{"id":1276,"date":"2004-12-21T14:03:51","date_gmt":"2004-12-21T22:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/12\/21\/feminism-multiculturalism-and-teacherly-moments\/"},"modified":"2004-12-21T14:03:51","modified_gmt":"2004-12-21T22:03:51","slug":"feminism-multiculturalism-and-teacherly-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1276","title":{"rendered":"Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Teacherly Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read this article by Katha Pollitt earlier this year and it has yet to leave me. In Whose Culture?<\/a> Pollitt responds to an essay by Susan Okin and agrees that multiculturalism and feminism are, if not in tension, often opposed to one another. Pollitt doesn’t understand how this can be considered controversial, but I find it awfully provocative.<\/p>\n

Pollitt says,<\/p>\n

Feminism and multiculturalism may find themselves allied in academic politics, where white women and minority women and men face common enemies (great books, dead white men, old boy networks, job discrimination and so forth). But as political visions in the larger world they are very far apart. In its demand for equality for women, feminism sets itself in opposition to virtually every culture on earth. You could say that multiculturalism demands respect for all cultural traditions, while feminism respects only traditions that indeed deserve respect. Feminists might disagree about strategic issues: what needs changing first, or how to ensure one isn’t just making things worse, or how to win over enough people. Feminists might even disagree about what true equality is in a given instance. But fundamentally, the ethical claims of feminism run counter to the cultural relativism of “group rights” multiculturalism.<\/div>\n

How can this be? I wondered. Academic feminism and academic multiculturalism seem to be two branches off the same tree. Further, Pollitt frames feminism as a superior philosophical mode in a way that makes me rather uncomfortable. I want gender equality, but I don’t want to erase the cultural traditions that only I deem deserving of respect.<\/p>\n

But in some sense, Pollitt is right. Look at sati, the French banning of headscarves, the global wish for daughters to marry rich over acquiring education.<\/p>\n

My mentor, Dr. B, recently wrote on the practice of female genital mutilation\/female circumcision<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This situation is, as my granny would say, “A hard row to hoe” for me. As the woman that I am I am against the practice (whatever you call it), but I think that rather than attempt to stop it by saying that people who practice it are evil and threatening imprisonment (initially) this is a teachable moment. FGM\/FC, in my opinion, is a symptom. Western medicine (and politics) tends to try to treat larger diseases (in this case patriarchy and misogyny) symptomatically. I wonder if a more viable solution would be to get people (men AND women) to understand that while this more be a longstanding cultural practice that it holds no health or moral benefits, but that it seeks to further oppress women and usurp them of any power that may be connected to their sexuality.<\/p>\n

It’s not even that I think that this would be a moment of epiphany, but I think that it would\/could work better than the “you are all stupid savages” approach. People are people and rebellious by nature. If you tell people that they can not do something that they see are being a cultural or religious right they will automatically tune you out and move forward with renewed vigor (or maybe that’s just me). I think that the story about hospitals practicing FGM\/FC<\/a> is proof of just that. <\/div>\n

Teacherly moments are the times in which a facilitator attempts to resolve a tension by exposing and revealing the incongruities between two lines of thought, a method employed by Lindon Barrett in his book comparing African-American pedagogy with traditional “white” pedagogy. This moment of juxtaposition between those who willingly inflict FC on themselves (and those who inflict it on others) with the Western ideal of free female sexuality is one in which it becomes far too easy to demonize and name-call the Other. In other words, it’s a perfect teacherly moment.<\/p>\n

FC and phenomenon like it are problems in themselves, but more widely, are symptomatic of the larger propensity for an androcentric, patriarchal worldview in which women are othered and mystified, and that imagined female otherness and mystery must be contained.<\/p>\n

For me, the education against FC and other symptoms of patriarchy is not so simple. It comes to this: the line between “education” and Western indoctrination is very narrow once it crosses the border. In addition, the difference between rightly educating a community and operating from a xenophobic, racist space is also a strong concern. We must educate ourselves to avoid the mischaracterization of the communities we attempt to reach, and as Dr. B says, “learn the other folks’ rules.”<\/p>\n

From over here, snug in my windowless office in Collegetown, USA, it is easy to forget that in any area where oppression occurs, there is usually a counter-movement already in place working from within to change the minds and experiences of the oppressors and the oppressed. Rather than swooping down and inflicting their movement with my urgency, I lend my economic and emotional support from afar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read this article by Katha Pollitt earlier this year and it has yet to leave me. In Whose Culture? Pollitt responds to an essay by Susan Okin and agrees that multiculturalism and feminism are, if not in tension, often … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}