| In "Under Western Eyes" by Chandra Talpade Mohanty discovers in some feminist
writers a singluar "focus of the work of...these thinkers (that) can be stated
simply as an uncovering of the political interests that underlie the binary logic
of humanistic discourse and ideology whereby `the first(majority) term (Identity,
Universality, Culture, Disinterestedness, Truth, Sanity, Justice, etc.), which is,
in fact, secondary and derivative (a construction), is privileged over and colonizes
the second(minority) term (difference, temporality, anarchy, error, interestedness,
insanity, deviance, etc.), which is in fact, primary and originative'(Spanos 1984)."
Mohanty lends this binary logic of humanistic discourse and ideology a geometric metaphor to highlight her insight:"It is not the center that determines the periphery, but the periphery that, in its boundedness, determines the center." In applying this insight Mohanty summarizes, "...I have suggested a parallel strategy in this essay in uncovering a latent ethnocentrism in particular feminist writings on women in the third world." Mohanty concludes in saying, "It is time to move beyound the Marx who found it possible to say: They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented." But I wonder myself as to the value of such globalizing conceptions. If third world feminists are to speak for themselves without the "binary logic of humanistic discourse", will they then be speaking only amoung themselves? If global feminism is to be, has it no need of commonly held discussive practices?
Sara Suleri's essay, "Women Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition" tries and fails to bridge the gap between the "lived experience" of postcolonial Women and North American feminist writings which seek to authenticate its constructed world views on the testamony of such lived experiences. All of the reading under our (502) consideration are basically political in their asperiations,ie., they seek to shape the discourse, and thus the political actions to make a better, or at least a more equal world. But serious politial discussion needs a wider reference, beginning with the Greek experiments of the 5th century b.c. Feminist writers have not availed themselves of this wider reference, but historically work out of the area of Cultural Criticism, the social sciences, warmed over Maxism, and American Activitist Ideologies. This self-imposed orientation has poorly equiuped these writers for their larger tasts, and have blinded them to the contratictions and unwarrented assumptions of their our history. This is the conclusion that has forced itself on me. Let's discuss it.
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