How well does it translate across cultural borders To Latin America?

1. FEMINIST THEORY How well does it translate across cultural borders To Latin America?

2. What is Feminism? • Recognition that women are subordinated • Identification of the sources of subordination • Activism to end subordination • Strategies to overcome subordination • Feminism & Anthropology…

3. 1970s – Reject biological determinism, challenged male bias • Women’s subordination is universal • Domestic & Public Spheres • 1975 UN Conference on Women (Mexico City) • Was a catalyst for discussions about women

4. 1980s – 2nd Wave Feminism • Critique Public/Private Dichotomy • A product of WASP feminists • Opposition: • Church – Inappropriate • Media – Feminists are radical, privileged • Marxists – Capitalism is gender neutral, *class • Systems of Oppression (gender, class, race, ethnicity) • Social Construction of Gender (not natural)

5. 1990s – Challenge Canon, Post-Colonialism (Behar) • Expansion of feminist ethnology • Question objectivity • More reflexive approach • Multi-vocality • Effort to liberate anthropology from its links to colonialism

6. Edna Acosta Belén&Christine Bose • Colonialism • Subordination rooted in power relations & ideologies of colonial expansion • Global capitalist expansion & patriarchal model of accumulation • Exploitation of Colonies & Women was fundamental to development of world capitalism & sexism

7. Acosta Belén & Bose, cont. • Women as a Last Colony • Relationship between men & women resembles the relationship between countries of the global North & global South • Women & colonies are both low wage producers • Women & colonies share structural subordination & dependency • Women & colonies are overwhelmingly poor • Capitalist patriarchy colonized women by devaluing their household labor

8. Ester Boserup • Criticized neglect of women’s economic roles • Men engaged in production in the public sphere, primary bread-winners • Women engaged in reproductive roles in the domestic sphere • Gendered Division of Labor • Women perform 2/3 of world’s work, earn 10% of all income • Helen Safá: Criticized “the male breadwinner”

9. Women’s Studies in Latin America • The feminist critique of development theories (modernization, etc.) was a major factor in the emergence of women’s studies in Latin America

10. Class & Gender • Liberal Feminists: Equality through difference • Jelin’s critique: • Feminists claim equality of rights & equal treatment • But they demand the right to differential treatment based on women’s uniqueness • Is this tension between equality & difference acceptable? Feasible?

11. Marxist Feminists: • Liberal feminists are Western, bourgeois, middle class, white, reformist, unconcerned with class struggle • Subordination is rooted in capitalist system of production • Gender inequality is subsumed under class inequalities • Men’s wages tied to production • Women associated with reproduction, are assumed to be economically dependent • Receive money from men in exchange for managing family life

12. Radical Feminists: No differences between men & women • Orthodox Marxism is economistic, reductionist, gender-blind • Class & Gender issues intersect • Subordination based on men’s control of women’s sexuality • Gender inequality is subsumed under the system of patriarchy

13. So, Which Position is Correct? • Liberal feminism? • Marxist feminism? • Radical feminism? • Something else?

14. Critique Against Essentializing • Elizabeth Dore: • Dualisms compress the multiple dimensions of women’s identities into a single model • Gender is multi-dimensional • Class, race, ethnicity, gender intersect • Gender – cultural, social, political, economic, historical dimensions • Power is gendered to institutionalize the exclusion of women in Latin America • Dialectical relationship between production & reproduction • End to Dichotomy

15. Dore, cont… • And is cross-cut by: • Life cycle • Marital status • Family organization • The social construction of women’s identities is based on: • Class • Race • Ethnicity • Nation • Locality • Historical period

16. Can We Apply Feminist Theory to Esperanza’s Story?

17. Ruth Behar • Post-modernist Feminism • Abandonment of universalizing, authoritative accounts that presume objectivity • Concern with identity • Reflexive ethnographic accounts • Thinking about how those studied think about their lives • The anthologist's presence is made visible • Experimental, creative, indeterminate

18. Deconstruction • Concern with texts & power in writing • Questions ethnographic authority—who speaks, who has power to speak, how is it interpreted • Issue of what makes ethnographic truths valid • Intersubjectivity of Anthropologist & “Other” • Knowledge is mutually constructed

19. “Literary Wetback” • What does Behar suggest in referring to herself as a “Literary Wetback”? • Ruth: • Esperanza: • What is the Arthur Manby Problem? • Life Histories:

20. Translating Feminist Theory Across Borders (?) • Behar gives Esperanza a voice in producing the text • Esperanza expresses the violence enacted upon her • But who has the power to write? • To carry her story across the border?

21. Post-Modernism • Deconstruction challenges Anglo-American feminist stereotypes of “The Latin American Woman” • Behar’s concern: That Esperanza’s story will be read as a stereotypical view of Mexican men as brutal beasts & women as passive victims • Has she prevented this?

22. Marianismo Again? • Esperanza as the image of suffering woman created by Western feminists… • “upon whose backs they have built analyses that establish their authority” • Subaltern Latin American women with truncated lives (uneducated, traditional, domestic, victimized) • Vs. Western women (educated, modern, control over their sexuality) • How does Esperanza conform or not to this image?

23. Is Esperanza powerless, or does she appropriate power? • What might be the sources of her power? • Feminists: Esperanza does not fit the “exemplary feminist heroine for whom Western women are always searching” (neighborhood Zapata) • What is the significance of rage, suffering, & redemption for Esperanza?

24. Analysis • Behar attributes “no-name feminism” to Esperanza • Does Esperanza engage in feminist thinking? • How many feminisms are there? • Issues of power between ethnographer & women studied (liberation or exploitation?) • This is not a book about events in the life of an oppressed woman, but confronts issues of power between the ethnographer and her interlocutor

25. Borders • Encounter between Esperanza & Ruth – different locations on the boundaries of power • Class positions • Their talks in the kitchen reverberate into the maquiladoras, U.S. labor fields • “Translated Woman” • Ruth as coyote? • Colonization of story telling?