Concerning Vanessa's post:
Personally I'm not happy with the idea of using 'North' and 'South'
as euphemisms for rich and poor. I don't much like having to use
euphemisms anyway, because whatever words you use soon become
"tainted" by association with what they represent and then they have
to be changed to something else. Hence you get a progression like
the sequence "crippled", "handicapped", "disabled", "challenged",
"differently abled", all of which replaced each other in turn as they came
to represent something which most people did not want to refer to in
a straightforward way.
I particularly don't like North and South because of their
geographical inaccuracy. The majority of the world's poor people
live north of the equator, whilst Australia and New Zealand are
obviously south of it. It's the condition of being poor that is the
problem: finding weasel words to talk about it without thinking
about it doesn't help.
Sincerely,
June Brough.
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu May 18 02:48:21 1995
Date: Thu, 18 May 95 18:50:57 +1000
From: (Amanda Elliot) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: NORTH/SOUTH
Concerning Junes post
i agree with your argument, not only is this use of north/south
geographically incorrect but misleading because it makes the difference
between developed and developing countries appear to be black and white.
This is not the case.
Poverty exists in most nations today with in some group or class or
culture of their population. For example in Australia, which while it
may be considered a developed nation, still has rates of illness and
mortality amongst Aboriginal people that are equivilant to far less
developed countries, the same is true for different groups of people in say
the U.S.
While we cant deny that develped nations may have fewer people living in
extreme poverty than developing nations, arguement may be
superfilious for anyone living in poverty in a developed nation
[EMAIL PROTECTED] A WITCH IS A WOMON COMBINING THE
POWER OF HER MIND WITH THE POWER
OF THE GODDESS (LEA RAIN, 1994)
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu May 18 07:46:53 1995
Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 09:51:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Margaret R. Saraco" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Poverty in the South
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I agree as well that the term "third world" is degrading. But please also
be conscious of using terms like "developed" and "less developed". We in
the so-called "first world" have to recognize the politics behind this
terminology, inherently eurocentric. Some helpful books on this subject
are Third World Women and the Politics of Feminsim edited by Chandra
Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres (Indiana Press) and
Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculaturalism and the Media by Ella Shohat
and Robert Stam (Routledge).
On Wed, 17 May 1995, Vanessa Micol Vanderbrug
wrote:
> Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 10:07:29 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Vanessa Micol Vanderbrug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: STUDIES IN WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Poverty in the South
>
> I would like to comment on the terminology used in the discussion
> comparing industrialized nations to less developed nations. I have
> recently learned that the term "Third World" is a degrading term. This
> term implies that these nations are somehow inferior to "First World"
> nations. A better term to use is the North(Industrialized narions) and
> the South (less developed nations). In regards to the debate over where
> the poor are worse off the north or the south, I think it is important to
> acknowledge that there is a North in the South as well as a South in the
> North, get my drift? If there are any questions about the use of this
> terminology please feel free to write me, I have just recently figured it
> out for myself!
> Respectfully,
> Vanessa Vanderbrug
>
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu May 18 08:15:52 1995
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Thu, 18 May 1995 10:17:40 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 10:17:40 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: re:north/south etc.
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
what about the term "colonial" or "previously colonized" countries. obviously
this doesn't work for all countries. but many have at one time "belonged"
to another country (meaning they were probably not 'developed' in the
beginning) and since gaining freedom, do not perhaps have the resources
to become developed. this was a term we used in a women and lit. class when
we were dealing with india. any thoughts? robin
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu May 18 11:31:45 1995
Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 13:33:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jayne S Docherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: re:north/south etc.
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On Thu, 18 May 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> what about the term "colonial" or "previously colonized" countries. obviously
> this doesn't work for all countries. but many have at one time "belonged"
> to another country (meaning they were probably not 'developed' in the
> beginning) and since gaining freedom, do not perhaps have the resources
> to become developed. this was a term we used in a women and lit. class when
> we were dealing with india. any thoughts? robin
Sure, I think this is a pretty good descriptor. The benefit being that
it actually points out the human role in relative development and reminds
people that these countries are not in their current situation from some
fluke of nature or some internal flaw. Also, we should keep in mind that
these countries were not "undeveloped" when they were colonized. Some of
them had advanced (although non-western) social, cultural and
economic systems. They were, in fact, deliberately undeveloped by
colonial powers, so that they could play a role as providers of raw
materials and that it was on their backs that the "developed" countries
became developed!
Jayne
