Undercurrent-Issue-Fall-Winter-2014-3

In development discourse especially, women of colour have a tendency to be treated as ahomogenous uniform category instead of individuals with their own diverse experiences involving abuseacross boundaries of class and ethnicity as well as gender, creating the stereotype of a ‘Third WorldWoman’ that is caught in an extremely oppressive and limiting environment. Dr. Cheryl McEwan (2001)elaborates:Feminist writings about women in the South, therefore, risk falling into the trap of culturalessentialism. The resulting portraits of ‘Western women’, ‘Third World Women’, ‘African women’,‘Indian women’, ‘Muslim women’, ‘post-communist women’, or the like, as well as the picture ofthe ‘cultures’ that are attributed to these various groups of women, often remain fundamentallyessentialist. (p. 99)It is therefore necessary to take a more holistic view of women’s experiences and challenges to identifycontextual and systemic factors such as race and class barriers that may be ignored otherwise(McEwan, 2001). This ‘holistic view’ can nevertheless be a double-edged sword; identifying intersectionsof oppression is critical, but one must be careful to avoid generalizations of these intersections, becausethe experiences of an individual cannot be extrapolated to assume the experiences of a community ofpeople.Believing that one individual can be representative of an entire diverse group can have damagingimplications, as evidenced earlier in the discussion of female politicians and representation of theirconstituents. Postcolonial feminism, which demands consideration of the ‘other’ non-dominant and non-Western perspective, has made important contributions to unpacking development discourse and itspower dynamics that have very real implications for both men and women (McEwan, 2001). The strugglefor women’s human rights cannot be removed from the struggles for a better life by both men andwomen in developing societies where poverty and a lack of freedom and democratic norms is evident(Syed & Ali, 2011). Considering the theme of this paper, it must be clarified that simply acknowledgingthese dynamics of race and class, which are often inextricably linked to the struggles of women indeveloping countries, is not enough; actively incorporating them into Western feminist thought is ahurdle that needs to be overcome if the field of development is to be truly inclusive and progressive.FEMINISM FOR THE FUTUREWhile certain issues such as misogyny, sexual exploitation and gender oppression may unitewomen cross-culturally, issues of power, race, class, and other forms of oppression cannot be ignored.In analyzing opposing perspectives on the dimensions of gender and development, the conclusion canbe drawn that women in developing world, especially women of colour, are continually misrepresentedby the ‘umbrella’ of Western feminism, and that this has a negative impact on overarching developmentgoals such as economic growth and social equality. The ignorance of the variety of traditional femaleroles in many developing countries, both those in the home and in agricultural labour, tends to limit thescope and success of development projects (Finnis, 2009). Additionally, the connection between agreater number of women in political power in these countries and the tangible impacts on policychange for gender equality is tenuous: to cite an example from two African nations, “it could be arguedthat in both Uganda and Rwanda, women’s representation provided a kind of alibi for the progressive,‘democratic’ nature of new governments that at their core nevertheless remained authoritarian” (Hassim,2009, p. 223). Finally, the Westernized language of discourse in both development and feminist studiescan throw a homogenizing blanket over racial and cultural diversity within both disciplines, ignoringdifferent sources of oppression and the ways people experiencing these struggles endeavour toovercome them.As Western feminism attempts to deliver ‘change’ to women of colour in the developing world,Jawad Syed and Faiza Ali (2011) remind us that:62