Naples & Desai ; Ferree and Tripp (1)

I read first Naples & Desai: Women's Activism and Globalization.

My initial insight into the book was the photograph on the cover. That woman looks serious. Determined, educated, aware, organized. The woman next to her looks serious. They are youthful, their scorn carries the passion of life- of fight- of refusal to settle for the current happening of their society. The woman to the right looks-- Americanized. She is in the march just as the other women are. This is an understanding of transnational feminism.

I agree with the first statement; "Community-based social change efforts seem all too limited when placed up against the structures of inequality that shape the wider political and economic context" (Naples 3). As a participant of United States (Westernized) society, I am all too well a witness of the injustice bequeathed to the common person by the decisions of Capitalistic corporations [the status of 'people' granted to "them" by the 14th Amendment(!)]. How on earth can small, organized groups of women effect change upon an exploited circumstance, particularly when the exploitation is held by an incredibly powerful U.S. corporation? 'Their' country's government cannot even control the corporation itself- how can a group of women affect their progress? The United States, in marginalizing grassroots connections within "the international political stage" (Naples 4),cannot collectively understand a legitimate impact of movement or revolution, due in my opinion to the culture of individualism fostered among the Western culture.

It truly is important to understand the intersecting life customs in ways made invisible by ethnocentrism. So obviously, the first deconstruction we need to understand is the inherent ethnocentrism of Western feminism. And with that, comes language.

Desai's following essay begins on a positive, affirmative note; "global capital is fluid" (15), and existing thoroughly in dispersed locals, "resulting in 'scattered hegemonies'"(15), transnational feminist solidarities are just as active. Opening a network for a feminist agenda, and integrating feminist theory within the praxis of revolution. A following of statistics illustrates the real changes we have seen. Fortunately, woman as a political categorical member has proven the ability to organize and demand. And as they [we] should.

Global Feminism- Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, edited by Ferree and Tripp, also sets a disposition of globalization as simultaneous opportunity for reconstruction, amongst and abreast the imperialistic spread of "globalization". In providing clear examples differentiating "women's movements" and "feminism", Ferree establishes a guideline in which we the audience utilize in an understanding of the transnational agenda. Also, she provides the reader and audience a concise explanation of the perceived 'system', that citizens are "challenging their national governments for democratic participation, ethnic conflicts within states, and gender conflicts fed by religious fundamentalists" (Ferree 4). Gender entwines within all of these things, and comprehension of its value within social interaction is crucial in participating in change. Acknowledgment of the 'alternatives' to "male-dominated institutions...promot[ing] values...fundamentally destructive for all people, such as militarism, environmental exploitation, or competitive global capitalism" (Ferree 8-9)is a "stepping-stone solidly established within these beginning essays.

Questions: In that the distinction between "women's movement" and "feminism" is explained as separate forces, why then is feminism still so thoroughly entwined with the simplified idea of "women." Furthermore, in recollecting work by Judith Butler, is the category of "woman" detrimental in itself to the goals of rearranging power?

With women negotiating the "national and international arenas" (Desai 31) feminist agendas seem to coincide with goals of national and international groups, but are still displaced amongst the group in a way of being "different." Do you agree or disagree, and why or why not? Is it because this is a women's movement?