Thoughts on Feminism Without Borders

As a first time women studies student, I am amazed with the knowledge I have acquired in such a short period of time. I think that Mohanty does an excellent job in tying everything we have learned so far in this paper. She first states that third world feminism is hard to define. I think this is a key reason why many feminist do not consider themselves or label themselves as feminist, because they don’t fully understand the meaning of feminism. Feminism Without Borders illustrates that third world women do often question the word feminism. As, I read and learn more about feminist it seems that questioning or not willing to identifying with feminism is commonly seen. Although she was referring to the definition hard to define because there are no boundaries on the people third world feminism encompasses, I think she was trying to make a further point. Many of the characteristics seen in third world feminism were seen in first, second and third wave feminist. For example, in many of these waves, change did not occur until it was recognized as a political/ social structure issue. Mohanty points out that third world women are not united because their issues are internal. It seems that feminism is a cycle of progression. At first it seems to be better, but when the issue is reanalyzed there was not much progress accomplished, or different women are experiencing the same broad issues at different points in time. It is unfortunate that there is not much information about feminism outside of the classroom setting so that people can break out of these cycles.