Gender and History in Modern South Asia Essay # 1 - 2

Gender and History in Modern South Asia # 1 - Essay Example It is this form of scholarship; Chandra has identified this as an indirect form of colonization of the third world woman. This western feminist discourse and the historical perspective of the life of a woman has produced and constructed a third world woman with a distorted image (Mohanty, 1988). This essay discusses the three analytical principles identified by Chandra Mohanty that are used in the western feminist discourse about the third world. The western feminist discourses have used different methodological principles to create a third world woman with a distorted image over the years. The analytical principles applied by the Western feminist discourses include â€Å"The strategic location or the situational categorization of women/ women as the category of analysis (women and context of analysis), the methodological universalism and the subject of power and struggle they imply and suggest in their discourse† (Mohanty, 1988). The principle of the strategic location of the third world women as the category of analysis or, we are all sisters in the struggle, is identified by Chandra as being in use by the Western feminist discourse. The Western feminist scholars tend to classify and categorize the third world women in their group with their unique desires and interests. The scholars view these women as a group that shares oppression together as a result of socio-economic and cultural systems (Mohanty, 1988, p. 66). They depict women objects facing the consequences of their history. By the Western feminist scholars discursively classifying the third world women in a group, they imply the women are a vulnerable, powerless, exploited and sexually harassed category of persons. Chandra notes that the Western scholars have labeled the third world women victims of some cultural and socio-economic systems that have rendered them weak and powerless. Thus, their scientific, economic, legal and sociological discourse s show how the third world woman has been oppressed