In the readings by Maria Mies and Chilla Bulbeck, I was surprised by how feminism is used as an umberella term to describe the various and numerous ideologies that reside beneath it. Feminism then, is not just used as a tool in falicitating the cause of a particular ideology, it is altered to meet the needs of whoever falls under the banner of feminism.

Although, ideally the basis of feminism should lie in female solidarity but the very fact that race, class, sex and culture become dividing factors in discriminating women against women, it becomes increasignly difficult to detach the “self”from “other”. The readings lay down the frameworks of the relationship between the “other” women which is presummed to be western and her inability to relate to her counter parts in the east. It becomes difficult to relate to or understand other women across the globe, who have different concerns (eg equal rights as men in the west and poverty, health etc in the east). This inevitabely creates an “us” which referes to the an ideology that is familiar to a certain group and distinguished from “them”.

The readings shed light on women movements in the way colonisers were gifted with male patriarchy and the violence they suffered. In refrence to body politics, it not only taught women to participate in the pucblic sphere, demand voting rights etc, it made public what was considered private, namely the biological and sexual concerns regarding the female body but also the intimate realtionship shared by husband and wife.

Women, then not only seek discrmination amongst their own kind, the patricahal structure further imposes its imlications where women become socially immoble after reaching a particular point in the corporate ladder, from which their growth is almost stagnant. As Maria Mies defines precisely,“ that capitalism cannot function without patriarchy, that the goal of this system, namely the never ending process of capital accumulation, cannot be achieved unless partriarchal man- woman relations are maintained or newly created.” It is important to realise that the different schools of feminism, radical, marxists, liberal though may stand united in attacking capital patriarchy, they are divided amongst themselves regarding issues which are at a grass root level.

It is impossible to make all feminists throughout the world agree to all the agendas each one has set for themselves, it is still a do able task to look at the larger picture and shed our egos and superficial facades of “elite” versus “mass”, “self” versus the “other” and make a concious effort in getting rid of these labels.

-Madiha