In Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, Chandra Talpade Mohanty takes a stand on how Western feminists interact with third-world women. This paper provides a wide range of critiques on the interactions between Western feminist and third world women. Mohanty focuses on power relations and how the third world woman is defined within a Western context. She shows in this piece that non-Western women are lumped into a monolithic category. The paper focuses on how the Western world assumes the third world woman has the same problems as the Western woman. There is a lack of acknowledging these women as independent beings separate from Western discourses. However, third world women are always represented as the negative images of a Western woman. This paper is built around a simplified version of colonial discourses and Western feminists scholarships.

            In the introductory section of this work, Mohanty describes what she means by a Western feminist. The author makes sure the reader understands that by using the term Western feminist, she does not group all Western feminists into one monolithic category. The paper looks at Western feminist discourses that “other” individuals as “non-Western and hence themselves as (implicitly) Western.” (pp.334) Third world is defined by colonization history, political “hierarchies” (pp.333), culture, and economic realities of nations. In this section, she describes what she calls a “Third World Difference” (pp. 335), where there is a “something” that oppresses women in the third world. Mohanty claims that Western feminists produce this “Third World Difference” by appropriating and virtually colonizing women’s lives in the third world from various backgrounds. Western feminist discourses have to be considered on the same level as other Western discourses on a global scale because it helps in the production of Western ideas. There are three main critiques introduced in the first section of the paper that further cements her argument. The “first principle” (pp.336) is women supposedly make up a collective unite, regardless of their race, class, ethnicity, history, or geographical location. The second principle uses so-called “proof” (pp. 337) as evidence in the universality of culture in a feminist context. Finally, the third principle is that under the first two principles, third world women are turned into an “average” (pp. 337) third world woman.

            It was Simone de Beauvoir (1953) who stated women have trouble uniting because of their differences. The only truth for a woman is their linked oppression. Mohanty states that “any given piece of feminist analysis, women are characterized a singular group on the basis of a shared oppression.” (pp. 337) What is brilliantly pointed out is that the assumption of women as a homogenous group is mistaken for historical and cultural reality of groups of women. Meaning that women share similar oppressions under patriarchy, such as spousal abuse, lower wages, sexual abuses, etc. These abuses are common enough for most women worldwide, but what causes these oppressions varies across cultures, race, and economic situations. So, there may be a so-called common thread among women, but how to solve it will vary on who the woman is. Mohanty points out that the “assumptions” (pp. 337) of women as always being the same creates a group that is always labeled as “powerless,” (pp. 337), “sexually harassed,” (pp. 337) or “exploited” (pp. 337). These labels are similar to sexist discourses that call women weak, inferior, emotional, irrational, etc. in the West. Western feminist cherry-pick narratives of third world women to prove that these women are “powerless” (pp. 337); hence, all women are powerless.

            Mohanty furthers her argument that patriarchy has to be “theorized and interpreted within” (pp.338) the societies they arise in. Women are represented as already inferior individuals in their third world society before actually entering into a family. There is an assumption that all third world peoples share the same patriarchal systems; usually, this system is thought of as Arab and/or Muslim. Mohanty states that “not only are all Arab and Muslim women seem to constitute a homogeneous oppressed group, but there is no[t] discussion of the specific practices within the family which constitute women as mothers, wives, sisters, etc.”(pp.342) These Muslim women do not seem to change at all in Western discourses; the same colonial narratives of Arab and Muslim women have remained the same in modern times. It is pointed out that third world women exist outside history when comparing to Western discourses. Technically non-Western women do live outside of Western discourses because their own worldview, culture, patriarchy was not established by Western discourses. It is the Western world, as Mohanty points, out that has a hard time understanding this.

             Women of the third world are grouped as negatives compared to the Western world. While the Western woman is smart, the third world woman is dumb. Essentially the third world woman is the opposite of the Western female; she takes on all the so-called negative sides of being a woman. The third world woman is a “domestic” (pp. 352), “legal minor” (pp. 352), uneducated, radical, and “traditional” (pp. 352). The third world was created by colonization for the Western world who used women as tools to control these nations. Modern feminists discourses use the old empires’ rhetoric to establish Western women’s dominance over third world women. It is the recreation of the “white man’s burden” but disguised as feminism. Mohanty believes that the grouping of a so-called “sexually oppressed women” (pp. 352) is founded in various discourses that place these women on a scale that is normalized through “Eurocentric assumptions” (pp. 352). The third world woman is already defined before entering feminist spaces. Since feminist structures with Eurocentric views refuse to look at power relations between the first and third worlds, there comes about the assumption that the West is better than the third world. This type of rhetoric justified the colonization of the non-Western world. Third-world women’s stereotypes as veiled figures, breeders, victims, or terrorists become universal images. Mohanty says “These images exist in universal, ahistorical splendor, setting in motion a colonialist discourse which exercises a very specific power in defining and maintaining existing first/third world connections.” (352)

            The paper concludes that if Western women were liberated and “had control over their own lives” (pp. 353), Western women would not need feminist discourses. Mohanty points out that the Western world or the first world defines itself in relation to the third world. It is suggested that “one enables and sustains the other.” (pp. 353) By creating a non-homogenized group of “othered” women, Western feminists can define what they are not. At the same time, Western feminists are using the “other” to analyze their social ills in society, but no matter the problems in the West, it is better to be Western than the “other.” To play into the colonization theme, Mohanty gives a late Marxist claim that if the people are unable to represent themselves, it is up to those with the means to represent them. (pp. 354) As long as the third world woman is othered, the Western woman can center herself into the conversation. Belonging to the center of all discourses, Western feminists can then speak for the “other” or at very least cherry-pick the narratives of the “other” to fit into whatever the Western feminist needs the narrative for.

            Mohanty’s paper Under Western eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses is vital for discussing how Western feminists play into colonialist discourses by creating a monolithic group of women. It is through the assumption that all African woman come from the same cultural understandings that “denies any historical specificity to the location of women as subordinate, powerful, marginal, central, or otherwise, vis-à-vis particular social and power networks.” (pp. 340) This statement is one of the critical arguments that comes up again and again in this paper. Western feminists deny the “other” any agency that allows them to separate from a monolithic being. Othering women gives more power to Western women because it plays into a Eurocentric norm. If a third world woman is always in the negative, then the Western feminist is always in the positive. This plays into what Mohanty is trying to get through to the reader. The paper aims to explain some of the nuances of Western feminist relations with the third world woman. This topic is highly essential for feminist discourses because it allows individuals to see that Western women are not weak beings incapable of deploying the same colonial tactics of their male brethren. While this paper is built around simplifying Western feminisms and colonial discourses, it does a wonderful job explaining what needs to be said. This paper is highly recommended for anyone who wants to expand their understanding of the power relations between Western (white) feminists and the other.