Week 4

I thought it was most interesting when Monhanty explains that the status marked on an action, role, or position does not translate easily across cultures.Her use of the housewife ideology, probably the easiest status/action difference for Westerners to grasp because it is so prevalent in South/Central America, Europe and the Middle East.However, I wish Monhanty had extended her explanation by describing how transnationalism has affected binary construction and monolithic perspectives. For example, underground female genital mutation still occurs in the United States and there are wide populations of immigrant women who support female genital circumcision in the West. Many of these women have actually voiced themselves in scholarly articles. So I think its key, as scholars, to know that one does not have to travel to these countries to hear the silenced alternative perspectives to hegemonic discourses and that literature on the subject has changed, I’d argue significantly, from the 1980s. So these alternative perspectives are very much apart of “our” country, but are still suppressed voices from within borders.

From Mohanty’s article, it is clear that the binary/dichotomy, as analytical tools, are created and perpetuated, by the West to further justify the Western “superiority”. Abu-Lughod extend this analysis by framing it in a non-Western context and saying not only is it wrong for the US to simplify a history but it is dangerous because those people in the Middle East who object to the injustices they may face now, are forced to choose within the binary (for/against) context construction. So the binary construction is not only affecting Western interpretations, but as Abu-Lughod points out, they are also affecting internal interpretations.

Finally, Abu-Lughod’s analysis reminds us of how we may interact unknowingly or in ignorance, to repeating histories. For example, Women in Black, the women’s peace group of Israel, and RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan), perhaps, are non-profit organizations/efforts that may function the same way that Napoleon’s team of scientists functioned. For this reason, Abu-Lughod warns, “we need to look closely at what we are supporting, and what we are not, and to think carefully about why” (p. 787). This framing makes us, readers, participants in the creation of this “saving Muslim” discourse.