Under Western Eyes and the Veil and the Male Elite

As an International Relations major, I have studied colonialism thoroughly, and the evolution of mercantilism which eventually led to capitalism. I have also studied how during this process, people of color were considered "lesser" than their white European counterparts and thus subjected in to slavery. And since the very birth of the United States, we have racism engrained into our national identity. The idea that Chandra Mohanty describes in "Under Western Eyes" is something I first came across about a year ago. Back in my community college days, I took a class called Women in U.S. History, and it was a feminist class. We had some writings written by black women and native women but predominantly, the writings were written by white women. During class discussion, my professor asked a Native girl what she thought of the writings by a white women claiming equality for women during the early 20th Century. Her response shocked me. She declared something along the lines of I don't care for white women claiming equality when my people and other people of color were looked at like animals and women of color were considered sub-human. This shocked me. And it made complete sense at the same time. White Feminism is not the same as the Feminism of women of color. Women of color have been subjected to one, the racism, and on top of that being a women in a imperialist-centric patriarchal influenced world. You cannot group women from Europe and the Middle East, Africa, Asia or Latin America together because we come from different cultures, political and economic backgrounds. Women oppression is a global phenomena as Mohanty states, but we must be aware that the plight of the white women cannot be combined to that of women of color. And we must be aware what lenses we use to acknowledge the plight of women of color.

I enjoyed the reading "The Veil and the Male Elite".  A quote from my IR 324 class  came to mind as I was reading it, "All religions are dynamic and their traditions should/will evolve over time. Religions must adapt to varying circumstances and interests if they wish to survive."  It was interesting to read about the Hadith and how men use it to shut women down. It reminded me of the Christians who manipulate Bible verses to claim homosexual marriage is forbidden by God. The Male Elite is an interesting title, because, coming from a Latin American perspective, the elite traditionally is the wealthy land-owners and the church, but here it is a gender. But as a woman of color I say it is time to evolve. God did not give you the power of your brain to stay stagnated in knowledge that is beyond archaic. You must use the good judgement God gave you and allow for progression.

I would really like to hear what you thought about white women feminisms versus women of color feminisms, and can religion really evolve over time and stay true?