The given paper is determined by the growing concerns among the various scholars about the problematical relationships between the phenomena of feminism and multiculturalism. Therefore, the paper is intended to discover whether or not there is enough evidence of the feminist critics’ accusation of cultural imperialism. To be able to fulfill the above-provided task, it would be necessary to discuss and analyze the issues of race, gender, sexuality, the oppression of multiculturalism, cultural relativism, the attitude of the feminists toward the law, the universal rights in the theory and the practice, the feminist critique of the cultural essentialism, the cultural issues and certain traditions in the different countries, the attitude of the Third – World countries to the feministic organizations.
Numerous feminist works written by the Third-World women have criticized Western feminists’ writers for the fact that their works contain two huge errors which are frequently made by feminist scholars and activists. Those errors are cultural imperialism and class bias.
In support of the Western feminist critics, the author of the “In Defense of the Universal Values” asserts that the Third–World countries’ feminists placed in the Western culture’s environment were not capable of achieving any results. Thus, the scholar comments on this topic in the following manner: “…the women … alienated from their culture … are faddishly aping a Western political agenda. The minute they become critics, it is said, they cease to belong to their own culture and become puppets of the Western elite” (‘In Defense’, p.73).
According to Gurleen Grewal’s review of Uma Narayan’s book “Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third – World Feminis”, “…competent translator, Uma Narayan writes about the ‘barriers’ of culture, tradition, and national identity by pointing out how each of these needs to be scrupulously historicized, especially so when the referents in question are Third World and the writers are of the First” (Grewal, 2001, p. 103).
And indeed, one can firmly assert that the phenomenon of cultural imperialism contains mainly of other cultures’ and their traditions’ twisted judging by the standards of the Western order and justice, the Western ethics, and the Western morality. Proving this point, Uma Narayan suggests that “Contending that some forms of cultural relativism buy into essentialist notions of culture, I argue that postcolonial feminists need to be cautious about essentialist contrasts between ‘Western’ and ‘Third World’ cultures” (Narayan, 1998, p. 86).
In her scholarly article “Culture, Tolerance and Gender: A Contribution from the Netherlands”, Sawitri Saharso from the Free University of Amsterdam, states that committed feminists can be, actually, good multiculturalists as well. She also asserts that the correct and thoughtful feminism implies the acts of multiculturalism itself, and involves the approach to tolerance and cultural understanding. In her article, the scholar describes the cases of Muslim women, who wear scarves on their heads, and surgical hymen repair, which led to the widespread public debates in the Netherlands.
According to Sawitri Saharso, her article “is written in the hope that taking a critical stance against minority cultural practices can go together with sensitivity to the cultural identities and interests of minority women” (Saharso, 2003, p. 11). Therefore, referring to the above-mentioned article, it is possible to conclude that the minority groups, for example, Non – Western women, placed in the Western culture should be given the right to live with the view to their culture’s principles and traditions, thus, the Western states, responding to these needs, should develop manifold public policies and rules designed to protect those minority’s lifestyles. And the feminist scholars and organization should also perform their programs not encroaching on the traditions of the Non –Western cultures.
Opposite to Saharso’s viewpoint, Bronwyn Winter, the author of the scholarly article “Women, the Law, and Cultural Relativism in France: The Case of Excision”, accuses Western feminist scholars and organizations of cultural imperialism. The author of the article provides specific examples of African women in France and their attitude toward the French law that grants them equality with men.
Winter concludes that, although the Western feminist scholars and organizations support it greatly and describe it as a positive and democratic feature, the French law itself is designed and intended to serve the interests of the Western assumption of democracy. This happens because it is based according to the demands and values of the Western culture and its traditions.
The author also states that the Western law “is inadequate to address either the physical, social, and political reality of women’s bodies as a vehicle of social organization and control or the fact that the principles of equality and individual rights on which the law is based bear little correspondence to the reality of immigrant women’s lives” (Winter, 1994, p. 972). Nevertheless, Winter considers that some changes concerning human, including women’s, rights should be implemented with the respect to the cultural values and traditions of any particular ethnic group.
Such criticism is pretty common in the multicultural disputes of female genital cutting as a cultural tradition. Being concerned about the rights of the African women and their genital mutilation – the painful and humiliating African sado – ritual, the radical feminist – Scholar Daly Mary, reveals her protest to such torture and the unspeakable atrocities. Moreover, she tells that “The World Health Organization has refused for many years to concern itself with [this] problem. When it was asked in 1958 to study this problem it took the position that such operations were based on ‘social and cultural backgrounds’ and were outside its competence” (Mary, 1978, p.157).
According to the author, such attitude toward the problem has not changed greatly, since that time. Therefore, it is possible to assert that the above-provided fact speaks in the favor of the feminist organizations, and somehow, proves that the feminist critics can not be accused of cultural imperialism, as their deeds are determined by the aim to preserve women’s moral and physical health.
In his work “Universal Rights in Theory and in Practice”, Jack Donelly discusses the frames of the human rights recognized in the entire world and the appropriate limits on the traditional abusive practices of such rights. Being a Western scholar himself, Donelly supports the Western feminist writers’ and movements’ ideas. Referring to the provisions of the Universal Human Rights, he comments that “…dominant political ideas and practices in Western and non – Western societies alike have been transformed by national and international movements to end slavery…colonialism; to grant women and racial minorities the vote; and to end discriminations based on race, ethnicity, and gender” (Donelly, 1989, p. 228).
There is no doubt that the assistance of the Western governments, and Western feminist writers and organizations, was helpful in the establishment of basic human rights in Third–World countries. Nevertheless, it is possible to assert that the results of such an establishment appeared not as fruitful as they might have been achieved. This can be explained by the that the national, cultural, and traditional factors of those countries were not taken into consideration while implementing the above-mentioned innovative order and rules. This gives one a possibility to accuse Western feminist critics and organizations of cultural imperialism.
Those scientists, who refer to the United Nations Organization’s documents, have their viewpoint concerning the above-described problem. In the analysis of “The UN Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices”, the group of recognized western scholars discusses the conceptual problems concerning the human rights of women in Non – Western societies. It is important to mention that the UN is the international multifunctional organization that maintains peace and security all over the world; grants and protects human rights.
Those scholars tell that their “…position is not a cultural relativist one. We do not agree that criticizing cultures other than those within the Western European tradition is to view ‘other cultures’ with ‘western eyes’, that it is a form of ‘western imperialism’ or ‘eurocentrism’ or ‘an attack on cultural identity’” (Jeffreys, Thompson, Winter, 2002, p. 73).
They do not deny the existence of western imperialism as a worldwide spread phenomenon. They also tell that their standpoint is, naturally, a feminist one. Those scholars suggest that the factor of male supremacy is present everywhere and is, of course, not limited to any particular culture. Therefore, they assert that the feminist movement which opposes it has no boundaries as well.
The authors admit that the cultural practices of the men’s supremacy which are harmful to the women are not the rare phenomena in the Western culture; they call it “a culture of male domination” (Jeffreys, Thompson, Winter, 2002, p. 74). But one can propose that such an approach would cause a little positive effect, as those scholar writers equalize the moral and traditional values of the entirely different cultures. Though Bronwyn Winter’s vision of the resolution of the given problem always accounted for the different culture’s aspect, in this work, he is more likely to agree with his colleagues – Denise Thompson and Sheila Jeffreys.
The assumption that the educated, Western feminists from the middle – class exploit much poorer Third World countries’ women becomes very popular among those scholars, who accuse feminist critics of cultural imperialism. The global market for domestic labor serves as the base for such an assumption.
I refer to the feminist writer Susan Moller Okin, the author of the “Feminism, Women’s Human Rights, and Cultural Differences”, then it appears that there is “a lacks of connection, between Western feminism – especially Western academic feminism and the global movement for women’s right” (Okin, 1998, p.32), that is why raises the problem of communication, and the Non – Western feminists accuse their Western colleagues of the cultural imperialism.
It is also important to note that another major factor that determines the rejection of all “Western” (including cultural values and ideas, and basic human rights) is the growth of the religious (or tribal authority) powers in some Third–World countries. The freedom of the women and their equal rights with the men are often considered as symbols of the immoral Western, against which the conservative governments and movements direct their religious agitations among the population of the Third World country.
As for the feminist ethics scholar Alison M. Jaggar, the author of the “Globalizing Feminist Ethics”, she relates the problem of the Western feminist critics’ accusation of the cultural imperialism by the Third–World feminist and some Western scientists, to the feminist conception of discourse. To resolve the given problem, Jaggar suggests to “…explore the role played by small communities in feminism’s attempts to reconcile a commitment to open discussion, on the one hand, with a recognition of the realities of power inequalities, on the other” (Jaggar, 1998, p.8).
According to the British feminist critics Clare Beckett and Marie Macey, who can, probably, be accused of cultural imperialism, the profound reasons of the majority of the women’s violation acts committed in their country is “the dominance of multiculturalism in Britain which has negatively influenced the domains of gender and sexuality as well as ethnicity” (Beckett, Macey, 2001, p.309).
Differently from the previous critics, the feminist scholar from the London School of Economics and Political Science Rosalind C. Gill, reviewing Duits’ and van Zoonen’s article, suggests that the problem is rooted in the incomprehension of the phenomena of feminism and multiculturalism.
In this essay, it has been shown the analysis of the scholarly feminist works concerning the issue of cultural imperialism and women’s rights. Therefore, it might be concluded that it is impossible to accuse directly or defend the Western feminist critics of cultural imperialism, as every single case of the women’s rights violation needs to be regarded separately, taking the world standards as well as the special cultural features into account.
References
Beckett, C. & Macey, M. Race, (2001). Gender and Sexuality: The Oppression of Multiculturalism. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24 (3/4). USA: Elsevier Science Ltd, pp. 309–319.
Donelly, J., (1989). Universal Rights in Theory and in Practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Press.
Gill, R. C., (2007). Critical Respect: The Difficulties and Dilemmas of Agency and ‘Choice’ for Feminism; Reply to Duits and van Zoonen. European Journal of Women’s, 14 (1). London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, pp. 69–80.
Grewal, G., (2001). Book review of: Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third – World Feminism. Hypatia, 16 (1). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 102-106.
Jagger, A. M., (1998). Globalizing Feminist Ethics. Hypatia,13 (2). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 7-31.
Jeffreys, S. & Thompson, D. & Winter, B., (2002). The UN Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices: Some Conceptual Problems. Australia International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4 (1). Sidney: Routledge, pp. 72–94.
Mary, D. (1978). The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. London: The Women’s Press.
Narayan, U. (1998). Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism. Hypatia, 13 (2). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 86-106.
Okin, S. M., (1998). Feminism, Women’s Human Rights, and Cultural Differences. Hypatia, 13 (2). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press University, pp. 32-52.
Saharso, S., (2003). Tolerance, Gender and Culture: A Contribution from the Netherlands. The European Journal of Women’s Studies, 10 (1). London: Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, pp. 7-27.
Winter, B., (1994). Women, the Law, and Cultural Relativism in France: The Case of Excision. Feminism and the Law, 19 (4). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 939-974.
In Defense of Universal Values. Pp. 72-83.