Nicole,
I agree with you on this point. I would add that I think the tendency to
"disavow such autonomy and consciousness for people of color" continues to
characterize many Western (particularly US-based) women's
movements/organizations. It seems that not only organizations such as NOW
among others, as well as the overall Western discourse on "women's rights"
as well as "human rights" continues to embody or be focused upon the
experiences and needs of white, middle class women, and moreover, women of
color (particularly "Third World" women of color) are often represented in
this discourse as devoid of autonomy, of agency, and as somehow "less than"
with the referent point being that of liberated white western womanhood.
Take, for example, recent (and not so recent) debates on population control
vis a vis the environment (eg Sierra Club as one example) - the blame for
environmental degredation is laid upon "Third World" women of color and
thier "tendency towards over-reproduction" not overconsumption in the
"First World" nor unequal global economic, political and social relations,
etc., thus, women of color become the "other" in this discourse. This
stance is also not uncommon within some ecofeminist rhetoric, which I find
highly disturbing, misguided and hypocritical to say the very least. So,
where does this tendency to "other" leave us in terms to alliance and
coalition-building?
Jesse
At 01:08 PM 3/8/99 -0500, you wrote:
>List members:
>
>How is it the some of the same women who will be so adamant about
feminism, of
>a woman's right to speak out on her own issues, feelings, identity - not as
>defined or structured by men, so intent upon a sense of a "woman's
experience"
>- in terms of academic courses, organizations, activist, political movements,
>"a woman's right to choose" abortion or not- even to the point of
>disrempowering men in the reproductive process at all by saying that men
>should not control such decisions because they aren't carrying the baby, they
>don't know what it "feels" like to have such primacy in the reproductive
>process- they plan and attend retreats, encounter groups, lectures, writings,
>poetry, revel in artistic expressions representing the strength of womanhood,
>etc.
>
>Yet, they disavow such autonomy and consciousness for people of color?
>
>They negate this consciousness the way some men negate this consciousness for
>women.
>
>How is it that such women can not see that they do this?
>
>How is it that they see themselves and their views toward people of color as
>so different from the men they complain of attempting to disempower them?
>
>Nicole
>
