Foreign Feminism

I think that the issue of the responsibility of American women to work towards the rights for all women world-wide is a tough concept to deal with. On the one hand I do agree with Bunch, in the sense that in America women have progressed so much in relation to what conditions used to be like for them, but we have to remember that we are far from obtaining true equality in the United States. The difficult part for me is that Americans are constantly being accused of trying to implement their beliefs and ideals on people in all other countries. Therefore, I think that it is a very delicate position that American feminists are faced with. I really liked how Abu-Lughod said how we need to "accept the possibility of difference. Can we only free Afghan women to be like us or might we have to recognize that even after 'liberation' from the Taliban, they might want different things than we would want for them?" (Abu-Lughod). That is a really concept that we need to grasp, and a theme that we have seen continuously arising throughout the semester; that all women regardless of their backgrounds need to band together for change rather than pit themselves against each other.

I also found it interesting how all three readings addressed westerns' obsession with the idea of the veil. To us we cannot fathom having to wear something everyday that we view as oppressive, but what we need to come to recognize is that these women are wearing it because it has become a part of their culture and most times their religious beliefs.

I thought that Enloe did a much better job of addressing the issues surrounding 9/11 than Bunch did. There are obviously so many different perspectives and a variety of groups being affected in the aftermath of 9/11 and I think that we need to approach one issue at a time. I thought that Bunt was overly aggressive in her critique of American feminist's responses to 9/11, although she did bring up some relevant points about the intentions of the war in Iraq. However, I felt as though Enloe articulated her points in a much more approachable manner and allowed the reader to not feel as though they were being forced fed beliefs. It was interesting to hear the story of the Afghan women who was deputy minister whose son was beaten because of her position in the new leadership (Enloe 278). It just proves how much work there still is to be done even years after the fall of the Taliban. That being said, we do need to remember that not all countries wish to be the United States, and although we should offer our aid, we need to be careful to not implement our belief system and cultural practices on them.