" of what seems to be the true reality of the situation. In providing her reasoning for conducting her research, Woodsmall discusses her perception of what the problems facing third world women were.

"A generation ago, except for the daughters of well-to-do families, the girls were uneducated if not entirely illiterate... Even if they were affectionate and self-sacrificing, what cultural contributions could these mothers give to their children, other than the bigotry and superstition which they themselves had inherited from their ancestors?" ( ) By today's standards and political correctness it is quite easy to see problem with this statement. Just about condensing all of these cultures into bigotry and superstition is quite obviously ethnocentric and quite simply ignorant. However it is also important to understand from where this assumption stems. Minh-ha points to Western feminism historically viewing other cultures from a distance with many cultural assumptions in place. She writes", A conversation of "us" with "us" about "them" is a conversation in which "them" is silenced.

"Them" always stands on the other side of the hill, naked and speechless, barely present in its absence. Subject of discussion, "them" is only admitted among "us", the discussing subjects, when accompanied or introduced by an "us", member... ". (67) Minh-ha is arguing that third-world non-Westernized feminists have been left out of the analysis of their own lives and societies. It is from this non-acceptance of the voice of the third world feminist, that Western feminism has served to colonize and dehumanize women of the third world rather than help them. It is precisely this point, which proves the argument of this paper.

The well intentioned attempt of Western feminist to write a feminist book in order to help, both women in the East in an exchange of ideas and stimulation of still more ideas and women in the West in providing knowledge with which to further aid the women of the East. On both counts it fails. In the West it gives further ground to the false generalizations and assumptions of women in the Muslim and more generally the developing world who are seen as oppressed and in need of "liberation" while in the East it serves to colonize and dehumanize the women. These good intentions did not create what can be construed as a positive contribution.