Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese-American Encounters 1498564828, 9781498564816, 9781498564823

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Transcultural Feminist Philosophy

Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices Series Editors: Sharon Labrot Crasnow and Joanne Beil Waugh Advisory Board: Samantha Brennan, Sandra Harding, Jose Medina, Kelly Oliver, Georgia Warnke, Shelley Wilcox, and Naomi Zack. Feminist Strategies encourages original work in contemporary philosophical feminism that recognizes that while women have achieved a signifcant measure of equality, discrimination nonetheless persists through the intersection of gender with other systems and practices of oppression. Such work includes the formulation of theories that are suffciently fexible, and the promotion of practices suffciently resilient, to address these changing contexts and forms of oppression. The volumes that comprise this series thus examine current practices, actual cases, and historical episodes of discrimination in which gender has intersected with systems of oppression including those involving feminism and disability; women, animals, and emotion; extended cognition and feminism; women and depression; motherhood, and the new materialist feminism.

Titles in the series Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese-American Encounters, by Yuanfang Dai Antagonizing White Feminism: Intersectionality’s Critique of Women’s Studies and the Academy, edited by Beth Hinderliter and Noelle Chaddock

Transcultural Feminist Philosophy Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese-American Encounters

Yuanfang Dai

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2020 The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-4985-6481-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-6482-3 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Nicholas and For my family, with love and gratitude

Contents

Acknowledgmentsix Introductionxi PART I: THE “DIFFERENCE CRITIQUE” AND FEMINIST IDENTITY POLITICS 1 Women’s Oppression in Different Forms: Against “Inessential ‘Womanness’”

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2 Theory of Intersectionality

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3 Unwanted Feminist Identity Politics: Postmodernist Category Skepticism

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4 Women’s Identity and the Necessity of Differences

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PART II: FROM MULTICULTURALISM TO TRANSCULTURALISM 5 Reconceptualizing “Culture”: Examining Tensions between Multiculturalism and Feminism

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6 Challenging “Multiculturalism”: Multicultural Feminism and the Ideology of Multiculturalism

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7 Displacing Multiculturalism with an Alternative Framework: A Way to Advance the Postcolonial Feminist Critique of Multiculturalism

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8 The Transcultural Perspective as the Alternative to the Multicultural Approach

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Contents

PART III: TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY, CHINESE FEMINIST EXPERIENCES, AND TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY 9 Transcultural Feminist Solidarity

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10 Looking to the East: Chinese Confucian Philosophy and Feminism

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11 Looking to the West: A Brief History of Theory Development in Contemporary Chinese Feminism

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12 Commentary on Debates and Prospects in Contemporary Chinese Feminist Thinking

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Conclusion245 Bibliography253 Index 263 About the Author

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Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the support of my mentor, Professor Richard Peterson, who offered critical feedback on numerous drafts of the manuscript. I would also like to convey a special note of gratitude to my family who stands by and with me. I am grateful to Marilyn Frye, Lisa H. Schwartzman, Ann Mongoven, Joanne Waugh, Sharon Crasnow, and the anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful comments on this research project at its various stages of development. Naturally, none of these friendly critics should be held in any way accountable for the text’s defciencies, which are wholly my responsibility. I thank Ms. Jana Hodges-Kluck at Lexington Books for taking interest in my work. Michigan State University provided travel funds when I presented drafts of a few chapters at conferences, and my colleagues generously offered help when it was needed. A short segment of chapter 4 is reprinted with permission from Springer Nature Customer Service Centre GmbH: Springer Nature International Communication of Chinese Culture (Place, Identity and Becomings with Mobile Technologies: Feminist and Chinese Philosophies in Dialogue) © January 1, 2017. Sections of chapter 9 are reprinted with permission from Dissident Friendships: Feminism, Imperialism, and Transnational Solidarity, edited by Elora Halm Chowdhury and Liz Philipose, 2016, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, and Springfeld. © 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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My primary intention in writing this book is to develop a transcultural feminist perspective that will enable the resolution of problems regarding women’s identity, especially transcultural issues vexing feminist discourse in the United States and in China. I refect on my experience as a feminist philosopher trained in these two cultures, through which I will contribute to contemporary feminist thinking and praxis by extending and deepening issues such as difference, identity, culture, and solidarity. I approach such issues from my vantage point as a cosmopolitan intellectual who travels transculturally. By discussing women’s experiences and oppression in different social and cultural settings in the United States and in China, I shape a transcultural feminist perspective for conceptualizing women’s identity and exploring the possibility of feminist solidarity across cultural differences. THESIS, THEMES, AND TRAJECTORY My research topic emerged from studying feminist discourse, in particular the feminist “difference critique” in the United States, an idea of “international feminism” (in its vague sense) that currently exists, and contemporary Chinese feminism. Questions about essentialism and “difference” are at the heart of many debates within feminism in the United States (U.S. feminism for short) in the past half century. Worries about establishing a universal concept of women, and about making cross-cultural generalizations have led feminists into theoretical and practical diffculties. I critically assess various feminist approaches to women’s identity both in the United States and in China, such as the argument for women’s particularity, the theory of intersectionality, xi

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and feminist postmodernism, and propose a concept of women’s identity that embraces differences among women. I argue that the fact that women experience gender oppression in different forms due to different social and cultural locations does not lead to the conclusion that we cannot generalize women’s experiences, though “generalization” comes to mean something different than how it is usually understood. I have no intention to advocate for universality. That is, the claim of women’s identity is compatible with the fact that women are oppressed in different forms. What should be noted is that the ground that I stand on to make judgment about U.S. feminism is that I come from none of the authors’ backgrounds, which makes me refect on their arguments and feminist discourse in the United States in general from a refective intellectual distance as a transcultural feminist philosopher. More likely than not, I do so with my particularity, along with its limitations and oversight. One risk is that of overgeneralizing if one does not know well the history and nuance of social phenomena. By emphasizing the importance of a category of women, I do not intend to stir up speculations that I think there are only two genders; “gender” includes nonbinary categories that go beyond “woman” or “man.” I focus on a category of women, in particular, to challenge a problematic binary assumption that takes one category as the paradigm case, such as “men,” “white,” or “heterosexual,” while consigning the rest to a realm of its negation. Although “gender oppression” is a common phrase used in feminist discourse, feminists have disagreements over both the descriptive and the normative claims regarding “gender oppression.” For instance, Susan James provides defnitions for feminism and “gender oppression”: “Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged by comparison with men, and their oppression is in some way illegitimate or unjustifed. Under the umbrella of this general characterization there are, however, many interpretations of women and their oppression, so that it is a mistake to think of feminism as a single philosophical doctrine, or as implying an agreed political program” (1998, 576). James suggests that there could be different descriptive and normative accounts of feminism and different interpretations regarding how or why women are oppressed or disadvantaged; therefore, we should use feminism in a plural form, that is, feminisms, but the starting point of feminism is a common understanding of gender injustice in comparison to men. With the acknowledgment that there are many dimensions to feminism, I use “feminism” in the singular form for convenience and to be consistent with the quoted work. Another focus of my argument is gender oppression across cultural differences. I suggest that diffculties in feminist discourse are in part due to problematic concepts of culture as developed within a liberal multicultural perspective. As part of the “difference critique,” feminist scholars in the

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United States respond to culture-related issues such as criticism of the narrowness of their standpoints and criticism of implicit bias in their arguments. Hence, there are feminist debates over multiculturalism, among which I address the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, multicultural feminism, and the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism. The liberal feminist critique adopts an idea of treating cultures as self-contained and well-integrated entities with clear boundaries, whereas multicultural feminism emphasizes the fuidity of culture, and the postcolonial feminist critique challenges a problematic notion of “package picture” of cultures. The liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism attempts to identify universal moral ideals and frame feminism within a broad liberal approach, but unfortunately it does not pay suffcient attention to the ways that justice and injustice are mediated by locations. Therefore, it tends to privilege western perspectives and thus undermine its own commitment to refecting women’s lived experiences. At the center of the trouble, I argue, is a troubling account of culture that is mapped onto nation-states or peoples, and relatedly a problematic framework of “multiculturalism” or its institutionalization. Some women of color feminists in the United States may have reservations about the term “multiculturalism” for its replication of western hegemony and structural oppression. Although feminist debates over multiculturalism might have been at their height in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, I do not think it is passé to talk about multiculturalism in an era when very few scholars need a reminder that identity is fuid and cultures are in fux. However, to a large extent, multiculturalism, in particular the institutionalization of multiculturalism, is still one of the dominant strategies of addressing cultural differences in academia. For that reason, I intend to advance the feminist critiques done in multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique. Multicultural feminism not only questions the notion of culture used in multiculturalism but also tends to ease tensions between feminism and multiculturalism. The postcolonial feminist critique challenges the problematic account of “culture,” while emphasizing feminist solidarities across borders. Although the feminist critiques of multiculturalism point out its limitations, they still operate within the assumptions of the framework of “multiculturalism.” While evaluating various approaches of addressing cultural differences, as found in the liberal feminist critique, multicultural feminism, and the postcolonial feminist critique, I propose an alternative concept of culture that respects differences among cultures and dynamics of cultures as indicated in multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique. In addition, I question the validity of multiculturalism because if the concept of “culture,” which is the foundation of multiculturalism, is reconceptualized, then multiculturalism as a framework becomes groundless. Moreover, there is an unsettling normalizing logic inherent in multiculturalism, which prompts a

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“we” who take the position of the norm and who decide whether or how to accommodate “their” cultures. I thus develop an approach that I name “transcultural” as an alternative to multiculturalism by drawing from work in critical cultural studies. Transculture, as I conceive it, moves beyond the hegemony of any single dominant culture by recognizing the coexistence of a multiplicity of cultures, explores the interactions between cultures, and at the same time cultivates something new out of interfering cultural experiences. That is, transcultural thinking, which has been found in feminist literature such as women of color’s work on decolonization, aims to broaden the notion of “identity” so that one may imaginatively inhabit a range of cultural identities that are themselves shifting and mutable. Unlike the multicultural approach, which inherently implies a completeness of each culture, the transcultural approach suggests that different cultures should not be satisfed with merely tolerating one another, but rather they should be creatively involved with one another. It sees culture as itself always in fux as well as a product of previous change and interactions. If a specifc group loosens the hold of the oppression of a specifc cultural identity through transcultural experiences, then it will have a starting point to emancipate itself from the subordination imposed by the culture of origin. Transculture, as both an intellectual and a practical approach, dissolves rigid, naturalized features of culture, such as being American or Chinese, male or female, and gives new fexibility and compatibility to elements of different cultures. I propose a transcultural approach with the intention to not only fnd an effective way to address women’s experiences across cultural differences but also address feminist solidarity as necessary and possible across cultural differences. Feminist efforts to address the relationship between the local and the global, or the west and the non-west, such as global feminism, and international feminism, deserve recognition for acknowledging cultural differences, but their challenging of gender oppression internationally is inherently troublesome and debatable. Global feminism and international feminism originate from a second-wave feminist theory that emphasizes solidarity among women across national boundaries based on their common experiences of patriarchal oppression, but at times they are backed up by white and Eurocentric liberal ideology and political agendas. International feminism prescribes nation-states while global feminism claims to transcend national borders. In contrast to global feminism and international feminism, Third-World feminism focuses on Third-World women’s activism in their particular local or national context. Third-World feminism, along with postcolonial feminism, analyzes globalization within the context of the history of western colonialism and imperialism. Adherents criticize North-South power asymmetries and neocolonial practices, and advocate for non-western

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epistemic standpoints. Some adherents of the postcolonial feminist critique and Third-World feminism shift to transnational feminism partly in reaction to globalization. Transnational feminism arose in response to the inadequacy of (Eurocentric) global feminism and international feminism. Transnational feminism questions the uncritical acceptance of the nations as a necessarily meaningful unit of analysis for feminists and advocates for transnational feminist solidarity. Transnational feminism shares mandates with a transcultural feminism that I am proposing in terms of questioning ethnocentrism and promoting solidarity across national borders. However, transcultural feminism, as I posit it, focuses more on interferences of cultures, which may or may not map onto nation-states, both locally and globally. In formulating my argument for transcultural feminism, I am not asserting binary blocks such as “western/ non-western,” or “white women/women of color,” but I follow the conventional usage for lack of better word choice. For instance, I use lowercase in terms such as “white,” “western,” and “west” to indicate asymmetric power relations that result in the invisibility of the color “white” and the ethnocentric “west,” while I follow some women of color feminists who use the uppercase “B” as a means of valorizing their experience as Black or Afroethnic. I acknowledge that there is not uniformity of usage of these terms across the disciplines (or within them), so I keep the original form in quoted work. Feminist discussions of “difference” and “cultural differences” are not only at the theoretical level but also point to a practical issue: the necessity and possibility of addressing transcultural feminist solidarity. The compatibility of women’s oppression in different forms and women’s group identity leads to a realization that gender oppression is structural and women’s liberation requires collective resistance, which points to a transcultural feminist movement. That is, it is logical to think that the fact women are oppressed as women calls for women resisting gender oppression as women. The transcultural approach could potentially be a very useful framework for feminists to adopt to explore the conditions of women’s collective struggles, which can be demonstrated through examining Chinese feminist scholarship in transcultural settings. In the discussion of Chinese feminism on the thinking of the local and the global in terms of knowledge production, I further explore limitations of global feminism and international feminism. There are three themes in this book: the theme of a concept of women, the theme of culture and transculture, and the theme of feminist solidarity. A concept of women matters because generalization about women is in fact possible, and we should concentrate on what kinds of generalizations are valid. A valid generalization implies that we can construct a category of women that captures and respects (1) differences among women and (2) the possibility and the dynamics of what women can be in the future and what must

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be an important commitment of feminists—as avoiding national, ethnic, or class narrowness and bias. In this sense, a category of women is an analytical idea and a normative idea. A valid generalization needs not only to capture differences among women but also to keep the category of women open for the possibility of emancipation, and this suggests a normative dimension to the category of women. The theme of culture and transcultural experiences is important because it connects the feminist “difference critique” in the United States to a discussion of international women (“international” from the standpoint of U.S. feminism) with the intention to blur boundaries between “us” and “other women in other countries,” boundaries between U.S. feminism and “other” feminisms, or boundaries between “us” and the rest who are different from “us.” The theme of a category of women and the theme of cultural and transcultural experiences interplay with the theme of feminist solidarity, demonstrating that some aspect of the normative idea of solidarity can be incorporated into an adequate category of women and can be realized in transcultural experiences. Feminist discourse in the United States has focused on the “problem of difference,” which has limited discussions of women’s collaboration across cultural differences. While it is important to recognize that women are different and subject to different forms of oppression, it is also crucial to look for effective methods for resisting these various forms of oppression collectively; for example, women in the United States and in China should support each other. A discussion of a category of women, while acknowledging that identity is fuid, can contribute to feminist resistance because it provides an intellectual basis for claiming that women are oppressed as women and that women should resist gender oppression as women. “As women” has a specifc import as developed by my argument that points to a simple fact: gender oppression is structured in such a way that women are oppressed as members of the group “women,” but men are not oppressed as members of the group “men.” Transcultural experiences reveal that feminist resistance is not only white women’s resistance, U.S. women of color’s resistance, or Chinese women’s resistance, but also a resistance in the transcultural sense. I use multiculturalism and transculturalism as contrasting approaches and political programs to fostering feminist solidarity across cultural differences. Despite its merits, a commonly employed multiculturalism, or the institutionalization of multiculturalism, emphasizes the separation of cultures to the exclusion of investigating communicative needs of cultures, and thus fails to conceptualize an effective way for women from different backgrounds to recognize and interact with each other. One of my tasks in this book is to advance multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism by proposing a framework shift from multiculturalism to transculturalism. I argue

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that a transcultural approach is a promising alternative to multiculturalism for discussing the relationship between solidarity and differences among women. As an alternative to multiculturalism, transculturalism offers a promising way of mediating the assumed tension between differences among women and the common cause of feminist solidarity. Given its practical implications, transculturalism is in some ways more than an “alternative” perspective. Through bringing the discussions of women’s identity and cultural differences into a normative discussion of feminist transcultural solidarity, I show that a category of women can embrace the variability and the dynamics of women, that a concept of culture can embrace the variability and the dynamics of cultures, and that a transcultural approach can overcome the limitations of multiculturalism, global feminism, and international feminism. These arguments point to ways in which we can foster transcultural feminist solidarity in light of differences among women and among cultures. I have two aims in this book. One is an intellectual aim: to conceptualize gender oppression and to speak of women as oppressed as women. Even though there is an error associated with certain kinds of generalization, we can make some generalizations that are valid. The other is a political aim: to think about and explore possibilities of solidarity among women across cultural differences, where I explain the meaning of solidarity in light of the transcultural approach. Transcultural feminist solidarity means that it is possible for women in very different circumstances to work through these difference—for example, differences between women of color and white women in the United States, or differences between American women and Chinese women—to eliminate gender oppression. MAPPING OUT THE ARGUMENTS In part I, I critically assess three approaches to women’s identity in the United States—what I call the “particularity argument,” the theory of intersectionality, and gender category skepticism. Then I propose an idea of a women’s identity that embodies differences among women and the possibility and the dynamics of women’s experiences. In part II, I critically assess three arguments about cultural differences—the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, multicultural feminism, and the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism. Then I propose a concept of culture that embodies differences among cultures and the possibility and the dynamics of cultures. I also propose a transcultural approach that is compatible with this concept of culture. The theoretical discussion of identity and of culture point to a practical issue: the necessity and importance of the discussion of solidarity, which I discuss in part III where I address how a transcultural study of Chinese

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feminism and comparative feminist philosophy can contribute to transcultural feminist solidarity. In chapter 1, I talk about the different forms of women’s oppression by criticizing the argument for women’s particularity. Feminists who launched the “difference critique” claim that it is wrong for white feminists to make general claims for all women because by doing so they ignore important differences among women. These critics argue that it is essentialist for feminists to make general claims about women without taking into account the important differences among women. Feminists who do not explicitly address the “problem of difference” are criticized for relying on an indefensible essentialism. Although a term that is frequently referred to in feminist literature, “essentialism” is usually defned by its critics rather than its alleged defenders. I examine what is at issue in the criticism of essentialism and interrogate the charge of essentialism. I argue that essentialism, in the charge of essentialism, is used as a scapegoat for ethnocentrism because the issue with essentialism is not about whether generalization is necessary or possible (if so, whether there is an essence of women), but rather about what kinds of generalizations are valid. In chapter 2, I address the theory of intersectionality, which originates from a particular social location of African American women in the United States, where African American women’s experiences are systematically overlooked in a single-axis framework of race or gender. According to the theory of intersectionality, African American women are oppressed at the intersection of race and gender, and the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism. The theory of intersectionality is a powerful analytical tool that sheds light on the multidimensionality of African American women’s experiences. It is widely received and employed within and beyond feminist discourse, which refects the theoretical and practical needs to address the specifcity of African American women’s experiences. It also intends to expand to a coalition of women of color. Through examining the argument for women’s particularity and the theory of intersectionality, I argue that they rightly emphasize the interconnected oppressions of marginalized women, but they are yet to elaborate how women can be connected among their particularities. Thus, these approaches have unexpected social implications. Intellectually, arguing for particularity leads to a discussion of feminism as separate feminisms, such as African American feminism, Latina feminism, and Asian feminism. Politically, feminist struggles are dissolved into localized, regional, and specifc struggles that represent the interests of particular women or particular groups of women. In chapter 3, I focus on feminist skepticism over the necessity of gender. For several decades, feminists have scrutinized the issue of categorization, that is, whether the category of women is a legitimate, necessary, or possible

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social category. The general metaphysical perspective of gender faces criticism because it fails to take into account racial, cultural, and class differences among women or because gender is considered an unreal concept. Feminists who fall under the banner of postmodernism generally make this claim on the latter ground, asserting that gender is unreal. I argue against postmodernist gender category skepticism, although acknowledging its theoretical and practical incentives, because it denies the possibility of gender categorization. Gender category skepticism arose as a response to the “problem of difference” in the debates over essentialism. It questioned the normative standpoint that early second-wave feminists developed for criticizing and challenging the existing oppression of women. As a “difference critique,” gender category skepticism has a theoretical and political legacy for feminism, but it also has limitations: (1) gender category skepticism is groundless because its skepticism of the “essentialist foundation” of feminist identity politics does not threaten the possibility of the category of women; (2) whether there is an essence or not is irrelevant to the fact that we can and should construct the category of women, which embodies difference within women as well as the possibility and the dynamics of what women can be in the future; and (3) the category of women is helpful for feminists to think about women’s collaboration. By critically examining the three approaches to addressing difference among women—the “particularity argument,” the theory of intersectionality, and gender category skepticism—in chapters 1–3 respectively, I argue that difference in itself is not a problem, but that it becomes a problem if we assume that difference is a barrier to women’s theory and practice; that is, problematic ways of conceptualizing “difference” prevent us from pursuing feminist causes beyond rhetoric of “difference.” In chapter 4, I consider how to construct a category of women in a way that is consistent with recognizing differences among women. I argue that the category of women should be constructed in a way that refects women’s differences, accommodates the relationship between power and categorization, and contributes to women’s collaboration. The fact that women are oppressed in different forms does not lead to the conclusion that there should not be a women’s identity. Whatever theoretical errors white feminists make are due to ethnocentrism (an epistemological issue; women’s oppression in different forms in different social and cultural backgrounds), rather than essentialism (a metaphysical issue; there should be an “essence of woman”). I argue that the debates over essentialism are not about feminists making essentialist claims but rather about them making problematic generalizations about women. Thus, not all generalizations are problematic, and valid generalizations are necessary for feminist projects. By proposing to construct a category of women, I want to demonstrate that experiences of women can be

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generalized and that the concept of women can be generalized in a way that grasps differences among women as well as the variability and the dynamics of women. For instance, the category of women could be constructed through multilayered correlations is an example of how the concept of women can be generalized to embrace differences among women. In part II, I suggest a framework shift from multiculturalism to transculturalism by conducting a parallel argument about culture to the argument that I made about women’s oppression in different forms and women’s identity in part I. In part II, I address the divide in feminism on the basis of cultural differences and critically examine the idea of “multiculturalism.” There are three aspects to this criticism: one aspect criticizes the misunderstanding of culture as a self-contained entity, such as the views implied in the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, one aspect looks into multicultural feminism—feminist transformation of multiculturalism, and a third aspect criticizes the misunderstanding of culture through the utilization of an ethnocentric lens, which is initiated by the postcolonial feminist critique. In different ways, these three feminist critiques point to multiculturalism’s failures to contribute to a constructionist concept of culture and genuine cultural communication. I argue that multiculturalism, although it has merits, is an unsuccessful “difference critique” of culture because (1) it relies on a problematic account of culture; and (2) it fails to assist the communication among cultures and therefore does not contribute to solidarity. I then propose that feminism needs a conceptual transition from multiculturalism to transculturalism for at least two reasons: (1) Feminism needs to transition to a framework that can accommodate a reconstructed concept of culture. This is because “multiculturalism” as a framework would require transformation, if the problematic concept of culture—the key concept of multiculturalism—is reconstructed; and (2) feminism needs a framework to foster women’s cross-cultural solidarity more effectively. In chapter 5, I utilize the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism—the feminism versus multiculturalism debate—to show that the liberal feminist critique of cultural diversity often relies on a problematic understanding of “culture.” It treats cultures as if they were self-contained and well-integrated entities with clear boundaries and in this understanding cultures are often mapped onto nation-states. I argue that this concept of culture does not adequately account for the variability of cultures and the possible dynamics within and among cultures. For instance, it questionably assumes that minority cultures are often more patriarchal than majority cultures, which demonstrates that critics are insensitive to the political context where claims about “minority cultures” are made. I propose that the problematic concept of culture, as a self-contained and well-integrated entity that is mapped onto nation-states, should be reconceptualized by considering cultural

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interdependence and communication. As a result, a fuid concept of culture as internally contested and differentiated is constructed, from which a concept of “third space” between cultures is created and through which problematic claims made in the name of “culture” are questioned. The liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, although it has merits, is an unfruitful strategy for addressing cultural differences among women because it fails to avoid thinking about cultural differences in a way that grasps the complexity and variability of cultures. In chapter 6, I suggest that to be consistent with the reconceptualized “culture” and to be able to contribute to feminist solidarity across cultural differences, we need to challenge “multiculturalism.” Some may argue that this challenge is unwarranted because not all versions of multiculturalism are the same, and many multicultural claims are legitimate and feminist. To respond to this counterargument, I examine feminist efforts to make multiculturalism more defensible, or what is called “multicultural feminism.” Multicultural feminism questions the problematic notion of “culture” that is adopted in the liberal feminist critique, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic. Accordingly, it criticizes mosaic multiculturalism or strong multiculturalism and tends to ease tensions between the pursuit of gender equality and the recognition of cultural differences. Despite the fruitful efforts made by multicultural feminism, I argue, “multiculturalism” as a framework is problematic partly due to the normalizing logic inherent in its ideology. This is to say that, in multiculturalism, there is often a “we” who takes the position of “the norm” and who decides whether and to what extent “we” will tolerate, accommodate, or reject “their” cultures. To challenge the troubling ideology of multiculturalism and its normalizing logic, I advance the claims of multicultural feminism by arguing that we not only need to reconceptualize “culture” but also need to rethink “multiculturalism” as a framework. I suggest an alternative to multiculturalism to challenge the unsettling normalizing discourse in multiculturalism. In doing so, I refect on why and how some (majority or western) groups can wear “culture” more lightly while others have to wear “culture” as badges of group identity, and explore how to grasp the potential interconnection between “our culture” and “their cultures.” Chapter 7 assesses the postcolonial critique of multiculturalism by pointing to its fruitful emphasis on fostering dialogues among women. The postcolonial feminist critique questions the problematic concept of “culture” employed in multiculturalism and argues for sensitivity to the context and history of cultural differences. It calls attention to the need of a dynamic and context-sensitive concept of culture, but some postcolonial feminist critics unwittingly adopt aspects of the positions that they otherwise reject partly because it does not break free from, although it criticizes, the multicultural approach. To advance the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism, I

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propose that feminism needs not only a reconstructed concept of “culture” but also a transition of framework from multiculturalism to an alternative, because multiculturalism does not identify where cultural dialogues are needed and how they are possible. While the postcolonial feminist critique points to the need of transforming multiculturalism, for example, shifting to transnational feminism, it does not explicitly suggest the need to go beyond multiculturalism. I conclude this chapter by proposing a shift from multiculturalism to an alternative, hinting at transculturalism as a form of cosmopolitanism. In chapter 8, I specify that the alternative to multiculturalism that I am proposing is transculturalism. After presenting what transculturalism is, I argue that transculturalism not only can help feminists better understand cultural differences but also can help foster transcultural feminist solidarity. It is urgent for feminist discourse to fnd an effective way to balance feminism and cultural differences, as well as differences among women within a culture. The notion of solidarity suggests that there should be strong connections among women, but this idea is not adequately illuminated in the multicultural approach. Transculturalism, however, is a framework that cultivates an idea that involves both the variability and the dynamics of women and cultures. Now, we are ready to return to the topic of solidarity, which runs through the discussions in parts I and II, and is discussed in detail in part III. Solidarity means individuals acting together with one another with a bond or goal that differs from the pursuit of self-interest, which is in relation to shared or similar life conditions, that is, certain patterns of oppression. In part III, I argue for the necessity of transcultural feminist solidarity and transcultural reconstruction of feminisms by drawing on existing feminist literature on international feminist solidarity and Chinese feminist experiences. I point out an analytical shortcoming and a practical shortcoming of western feminism when it engages global feminism and international feminism. The analytical shortcoming lies in the propensity of western feminist thought to overlook the complexity and heterogeneity of women in other countries, such as conditions of women and gender relations in China. The practical shortcoming is that western feminism thinks about neither Chinese feminism from a transcultural perspective nor what role Chinese feminism can play in contributing to transcultural feminist solidarity. Chinese feminism does not intentionally engage in transcultural feminist solidarity either, partly resulting from the reluctance of engaging with the “international community” due to a legacy of colonialism and other political factors. However, bringing Chinese feminist experiences into the discussion of women’s group identity and feminist solidarity to think about differences among women is benefcial for feminist discourse both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, a discussion of Chinese feminist experiences elaborates on how women are oppressed

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in different forms in different cultures and societies like China (an empirical issue), which shows that we can generalize that women are oppressed as women (women’s group identity; an ontological issue) despite differences. Practically, a discussion of Chinese feminist experiences emphasizes the importance of transcultural feminist solidarity, which is partly due to western feminists ignoring Chinese feminist experiences when they talk about solidarity. Further, there is little evidence of transcultural feminist solidarity visible in American-Chinese encounters. In chapter 9, I propose a concept of transcultural feminist solidarity after assessing two popular approaches to feminist solidarity in the western feminist discourse. I take stock of what is available in feminist discussions of solidarity and explore how to respond to divides in feminism with transcultural feminist solidarity. I approach the discussion of the importance of feminist solidarity from two different viewpoints: women’s group identity and cultural differences among women. I challenge two feminist approaches to solidarity—a concept of political coalition and an idea of global feminism—while acknowledging their contribution to feminist discourse. Feminist political coalition-building relies on a strategic usage of women’s group identity and emphasizes a shared political commitment to eliminate gender oppression. Global feminism draws from the western liberal assertion that women’s rights are human rights. Some postcolonial feminists challenge global feminism, however, because it remains within the assumptions of the patriarchal oppression that all women share, and in fact it often overlooks differences among women. I draw from postcolonial feminist ideas of solidarity, such as transnational feminist solidarity, and propose a concept of “transcultural feminist solidarity.” A concept of “transcultural feminist solidarity,” I argue, emphasizes women’s group identity and addresses cultural differences transculturally to seek solutions to end structural gender inequality and injustice both locally and globally. Practices or initiatives rooted in a transcultural approach can promote genuine and fruitful interactions between feminists, including those from different cultural backgrounds. I try to accomplish two tasks in this chapter: one is to move my argument from the discussion of women’s group identity and cultural differences to that of feminist solidarity, and the other is to set the stage for talking about Chinese feminist experiences in the next three chapters. The conditions of women in China are different from those in the west. This is partly due to cultural differences, which are refected in Chinese feminist theoretical sources and experiences. In chapters 10 and 11, I briefy review the history of theoretical claims and debates made by scholars and activists who are interested in gender relations in contemporary China. I look at two intellectual contexts in which these claims and debates are made: one

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direction is taken by scholars who are interested in Chinese theoretical traditions and respond to feminist challenges by reinterpreting Chinese classics. They present a different relation of Chinese Confucian philosophical literature to feminist/gender themes and argue that Chinese theoretical traditions (mainly Confucianism) are not as oppressive to women as many westerners believe; therefore, they are compatible in important ways with feminism. The other context is that of Chinese feminists who have turned to the west for theoretical tools for addressing women’s issues. Discussing these two contexts by no means exhausts the complexity of contemporary Chinese feminism. Chinese feminism’s encounter with global/international feminism (in its vague sense) makes Chinese contemporary feminism even more complicated when both collaborations and conficts emerge among different players in contemporary Chinese feminism, such as western and Chinese scholars and activists, the mechanisms of the Chinese government, and international donor agencies. In the Chinese context, scholars use “global/international feminism” in a vague sense, which partly refects the infuence of global feminism and international feminism, and partly shows that from a Chinese standpoint “global” or “international” means something foreign and nonnative. In chapter 10, I argue that scholars who draw from Chinese Confucian philosophy fail to discuss women’s group identity or women’s social reality, although discussions of relational personhood in Chinese Confucian philosophy may be valuable for feminists in thinking about women’s group identity. Consequently, their discussions related to feminism are abstract, genderless, and disconnected from the social reality, and they offer little conceptual insight that is relevant to gender issues in real life. Their arguments for the compatibility of Chinese theoretical traditions, especially Confucianism, with feminism aim to show (mainly to a western audience) that Chinese Confucian traditions are not as oppressive as they are often perceived to be in the west. Still, these scholars do not address how these traditions can be fruitful for feminism. Regardless of their political interests, they have yet to locate aspects of Chinese traditions and culture that might contribute to a transcultural feminism. In chapter 11, I argue that, although it is diffcult to summarize the role and effect of feminism in Chinese socialism, it is clear that the interplay of the legacy of Chinese theoretical traditions, the history of socialist policies, and the infuence of western feminism all make Chinese feminist experiences distinctive. Nonetheless, this distinctive history of Chinese women and the politics of gender tends to be ignored by “international feminism” that is backed by international donor agencies fnancially and sometimes ideologically. Through their encounters with global/international feminism, Chinese feminists have acquired powerful theoretical approaches to the systemic social organization of gender oppression, and many academic research

Introduction

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projects and “women and development” projects have been launched with the aid of international donor agencies. Chapters 10 and 11 are descriptive chapters that set up a subsequent chapter 12, where I argue that transcultural feminist solidarity and transcultural feminist philosophy are desirable for feminist discourse. In chapter 12, I comment on theoretical debates and prospects about the conceptualization of gender relations, and I also examine trends in contemporary Chinese feminist thinking that are relevant to the themes of the book: women’s group identity and transcultural feminist solidarity. The ChineseAmerican encounters are in many respects asymmetrical, which presents the danger of neocolonial practices that may impoverish an existing discourse by imposing western products, values, or ideals. I propose that we need a philosophical engagement with gender issues in China, or Chinese feminist philosophy, in order to address women’s group identity and solidarity. Looking to the history of Confucian philosophy and to recent western thought can contribute to contemporary Chinese feminism, but most such efforts thus far continue to operate within a multicultural framework that presupposes too sharp a difference between China and the west or risks falling into neocolonial dependence. That is, the increase of cross-border encounters may harbor possibilities of neocolonial discourse. To avoid neocolonial discourse, a concept of and commitment to transcultural feminist solidarity needs to be in place since not all cross-border encounters work toward genuine engagements. Both ways in which scholars and activists explore gender issues in China—looking to the Chinese philosophical traditions and looking to the west—indicate a lack of transcultural feminist solidarity, which demonstrates how necessary and important the shift to transculturalism is. The increase of cross-border encounters can also create conditions for transcultural feminist solidarity. Given the richness and distinctiveness of Chinese feminist experiences and the extent to which Chinese feminism, or feminisms, involved in feminist discourse on the international stage, Chinese feminism makes a valuable case or place to look at the possibility of transcultural feminist solidarity. I conclude the book by arguing that transcultural feminist philosophy is desirable for feminist discourse and that transcultural feminist solidarity is a necessary part of overcoming gender oppression both locally and globally. With China becoming a more assertive world player, we should ask where we are heading regarding feminist philosophy and how western and Chinese feminisms may develop. I claim that transculturalism is desirable for Chinese as well as for westerners. There is something open-ended to this claim: the possibility of transculturalism and transcultural feminist solidarity provides more promise than pluralism, inclusion, or collaboration because of its focus on interference. “Transculture” is an analytical idea (e.g., about how culture

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actually works), but it is also a normative one (e.g., about how feminists should think and how they should pursue anti-sexist practices and institutions). We need transcultural reconstruction in western feminism, Chinese feminism, and somewhere in between, because the political implications of both women’s group identity that embraces differences among women and the shift to transculturalism lie in transcultural feminist solidarity among women locally and globally.

Part I

THE “DIFFERENCE CRITIQUE” AND FEMINIST IDENTITY POLITICS

Chapter 1

Women’s Oppression in Different Forms Against “Inessential ‘Womanness’”

Feminists who launched the “difference critique” claim that it is wrong for white feminists to make general claims for all women because by doing so they ignore important differences among women. These critics argue that it is essentialist for feminists to make general claims about women without taking into account important differences among women. For instance, Elizabeth V. Spelman (1988) addresses differences tied to race and class among women and emphasizes the importance of studying women within their specifc social contexts. “Difference critiques” as such, and the closely related issue of women’s identity, have occupied feminist discourse since then. Women’s identity or a category of women refers to something with which we can identify general patterns of gender oppression and then develop political responses to sexism. If a feminist argues that there is a category of women or makes general claims about women, she could be charged with overlooking the “problem of difference” or making universal claims. In other words, it is problematic that important differences among women are ignored in some feminist works as if such differences did not exist. It is important to note that the “problem of difference” was not a phenomenon that was new to the decade of the 1980s. As a matter of fact, differences among women, such as class, race, and sexuality, were already salient concerns for feminist solidarity in women’s movements in the late 1960s and the 1970s. For instance, Marilyn Frye mentions that the National Organization for Women in the 1970s raised issues such as race and sexuality (see Frye 1996, 1006 n17). However, feminism during these decades was more concerned with women’s common interests while feminist theory has focused on women’s differences since the 1980s. Feminists who do not explicitly address the “problem of difference” are criticized for relying on an indefensible essentialism and for being ethnocentric. 3

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THE RISE OF THE “DIFFERENCE CRITIQUE” IN FEMINISM Feminists who launched the “difference critique” criticize some feminists’ analyses of and solutions to women’s oppression, such as Betty Friedan’s, as being exclusive to white educated middle-class women at the expense of interrogating differences among women. In other words, the “difference critique” claims that differences among women are overlooked by privileged women, who are accused of taking their experiences as the experience of all women and of implying that what they understand as women is the essence of women. In this section, I will present Friedan’s critical analysis of women’s problems and her normative standing on this issue as well as Spelman’s critique of Friedan’s observations and analysis. The Problem that Has No Name In her book The Feminine Mystique, Friedan describes a “feminine mystique” that she argues was prevalent in the post–Second World War American culture. The feminine mystique applied to women who found true feminine fulfllment and satisfaction as a wife and mother. These women were materially well-off, educated, respected as equals to their husbands, and had the freedom to choose what was good for their home and children. Although educated, few had the intention of entering the professional workforce. Even for women who went to college, the biggest desire in life was fnding a husband and bearing children. As Friedan states, “In the ffteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfllment became the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture” (2001[1963], 61). The feminine mystique is buttressed by a “problem that has no name,” according to Friedan, one shared by “countless women in America” (63) who feel tired, empty, incomplete, dissatisfed, desperate, and hopeless. She asserts that “the problem that has no name” is a crisis in women’s identity because the “feminine mystique” does not allow women to think about their identity outside the confnes of motherhood and marriage. American housewives entrapped in the “feminine mystique” cannot fnd their own worth. Yet, “the problem that has no name” has little to do with physical or material diffculties such as poverty, illness, or hunger. In fact, material responses to this “problem,” such as fancier cars and bigger houses, often made the problem worse. It had little to do with the tedious housework routine either. Rather, “the problem that has no name” made central these women’s minds and their inner voices that screamed, “I want something more than my husband, children, and home.” In Friedan’s words, “It is easy to see the concrete details that trap the suburban housewife, the continual demands on her time. But the

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chains that bind her in her trap are chains in her own mind and spirit. They are chains made up of mistaken ideas and misinterpreted facts, of incomplete truths and unreal choices. They are not easily seen and not easily shaken off” (77). That is, the “feminine mystique” keeps these housewives entrapped in “the problem that has no name” as if being a good mother and wife was the best choice for their lives. A culture that cherishes the “feminine mystique” does not encourage or allow women to fnd their own identity and fulfll their potential as human beings. A New Life Plan: A Solution to the Problem that Has No Name Friedan’s solution to “the problem that has no name” is that women should manifest their potential in employment that allows them to exercise their true abilities and establish their distinctive identities. She points out that the “feminine mystique” is full of delusions, which try to persuade women that it is their husbands, children, and homes that give meaning to their lives. Yet, as a matter of fact, homemaker is not a career in which a wife can fnd meaning, and marriage does not contain everything that a woman needs. No matter how perfect a woman can make her house appear to be, and how perfect her marriage is, she does not live a life that can “give her a self” (464). Instead, Friedan suggests that women should have “a new life plan—in terms of one’s whole life as a woman” (469). Both marriage and career are part of the “new life plan,” and are not mutually exclusive choices. According to Friedan, women should “get out of the house and into the workplace” (8). The job that Friedan had in mind was something that a woman can “take seriously as part of a life plan”; that a woman can “grow as part of society” (472); the vocation she thinks of can “provide a basis for identity” (553 n2); “that is of real value to society—work for which, usually, our society pays” (474); that “permits an able woman to realize her abilities fully, to achieve identity in society in a life plan that can encompass marriage and motherhood” (476), and work through which women can “have a sense of achievement” (486). To summarize, the job that Friedan envisioned should connect women to society and give them a sense of achievement. As Friedan says, The only way for a woman, as for a man, to fnd herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way. But a job, any job, is not the answer—in fact, it can be part of the trap. Women who do not look for a job equal to their actual capacity, who do not let themselves develop the lifetime interests and goals which require serious education and training, who take a job at twenty or forty to “help out at home” or just to kill extra time, are

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walking, almost as surely as the ones who stay inside the housewife trap, to a nonexistence future. (472)

To Friedan, the job should not simply be a way to make a living but also should be creative, fulflling, and meaningful. To achieve this goal, women need to receive a serious education for serious purposes, which means education should cultivate a woman’s capacities and prepare her for participating in the society as someone more than a mother or a wife. An Essential “Womanness” “The problem that has no name” is criticized by some feminists as being white, middle-class, and privileged because it ignores differences among women. Spelman further argues that it is problematic for some feminists to talk about women, the problems of women, and especially the problems of women as if there was a “womanness” that all women share. Although Spelman does not explicitly criticize Friedan’s texts, it can be argued that claims such as Friedan’s are the target of Spelman’s critique. Spelman argues that claiming an “essential ‘womanness’” ironically makes women “inessential,” by which term she means to “point to an essential ‘womanness’ that all women have and share in common despite the racial, class, religious, ethnic, and cultural differences among us” (1988, ix). Spelman claims that until the particulars of an individual woman are considered, it is doubtful that we can talk about “women.” As she states, Positing an essential “womanness” has the effect of making woman inessential in a variety of ways. First of all, if there is an essential womanness that all women have and have always had, then we needn’t know anything about any woman in particular. For the details of her situation and her experience are irrelevant to her being a woman. Thus, if we want to understand what “being a woman” means, we needn’t investigate her individual life or any other woman’s individual life. All those particulars become inessential to her being and our understanding of her being a woman. (158)

Spelman’s criticism can be applied to Friedan, who dogmatically presupposes an ideal (that of fulflling work) that she misleadingly attributes to all women by only discussing the particulars of white middle-class women. By doing so, Friedan assumes that the particulars of nonwhite non-middle-class women are irrelevant. Further, Spelman raises the issue of essentialism as she argues that feminist theories must take differences among women more seriously. She characterizes essentialism as something that “invites me to take what I understand to be true of me ‘as a woman’ for some golden nugget of womanness all women

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have in common,” which “makes the participation of other women [women other than white middle-class women] inessential to the production of the story” (159). Moreover, because women are not understood in their particular situations and experiences, positing an essential “womanness” makes certain women appear less like a “woman” (because these “other women” do not share the “womanness” derived from the experiences of white middle-class women) and thus removes the need for communication among women. There are two issues at stake here: one is ignoring women with different experiences by treating them as invisible, and the other is the resulting lack of need for communication with other women since their differences are not relevant. Spelman has reservations about phrases such as “as a woman” or “oppressed as a woman.” To her, these phrases, in effect, isolate gender from race and class, thus obscuring the race and class identity of white middle-class women. That is to say, such phrases can function to imply that all other women have the same version of womanness as that of white middle-class women. As she states, “The solution has not been to talk about what women have in common as women; it has been to confate the condition of one group of women with the condition of all and to treat the differences of white middle-class women from all other women as if they were not differences” (4). In this view, the problem with feminist theories such as Friedan’s is that they confuse the condition of one group of women with the condition of all women. An Essential “Womanness”: The Trojan Horse of Ethnocentrism Spelman argues that a feminist view about women’s liberation such as Friedan’s is an example of a white middle-class perspective that fails to recognize racial and class differences among women. Friedan’s perspective emerges from within a white middle-class American culture, which differs signifcantly from the conditions and needs of women of color and of different social classes. Friedan’s solution to “the problem that has no name,” that is, “getting out of the house and into the workplace,” is widely criticized by feminists. These feminists argue that women from less privileged backgrounds already work outside the home to support their families and that Friedan’s analysis assumes the experiences of white middle-class women as common to all women. Many feminists of color make the point that marginalized women, such as African American, Latina, Asian, and indigenous women, in the United States experience oppression differently from that of white middle-class women. For instance, bell hooks argues that Friedan’s presentation of “American women” in fact describes the oppression only of white middle-class women (hooks 2000 [1984]). Moreover, if Friedan’s feminist prescriptions for these women to go into the workforce can be

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implemented under existing social structures, Black women are going to endure continuing subordination because they would be forced into domestic housework to help white women (see hooks 2000 [1984]). Similar to hooks, Spelman argues that Friedan’s solution to “the problem that has no name” may have been relevant for white middle-class American women in the 1950s, but it has never been apt for poor women or women from ethnic minorities, who have always worked both inside and outside the home (see Spelman 8). It is important to note that Spelman speaks of jobs in a different sense than Friedan: Spelman contends that every job counts as work whereas Friedan thinks that work should give a woman’s life meaning and identity. However, it does not seem that Spelman would disagree that all women need to have meaningful and rewarding work; rather, Spelman is suggesting that Friedan is problematically generalizing about women when she identifes “the problem that has no name” and when she offers the solution. It looks like white middle- and upper-class feminists such as Friedan have been insensitive to the problems of women of other races, cultures, religions, classes, and sexual orientations because obviously not all women at that time were able to get higher education. This sort of insensitivity makes it seem that Friedan is saying that all women have “the problem that has no name.” Spelman argues that thinking in terms of commonality among women does not lead to a solution to gender oppression, because it is unhelpful to speak of the condition of all women on the basis of an analysis of the condition of a specifc group of women. Spelman claims that feminists like Friedan are not actually talking about commonality, but rather taking her experience as the paradigm case. That is, to assume that there is a single problem of all women is to ignore the differences between white middle-class women and other women. Spelman thus urges feminist theorists to resist the impulse to make general claims on behalf of all women, as if there exists an immutable core of “womanness” into which all of women’s differences dissolve. Instead, she claims that what it means to be a woman is contingent on the social context. However, Spelman acknowledges that generalization about women is possible, though not desirable, because she does not mean, “we ought never to think about or refer to women ‘as women’ or to men ‘as men’” (186). She emphasizes that it is impossible to think of a woman’s “womanness” in abstraction from the fact that she is a particular woman. She suggests that feminists should stop presupposing an “essential ‘womanness’” that all women share; instead, they should conceptualize gender as always infected by other differences among women. By arguing that the phrase “as woman” is “the Trojan horse of ethnocentrism” (13, 167, 185) and that it carries a heavy political load, she claims that assuming an “essential ‘womanness’” is a disguised ethnocentrism. That is, thinking of women as a group characterized

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by certain essential features—economic, sexual, reproductive, political—has refected the social positions of the theorizer, in this case white middle-class women. The theorizer emphasizes what is in common among women at the expense of ignoring differences and conficts among them. Spelman warns that feminists need to be cautious about such commonalities: “At issue is not so much whether there are or are not similarities or differences, but about how white middle-class feminists try to use claims about similarity and differences among women in different directions, depending on what they believe such similarity or dissimilarity implies” (139). Spelman gives an example to illustrate that claims about commonality can be arrogant depending on who is claiming it. For instance, if a Black woman in the United States claims that she shares some similarities with a white woman, she is not making an arrogant claim about commonality. However, it is arrogant for a white woman to make the claim that a Black woman is like her. According to Spelman, the difference is that the white woman presumes the power to authorize her identity while the Black woman does not assert such rights. In addition, Spelman criticizes as ethnocentrism what she calls the “additive analysis of sexism and racism” (125), which considers that “all women are oppressed by sexism; some women are further oppressed by racism” (125). This “adding on” analysis focuses on the fact that the racial and class identity of Black women or of working-class women is made salient, but ironically, white women’s racial and class identity is left unmentioned. This irony reveals that white middle-class women take their experiences as what women have in common and to introduce “difference” simply means to bring in women who are not white and middle-class. In so doing, Spelman claims, white middle-class western feminists regard their particular view of gender as “a metaphysical truth” (186), thereby unintentionally privileging some women while marginalizing others. What is implied in this claim is that (some) white women may not simply be the victims of gender or class oppression, but sometimes they are also oppressors (of other women). AN EMPIRICAL/HISTORICAL ISSUE AND A METAPHYSICAL ISSUE: CONDITIONS OF WOMEN’S OPPRESSION AND WOMEN’S IDENTITY There are strengths in Spelman’s arguments about the interlaced oppression of marginalized women. She rightly emphasizes the importance of thinking of women in terms of differences rather than of an abstract commonality. She highlights the importance of recognizing the differential nature of women’s gender oppression that requires something more than the “additive analysis.” She brings our attention to women who are overlooked in the problematic

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conceptualization of women. She raises the question of the connection between gender categorization and power relations. Therefore, she rightly argues that categorization itself is a political act because it refects the interests and social positions of the categorizer, even in a situation where a person with less power uses the concept of the powerful. For instance, if a marginalized woman uses the phrase “as woman,” she may unintentionally internalize the unequal power relations enabled in the categorization. However, I argue that it is theoretically incorrect to label the neglect of differences among women as being the same as claiming an “essential ‘womanness.’” I wonder whether talking about women in their particular contexts would by itself cure “essentialism” or “disguised ethnocentrism” (in Spelman’s sense). I also doubt whether it is helpful for the feminist movement to emphasize the rivalry between white middle-class women and nonwhite non-middle-class women, given the fact that they have worked together in various coalitions, some more successful than others. In what follows, I will criticize Spelman’s arguments from these three perspectives. First, the issue of “difference” is different from the issue of essentialism and Spelman assumes these are the same. Although Spelman acknowledges that generalization is possible, she mainly emphasizes that generalization can be seriously misleading. As Spelman states, evidence of committing “essentialism” is to “take what I understand to be true of me ‘as a woman’ for some golden nugget of womanness all women have in common” (159). That is, a feminist becomes open to the charge of essentialism if she claims that her gender oppression is the same as the oppression of women in a general sense. For instance, even if Friedan takes white middle-class women’s experiences as if they were universal to all women, this issue may or may not be associated with the claim that women’s oppression can only be grasped in its particularity. That is, claiming women are oppressed in different forms is not necessarily in confict with making claims on behalf of women. The claim that “women all experience gender oppression though women are oppressed in different forms” is therefore different from claiming that “all women experiencing gender oppression is the essence of women.” I argue that there are two issues involved in Spelman’s criticisms: one is whether all women are oppressed in the same way or whether all share certain kinds of oppression. The other is whether there is an essence of women or whether to be oppressed is part of that essence. A women’s essence is a separate issue from the issue of whether oppression is in relation with that essence, but Spelman seems to argue that if one generalizes oppression, one is claiming an essence. So, she is confating these two separate, if related, issues. The question of generality of (certain kinds of) women’s oppression can be posed as an empirical or historical question, and is independent of positing a women’s essence. Thus, the issue of a women’s essence may or

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may not involve a claim about the relation of oppression (or the generality of oppression). It is important that we sort out this conceptual distinction. Second, focusing on the particulars might not be able to circumnavigate essentialism. It is true that we should not reject the idea that particulars must be preserved in a critique of oppression; that is, we must be attentive to the different kinds of oppression women suffer in different contexts. It is also true that we can imagine strategies that unify different groups of women; that is, different kinds of oppression may call for different practical responses, but there might be need for collective resistance to gender oppression across different groups of women. It is, however, a different point to argue that whoever overgeneralizes is not just making an intellectual or political error, but is also engaging in essentialism. Spelman, it would seem, contends that essentialism is a way of thinking that allows for or even encourages empirical overgeneralization. So, focusing on essentialism as the problem leads Spelman to avoid the empirical question of the extent to which generalization might be, or might not be, justifed. The danger of ethnocentrism exists regardless of whether we can generalize or not, though readiness to make generalizations may refect ethnocentric attitudes. Ethnocentrism refects the narrowness of one’s generalization. It can be interpreted as either a weaker or a stronger accusation. The weaker accusation of ethnocentrism is that one is making intellectual errors by overlooking experiences and situations of people other than their own ethnicity. The stronger accusation of ethnocentrism is that one is imposing their group’s outlook on others, potentially rendering their analysis racist. The weaker accusation is an intellectual criticism while the stronger one is a political criticism. Although the intellectual cannot be separated from the political, it might be more constructive to focus on the intellectual criticism when there is no evidence of vicious political intent. For instance, it is legitimate for Spelman to argue that the form of the relegation of housework to women might vary in different contexts and that “doing housework” is not the essence of women. However, it is theoretically incorrect to charge those who generalize about women taking the role of homemaker as claiming an essence of women (which Friedan obviously does not claim). Although Friedan does not explicitly claim that women who do not receive serious education cannot work equal to their top capacities and cannot obtain meaningful jobs, she implies that every woman has the opportunity to receive education and work creative jobs. As a matter of fact, many women who experience poverty, hunger, and illness do not have the opportunity to receive education, and therefore obtain employment that only provides a living and is below their potential. The problem with Friedan is not that she thinks all women should receive a good education and be able to explore their full potentials, but rather that she ignores the obstacles to such a vision for other groups of women. Friedan’s ideal is less relevant to poor

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women of color, but it cannot be denied that poor women of color want to do meaningful work as well. Last but not least, claiming social categories can be constructed solely in their particularity can lead to fragmentation. Spelman’s emphasis of the rivalry of Black women and white women and distrust of white women’s intention(s) could make barriers to feminist solidarity appear to be greater than they actually are. Her argument about “inessential woman” recommends, unintentionally, a kind of cultural relativism or contextualism. She makes the statement that “generalizations about women are possible” (183), but they are culturally contingent and socially constructed. That is, cultural contexts and social conditions must make a difference to how gender is generalized. Moreover, Spelman does not specify how she would categorize gender culturally, so she leaves open the possibility that gender constructed as such can be fragmented. As a result, there can be African American women, Latinas, Asian women, and so on. I understand that Spelman is making a point that making claims about commonality is a political act, but it does not do white women justice by automatically suspecting that they abuse their social privilege. A more constructive approach is to diminish the opposition between Black women and white women instead of boosting the rivalry. After all, when women are on the same page that they experience gender oppression in different forms, it is necessary for us to work together to fgure out ways to resist sexism on top of other forms of oppression. What should be noted is that coalitions have endeavored to fght gender oppression, but the lived realities of differences among women have gotten in the way and sometimes have resulted in the end of coalition. There now are two issues entangled in Spelman’s argument: one is the defnition of women and the other is the condition of women’s oppression. The former is a metaphysical issue about women’s identity and the latter is an empirical and historical issue. Spelman’s critique of Friedan confates these two issues: she rightly argues that Friedan makes the mistake of assuming the condition of white middle-class women as the condition of all women and that Friedan overlooks the fact that women are oppressed in different forms. However, Spelman argues incorrectly that feminists such as Friedan assume a womanness (derived from the condition of white middle-class women) as a universal concept. That is, the issue of women’s identity and the issue of women’s oppression are two separate issues, although they are closely related. It remains a question whether Friedan actually claims that “the problem that has no name” is essential for all women, or whether she makes claims about what is good for all women. Friedan’s fnding is culturally bound: her depiction of women’s experiences results from her white, middle-class location in the postwar American culture. However, criticizing Friedan’s arguments as claiming an “essential

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‘womanness’” ignores the real problem attached to women’s identity and does not give Friedan the credit she deserves. Spelman, I believe, is imputing a philosophical or intellectual commitment to feminists like Friedan for which there is no evidence. Overgeneralization is not even the problem, since one could argue that Friedan is just focusing on one group of women without saying that her argument applies to all women. Friedan could still be criticized for allowing for the impression that she is addressing the issue for all women and she could still in fact be ethnocentric, but we have not seen evidence for that charge. It is undeniable that Friedan does generalize from her own case and the similar cases of her Smith College alumni, but it is also undeniable that Friedan’s specifc arguments have to do with real gender oppression even if of only for a specifc group, therefore deserving a more radical understanding than she was given credit for. Friedan’s observations and arguments are confned by her social location, but it does not do her argument justice to insist upon her claim of “essential ‘womanness.’” That is, even if feminists such as Friedan implicitly overgeneralize, it is still a wrongful assertion to say that she employs essentialism. In any case, Friedan raised a challenge to women’s oppression that in turn ran into criticism for inadequacy of its intellectual assumptions. She raised a genuine if not a universal issue for women. Reading Friedan’s specifc arguments, it is clear that she cares about women’s oppression and strives to fnd a way to end the oppression. She does not assume that simply having a job is suffcient; rather, her solution is that women’s identity should include a focus on reaching their vocational potential. For instance, she suggests that one of the sources of women’s oppression is the relegation of housework to women. Although it is clear that the relegation of housework to women is not the only source of women’s oppression and for some women it is not the source of oppression at all, it remains true that the relegation of housework to women illustrates how women in general endure massive, structural, systemic, and invisible subordination collectively as well as providing an example of a more general pattern of a sexual division of labor. Moreover, women’s positionality should not be ignored; for instance, women of color, specifcally Black and Latina working-class women, do much of the housework for white, middle-class women. ESSENTIALISM: A SCAPEGOAT FOR ETHNOCENTRISM The main issues regarding feminist “difference critique” arise with debates over essentialism and related discussions of ethnocentrism. Because I evaluate some of the different approaches to the “difference critique” and consider

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what is at issue in criticism of essentialism, it is necessary to look into defnitions of “essentialism” and in particular how feminists use terms such as “essentialism” and “ethnocentrism.” Defining Essentialism What exactly is essentialism and what is wrong with it? Oddly, the term “essentialism” is rarely defned or explained explicitly in the feminist criticism of essentialism. When it is defned, it is often done by its “anti-essentialist” critics rather than its alleged defenders. For instance, Toril Moi provides a typical anti-essentialist claim when she says that “any attempt to formulate a general theory of femininity will be metaphysical . . . as we have seen, to defne ‘woman’ is necessarily to essentialize her” (1985, 139). One can easily have the impression that all forms of essentialism are pernicious and politically regressive while anti-essentialism represents the promising new direction with little political limitation. In contemporary feminist discourse, any defnition of woman and any attempt to generalize about women from the particular historical, cultural, ethnic, and class positions of particular women runs the risk of reducing the particularity of social construction to essentialism. “Essentialism” is rashly condemned as a theoretical pitfall in feminist theories and the “essentialist” accusation is posited without careful refection and assessment. As Cressida Heyes points out, the anti-essentialists tend to use “‘essentialist’ as a pejorative adjective rather than a substantive term of critical assessment” (2000, 20). According to her, several controversial themes emerge in the debates over essentialism ranging from problematic or illegitimate generalizations to ahistorical thinking, and from the importance of identity politics to the problem of implicit metaphysics. The result is that the term “essentialism” suffers from being overly comprehensive and vague at the same time. Some feminists, such as Elizabeth Grosz, Natalie Stoljar, and Cressida Heyes, endeavor to fnd out what “essentialism” could mean. In what follows, I will briefy present their explanations of possible meanings of the term “essentialism.” Grosz offers a conception of essentialism and three forms that it can assume. She defnes essentialism as the tendency to attribute a fxed essence to women and claims that “the existence of fxed characteristics, given attributes, and ahistorical functions . . . limit the possibilities of change and thus of social reorganization” (1994, 84). The three forms that essentialism takes are: (1) biologism, in which women’s essence is defned in terms of women’s biological capacities, such as the functions of reproduction and nurturance; (2) naturalism, in which a fxed nature, such as being emotional or irrational, is claimed for women; and (3) universalism, in which invariant social categories and activities are assigned to all women in all cultures (see Grosz 1994, 83–86). Stoljar combines the biological and natural characteristics that Grosz

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addresses into the essential properties and maps out two forms of essentialism. The frst attributes a fxed and unchanging nature to women, which is a claim about the essential properties of an individual woman. The second suggests an implicit universalism, which is a claim about a universal “womanness.” Stoljar also maps out the anti-essentialist arguments that respond to these two forms of essentialism: (1) the social constructionism argument against the frst form of essentialism proposes a socially constructed account of gender rather than a natural and fxed nature of women; and (2) the diversity argument against the second form of essentialism rejects an implicit universalism (see Stoljar 1995, 261–67). Heyes’s explanation of “essentialism” is both similar to and different from Grosz’s and Stoljar’s. She distinguishes three varieties of essentialism: (1) biological essentialism, which is the tendency of feminists to distinguish the sexed body as a pre-social site upon which constructions of gender are imposed; (2) metaphysical essentialism, which consists of the claim that certain species or types of things have an essence, that is, a certain innate structure, for instance the Lockean nominal essence; and (3) linguistic essentialism, which consists of the claim that any defnition of “women” must assume certain necessary and suffcient conditions—they can be biological attributes but do not need to be—of membership in that defnition (see Heyes 2000, 20–22). Heyes points out that the debates over essentialism in recent feminist thought are rarely concerned with biological essentialism and metaphysical essentialism, so they are not the targets of feminist criticism of essentialism. Because concerns with bodies are located within social constructionist discourses and because essentialism of the metaphysical and biological varieties is prior to social constructionism, they are not what are at stake in contemporary feminist debates over essentialism. Rather, according to Heyes, linguistic essentialism, which concerns the assumption that the defnition of “women” consists in a set of necessary and suffcient conditions, is the focus of feminist attention regarding anti-essentialist efforts. Issues Raised by the Idea of “Essentialism” From these defnitions, at least two issues are raised by the idea of “essentialism.” The frst is about whether there is a reason to think that there is an essence. The second is about diffculties that follow from thinking that there is an essence. Certain ways of thinking labeled “essentialist” are undeniable, for example, certain kinds of metaphysical thinking or biological reductionism. However, the focus should be on the question of whether there is a point to speaking about women in general. I am not assuming that there are no biological generalizations to be made, but rather that no biological generalization can adequately grasp women’s oppression. The issues raised by

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critics of essentialism are with respect to generalization concerning women’s oppression. When critics deny any generalizations about women, they may be missing something important, which could be about actual conditions of women as women or about normative, ethical, or political perspectives regarding what women could possibly become as women. Although a term with enormous complexity, essentialism in feminist discussions could potentially imply that (1) women share some properties, or (2) women are oppressed in the same way. The problem with essentialism is that it does not help us understand women’s experiences across cultural differences and other differences. When anti-essentialist feminists use “essentialism” as a criticism, they are not saying that there are no essences (at least most of them are vague about whether there are essences or not), but rather they are saying that those “essentialists” are positing an essence when there is not one. Therefore, the problem about essentialism is not about whether there is an essence of women, but rather about the way in which feminists reason when they criticize the assertion that there is an essence. My general view about the question of essence is that whether there is an essence of women or not is not the key issue when we are discussing women’s oppression, because essentializing oppression prejudges what is possible given women’s emancipation toward gender equality. Without adequate evidence, essentializing cuts short the exploration of alternatives to what exists as well as the explanation of the social causes of oppression—causes that could be challenged politically. However, essentializing is not the same as generalizing. It is possible to generalize about women whether or not feminists talk about essences, but there are limitations to what kind of generalization one can make. In other words, what is in question here is whether or not feminists actually talk about essence, which could explain why essentialism becomes a target of the “difference critique.” When we say that women are oppressed as women, we mean that all women are subject to oppression by virtue of their gender position in their society regardless of what forms of oppression they are subject to. It can be said then that women are subject to gender oppression, which is different from saying that they are all oppressed in the same way. The ways that some feminists think about essences and essentialism point to the fact that it is a confusing conceptual problem, but it is often joined with a historical problem. Maybe the generalization about women is a historical generalization instead of a metaphysical generalization when we say that women happen to be oppressed as women in the society where they live. Perhaps when we say that the gender distinction corresponds to some kind of oppression, we are making a generalization of historical facts, which is different from claiming an essence of women. One of the themes that I am concerned with, which may get confused under the heading of essentialism, is what kinds of generalizations are valid and what kinds of generalizations are helpful.

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A focus on generalization of women’s oppression rather than its essence points to problems with biological and metaphysical thinking. In that case, the general conceptions are useful for refecting on oppression and are relevant to a nuanced approach to challenging gender oppression. General conceptions would be made based on generalization, which is historical, instead of metaphysical, and which somehow is suspected to be related to “essence.” Therefore, to claim that it is possible to generalize women’s oppression is to promote a historical generalization rather than claiming an essence metaphysically. Accordingly, the target of anti-essentialism should be problematic in terms of historical generalization rather than metaphysics. For instance, when it comes to the historical generalization of women’s experiences, neither white nor Black women are able to generalize all women’s experiences on the basis of their own experiences because they are not considering experiences of nonwhite and non-Black women and therefore they only tell part of the story. As a result, generalization seems to be a historical question, so we need to fnd out in what ways gender oppression is similar and in what ways it is different. Anti-essentialists suggest that this is a historical and empirical question, but if they are not going to argue about the generalization of women metaphysically, then how are they going to argue? Presumably, it can be argued anthropologically, historically, or culturally. In other words, if one cannot argue about generalization on a priori basis, then the role of theory is to organize available information about the historical records. The question then becomes how adequate these conceptions for organizing the materials for our knowledge are, or how valid our generalization is. Since the issue in question is one about generalization, I think both the accused “essentialists” and anti-essentialists have their merits and limitations. On the one hand, anti-essentialists are right in the sense that women in different situations suffer different forms of oppression. On the other hand, feminists accused of essentialism might be right at least in the sense that generalizing about conditions of women is useful because one could say that all women are subject to gender oppression—at least in historical societies. It is important to understand this generalization, even if forms of gender oppression have been (or are) different. In this sense, both anti-essentialists and those accused “essentialists” have a point. Then why are we constantly dragged into debates over “essentialism”? I think it has to do with the fact that some feminists mistake “essentialism” for “ethnocentrism.” Defining Ethnocentrism Criticism of ethnocentrism is an attempt to challenge the forces that have been charged as essentialist but this defnition is vague, so it is necessary to discuss ethnocentrism. The use of the term “ethnocentrism” accompanies the kind of criticism where one’s standard is assumed as the point of reference

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or the paradigm case. Ethnocentrism does not necessarily mean that one is hostile to others, but rather that one is overgeneralizing on the basis of their own experiences. One way to think about ethnocentrism is to examine whether ethnocentrism is an intellectual error or a moral issue. For instance, it could be that both white women and Black women make an intellectual error if they only generalize on the basis of their own experiences. In particular, it could be the case that in the United States, Black women and a subset of white women think on the basis of the historically poor treatment of Blacks, because by focusing on Black women’s experiences, feminists could develop an intellectual insight about gender oppression in general. At the same time, we should be aware that the positions of power that are occupied by the white women outside of the subset might outweigh the opinions of those thinking on the basis of the historically poor treatment of Blacks. It seems that feminists view ethnocentrism as a moral failure rather than an intellectual failure; that is, ethnocentrism is not a false generalization, but rather a narrow-mindedness that is morally controversial. Thus, one of the problems with the concept of ethnocentrism is that it is a moral issue. When feminists accuse someone as “ethnocentrist,” they are criticizing them in the moral sense. This is where the value of the otherwise very abstract usage of ethnocentrism reveals itself: one could say that some are ethnocentrists because they generalize only from their own experiences but not from the experiences of other women. However, often ethnocentrism is more complicated than a moral issue because it could be that a white middle-class woman is not just being ethnocentric in the sense that she only generalizes from her situation, but also that she is complacent about the exploitation of women from whose labor she is benefting. In principle, women can identify with all other women simply by being women but at the same time it is a fact that there are profound differences among women. Some differences conceal actual conficts, such as competing race and class issues, so the problem of the differentiation of women is not just the problem of the complexity that women face in terms of different forms of oppression. It can also be the problem that they are in different relations to other women because oppression can take the form of being oppressed by other women. I am committed to the idea that women are oppressed as women, which means that all women are subject to gender oppression in some forms even though there might be differences at different times and places. Yet, the idea that all women are oppressed as women encounters problems when it comes to encouraging solidarity among women, in part because gender oppression that women experience is sometimes very different in its expression in each individual woman’s life. It could be the case that women are simply being different and it is diffcult for them to compare experiences. For instance, white

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middle-class homemakers experience one form of oppression and women as domestic workers experience another. It is another thing, however, when differences become a matter of conficts, for example, the issue of low-income women of color has the moral primacy not just because they are oppressed but also because whites beneft from the system that is partly supported by racial discrimination. These women deserve the priority of our focus because white women are actually oppressing them. In this sense, ethnocentrism is also connected with racism. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I presented the origination of the “difference critique” by critically examining Spelman’s claims about the “inessential ‘woman.’” Spelman is right to assert that women should be looked at in their particular situations, but her argument that feminist theories such as Friedan’s argue for an “essential ‘womanness’” is unfruitful because it confuses the overgeneralization of women’s oppression with the assertion of an essence of women. I also explored the terms “essentialism” and “ethnocentrism” and why they should not be confated in the feminist critique of essentialism. Ethnocentrism prevents some feminists from understanding women’s oppression in their particular social contexts and this ethnocentric view hinders women’s solidarity. If there was solidarity of women, it would have to include women who are different from each other as well as those who are oppressed by other women. Women who beneft from oppressing other women have to undergo some radical self-critique, which is dominant in current U.S. feminist discourse, and then we should think about how to engage in correcting those forms of oppression together. This means that we should not only acknowledge differences but also recognize conficts that come with the knowledge of historical oppression. The idea that there are potential conficts among women might be one of the ways to think about the ambiguity of the notion of ethnocentrism. The issue of differences and the reality and possibility that some differences would lead to conficts make it necessary to talk about women’s identity and feminist solidarity despite the diffculty inherent in the construction of a woman’s category and feminist solidarity that embodies differences among women. If we recognize confict, we are appealing to a much broader conception of emancipation, which is an assertion that is consistent with my guiding belief that oppression is not inherent in women’s identity. One of the problems with anti-essentialist literature is that very little of it discusses human emancipation and social transformation in general terms. This is a vacuum conceptually as well as politically, which is a problem that I want to point out, though I cannot solve it in this research project.

Chapter 2

Theory of Intersectionality

Spelman is not the only feminist who recommends that women should be considered within particular environments. In this chapter, I examine the account of intersectionality proposed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who argues in her foundational article, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” (1989), that Black women should be theorized as existing at the intersection of gender and race. In developing this account of intersectionality that argues for the particularity of Black women in the context of a legal dispute about discrimination, she challenges the conceptual limitations of the single-axis framework that treats race and gender as separable. Although she centers the discussion around the multidimensional experience of Black women, she notes that her goal is to reveal a “problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis” (1989, 139) and so suggests that the approach might be applied in other circumstances. Indeed, her account of intersectionality is widely received and utilized within and beyond feminist discourse. Contemporary feminist uses of intersectionality became popular in the early 1980s when U.S. academic feminism underwent a dramatic paradigm shift. At the time, groundbreaking books challenged the “essentialist” underpinnings of white academic feminism and its accompanying account of gender. These books include Angela Davis’s Women, Race and Class (1983), bell hooks’s Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (1981), Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa’s This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by Women of Color (2002 [1981]), Gloria Hull, Patricia Scott, and Barbara Smith’s But Some of Us Are Brave (1993 [1983]), Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (2007[1984]), Elizabeth V. Spelman’s Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (1988), and Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics 21

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of Empowerment (2008 [1990]). These feminist critical race theories built upon the insight that it is inadequate to only address white middle-class heterosexual women because women of color, for example, experience oppression at the intersection of more than one matrix of oppression. INTERSECTIONALITY: A THEORY OF IDENTITY? Among the literature on the complexity of gender oppression, Crenshaw’s crossroads and traffc metaphor is a popular tool. Her account of intersectionality attempts to best conceptualize the important differences among women’s conditions and oppression. She observes that (white) feminism displays a tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories. An example of this tendency is the usage of the term “Blacks and women.” Crenshaw argues that “although it may be true that some people mean to include Black women in either ‘Blacks’ or ‘women,’ the context in which the term is used actually suggests that often Black women are not considered” (1989, 139 n3). She argues that this tendency is perpetuated by a single-axis framework that is refected in feminist theories and anti-racist politics. In a “single-axis framework,” according to Crenshaw, race and gender are treated separately, on mutually exclusive axes. As a result, typical uses of both the category of women and the category of Blacks exclude Black women because they are developed on the basis of the experiences of otherwise-privileged members of the group, in this case white women in the gender category and Black men in the race category. Black women are marginalized in feminist theories and anti-racist politics because neither examines the particular experience of Black women, whose oppression is located at the intersection of race and gender. Crenshaw argues that the single categorical axis analysis distorts the multidimensionality of Black women’s experiences: “These problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot suffciently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated” (140). That is to say, Black women are subordinated and marginalized in a categorically different manner from other women. Crenshaw utilizes the analogy of traffc to describe Black women’s experiences: “Discrimination, like traffc through an intersection, may fow in one direction, and it may fow in another. . . . If a Black woman is harmed because she is in the intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination” (149). According to Crenshaw, the oppressions that Black women experience are not from just one aspect of

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their identity, but rather they are intersectional. Black women are not simply oppressed as women, nor are they oppressed simply as Blacks; rather, they are oppressed as Black women, who are at the intersection of racial oppression and gender oppression. Therefore, both feminist theories and anti-racist politics require acknowledgment of the complexity of the oppression of Black women. Crenshaw is right that feminism needs a sharper statement of the inseparability of race and gender (and class) as they function in contemporary oppression. It is true that the gender experience is also a racial one and that race is always experienced within a gender setting (in particular, the power relations associated with it). The approach of intersectionality has many virtues: it refects more accurately women’s diverse social experiences; it theoretically situates individuals within networks of relations that complicate their social locations; it illustrates the virtues and necessity of approaching situations through an intersectional-axis rather than through a single-axis; and it reframes the ways feminists think about political issues. The account of intersectionality has migrated into various disciplines and the term “intersectionality” is commonly used while it remains vague. Under the broad umbrella of “intersectionality,” a large body of theory has been developed around the metaphor of the intersection. It is important to acknowledge the context of Crenshaw’s original development of the approach, as well as its extension to be a broader theory. There are at least two possibilities for understanding intersectionality: it might be thought of as an analytical tool or as a theory of identity. There is at least some reason to think it could be taken as a theory of identity, which shall be explained in what follows. Crenshaw applies her concept of intersectionality within the broader scope of contemporary identity politics and claims that intersectionality “might be more broadly useful as a way of mediating the tension between assertions of multiple identity and the ongoing necessity of group politics” (1991, 1296). According to her, the approach of intersectionality encourages the recognition of multiple dimensions of identity in feminist theories and anti-racist politics. “By tracing the categories to their intersections,” she states, “I hope to suggest a methodology that will ultimately disrupt the tendencies to see race and gender as exclusive or separable. While the primary intersections that I explore here are between race and gender, the concept can and should be expanded by factoring in issues such as class, sexual orientation, age, and color” (1244–45 n9). The account of intersectionality is one way to address differences, including gender, race, and class differences. It was developed as a method to challenge the conceptual limitations of the tendency to regard race and gender as exclusive or separable, such as the “additive analysis.” The “additive analysis” considers Black women as further oppressed by racism and thus results in the exclusion of Black women’s experiences. Like

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Spelman, Crenshaw argues that women need to be understood within the complex social context they inhabit. In particular, Crenshaw emphasizes the importance of thinking with categories such as “Black women.” In a paper presented at the World Conference Against Racism in 2001, Crenshaw again depicts intersectionality with the imagery of a crossroads. Crenshaw states, “Intersectionality is what occurs when a woman from a minority group . . . tries to navigate the main crossing in the city. . . . The main highway is ‘racism road.’ One cross street can be Colonialism, then Patriarchy Street. . . . She has to deal not only with one form of oppression but with all forms, those named as road signs, which link together to make a double, a triple, multiple, a many layered blanket of oppression” (cited in Yuval-Davis 2006,196). In an interview done twenty years after the publication of her two articles on intersectionality (1989, 1991), Crenshaw talks about her original intention of using “intersectionality”: My own use of the term “intersectionality” was just a metaphor. I’m amazed at how it gets over- and underused; sometimes I can’t even recognize it in the literature anymore. I was simply looking at the way all of these systems of oppression overlap. But more importantly, how in the process of that structural convergence rhetorical politics and identity politics—based on the idea that systems of subordination do not overlap—would abandon issues and causes and people who actually were affected by overlapping systems of subordination. I’ve always been interested in both the structural convergence and the political marginality. That’s how I came into it. (in Guidroz and Berger 2009, 65)

The crossroads or intersection image makes us think as if we can account for complexity by simply running more roads through a designated intersection. As popular and useful as the metaphor of the intersection is, upon closer examination one might raise concerns about it. The image of two separate directions coming together in an intersection may potentially posit disconnectedness, separateness, and mutual exclusiveness. Because to be intersected, each road is assumed to be separated from another. A related issue with the metaphor of the intersection is that it does not ensure that we can avoid making the mistake of valuing one group’s experiences more highly than other groups’ experiences because sometimes the “racism” road is more salient than other social factors. For instance, sexual violence against Black women is more visible than that against Native women or other women of color in the academic literature and media in the United States. The intersection or crossroads image could reinscribe the fragmented model of oppression and reify specifc social identities. As Anna Carastathis argues, intersectionality imports the unitary model of identity that it purports to overcome. She argues that the mutual exclusivity of the categories of race and gender is the

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condition for the possibility of their intersection. In her words, “The claim that the identity of the Black woman is produced by the intersection of gender and race is viable only if we can think ‘Black’ without thinking ‘woman,’ and if we can think ‘woman’ without thinking ‘Black’” (2008, 27). According to her, the logic implied in the intersectional model of identity requires scrutiny: On the intersectional model, if the Black woman occupies the border, who takes residence—who is at home—in the non-intersecting zones? Not only does the model fall prey to the widespread practice of aligning certain groups with particularity, or “visibility,” and others with universality, or “invisibility”; upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the intersectional model of identity conjures the very ontology that its exponents set out to undermine. In construing race and gender as analytically separable and relegating Black women to their intersection, it implicitly perpetuates the racialization of gender and the gendering of race. (27; emphasis in original)

Perhaps these concerns regarding intersectionality and identity are raised because the metaphor of the intersection is too limited: on the one hand, with the equation of sexism with a road, it does not really differentiate among various kinds of gender oppression or gender oppression in different forms; on the other hand, with the image of intersection, it only includes what overlaps with another road (e.g., race) at the intersection. Therefore, the metaphor of the intersection is too narrow to comprehend the sprawling gender dimension. Here I do not intend to criticize the original intention of Crenshaw’s creative work. I simply want to point out that metaphors might be useful to describe experiences, but they may be limited in their ability to generalize them. As Carastathis states, “Although metaphors are useful in discussions at a high level of abstraction to concretize complex concepts, they nevertheless harbor certain risks. . . . Standing in for an analysis of oppression, a spatial metaphor like intersectionality can paradoxically preclude an interrogation of its concrete manifestations” (2013, 712). These concerns might also be raised because intersectionality is treated as a theory of identity. It is understandable that Crenshaw aims to emphasize the marginalization specifc to Black women, but her picture of crossroads corresponding to the theory of intersectionality might potentially result in the isolation of Black women from other women. At one point, she claims that “Black women are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and anti-racist policy discourse because both are predicated on a discrete set of experiences that often does not accurately refect the intersection of race and gender” (1989, 140). However, her argument seems to use the same logic that she criticizes. In other words, Crenshaw argues that the single-axis framework takes gender and race as “essentially separate categories” (1991, 1244 n9),

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but expanding the concept of intersections by factoring in issues such as race, class, sexual orientation, and age is not going to make these social factors less separate and exclusive. In addition, the notion of intersectionality is fattened at times. Regardless of the current popular status of “intersectionality,” Vivian May argues, “Black feminist theorists seem to continue to fnd themselves in many ways ‘speaking into the void’” (2014, 94). May comments that intersectionality “entails thinking about social reality as multidimensional, lived identities as intertwined, and a system of oppression as meshed as mutually constitutive,” but it is often “fattened or its basic precepts ignored” (96). As Jennifer Nash recognizes, “Intersectionality itself has become an institutionalized intellectual project, and the dominant tool for excavating the voices of the marginalized” (2008, 13). Moreover, using Black women’s experiences as “a theoretical wedge,” Nash argues, demonstrates “the shortcomings of conventional feminist and anti-racist work” (8). Yet, doing so is not without problems: “The problems with a theoretical reliance on black women’s experiences are two-fold. First, while seeking to underscore problems of exclusion within feminist and anti-racist theory, black women are treated as a unitary and monolithic entity. That is, differences between black women, including class and sexuality, are obscured in the service of presenting ‘black women’ as a category that opposes both ‘whites’ and ‘black men’” (8–9). Despite intersectionality’s popularity and buzzword status, Carastathis worries that not enough attention has been paid to Crenshaw’s generative work or the broader body of integrative scholarship produced by Black feminists: “Many critiques of intersectionality are marked by inattention to Crenshaw’s 1989 and 1991 essays, notwithstanding the now-compulsory acknowledgment, often in the form of a single citation, to her work” (Carastathis 2014, 311). Carastathis thus suggests that we should re-contextualize “intersectionality” in Crenshaw’s work and in the intellectual tradition of Black feminism. For instance, she reads Crenshaw’s original conception of intersectionality as a provisional concept: “My reading suggests that Crenshaw did not initially propose intersectionality as a multiaxial theory of hierarchical power; yet this is precisely how intersectionality is invoked in feminist theory” (2013, 711). In contrast to the popularity of the metaphor of the intersection, Carastathis notes, the metaphor of the basement is neglected in scholars’ reading of Crenshaw. The metaphor of the basement is used in the following manner: “Imagine a basement which contains all people who are disadvantaged on the basis of race, sex, class, sexual preference, age, and/or physical ability. These people are stacked—feet standing on shoulders—with those on the bottom being disadvantaged by the full array of factors, up to the very top, where the heads of those disadvantaged by a singular factor brush up against the

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ceiling” (Crenshaw 1989, 151). Carastathis states, “Like the intersection, the basement is another spatial metaphor, but this one describes social hierarchy. Lines of power are imagined vertically, rather than horizontally” (2013, 710). She believes that emphasizing the importance of recognizing the metaphor of the basement would help us better understand the complexity of intersectionality: “Revisiting the two metaphors belies additive interpretations of ‘intersectionality’ that take for granted the received categories of gender and race” (711). THE TRAJECTORY OF “INTERSECTIONALITY” The idea of intersectionality has been developed from a provisional concept to an analytical framework for social justice in the past three decades (see Hancock 2011, 2016). It is helpful to study the trajectory of “intersectionality” that includes its origin as well as how it is interpreted and deployed. Intersectionality gets taken beyond its original use as described by Crenshaw. The attempt to explore ways to articulate disappeared experiences of Black women’s oppression has a long history in Black women’s social theory. As Patricia Hill Collins states, the invisibility of Black women’s experiences is related to assumptions that position “African-Americans as having race, White women as having gender, Black women as experiencing both race and gender, and White men as experiencing neither” (1998, 79). The history starts “from [Anna Julia] Cooper’s ‘train station’ example to Fannie Barrier Williams’s articulation of ‘unknowability’ to the Combahee River Collective’s idea of ‘interlocking oppression’ to Deborah King’s revision of ‘double jeopardy’ with her conception of ‘multiple jeopardy’ to Hortense Spillers’s ‘interstices’ to Elsa Barkley Brown’s ‘polyrhythms’, to . . . Crenshaw’s ‘intersection’” (Dotson 2014, 46–47). In addition, bell hooks uses the metaphor of a center and margins (2000 [1984]) and Collins talks about a theoretical invisibility of Black women’s experiences in interlocked systems. Ange-Marie Hancock asserts that although the idea of intersectionality has a long history, there is an intersectional turn: “Collins and Crenshaw were likely preparing specifcally Black Feminist analyses using very similar intersectional logic simultaneously (the years 1988–1990)” (Hancock 2016, 29). The difference is that Crenshaw conceptualizes it in the U.S. legal context, while Collins (2008 [1990]) theorizes it in sociology. Hancock traces an intellectual history of the theory of intersectionality and claims that “all of these scholars are part of a larger discourse about analytical relationships among categories of difference” (2016, 32). Yet, there are differences between the scholars in their uses of metaphors:

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The distinction between the metaphor of center-margin and the intersectional metaphor is also critical to understanding the relationship between the Black and multicultural Feminist history that motivated the intersectional turn and continued travel along a new trajectory. Much scholarship that used the keywords “intersectionality” refects a failure to distinguish between multicultural feminist formulations and intersectional ones. (33)

Hancock appears to be saying that the intersectional metaphor is specifcally used to address Black women’s multiple oppressions, and “intersectionality” does not apply to multicultural feminist scholarship. When she traces the genealogy of intersectionality, Hancock identifes a tension regarding intersectionality between “scholars who believe US Black women are not given enough credit or attention for intersectionality” and those “who believe Black women have been given too much power in this domain” (18). Put another way, it is a tension between whether we should think of intersectionality “as a form of intellectual property owned by some demographic groups,” or whether we should think of it “as meme among scholars who are committed to the visibility and inclusion-orientated aspects of intersectionality’s intellectual project” (18). To Hancock, intersectionality is not equal to Black feminism; rather, it is a twofold intellectual project. To be more specifc, it is “an analytical approach to understanding between-category relationships and a project to render visible and remediable previously invisible, unaddressed material effects of the sociopolitical location of Black women or women of color” (33; emphasis in original). By emphasizing that intersectionality is a twofold project—“the visibility or inclusion project” and “the project of rethinking the analytical relationships between categories”— Hancock tries to ease the tension between the two (33). Sumi Cho, Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall respond to such tensions as regarding “the historical centrality of American Black women and Black feminism as subjects of intersectionality theory” and “reservations about intersectionality’s usefulness as an analytic tool in addressing other marginalized communities and other manifestations of social power” (2013, 788). They claim that the wide circulation of intersectional scholarship and praxis has proven intersectionality’s capabilities and “some of what circulates as critical debate about what intersectionality is or does refects a lack of engagement with both originating and contemporary literature on intersectionality” (788). They provide a brief genealogy of intersectionality, tracing how intersectionality travels and envisioning how it will develop toward a feld of intersectionality studies. First of all, they acknowledge intersectionality’s historical contingencies: “Intersectionality was introduced in the late 1980s as a heuristic term to focus attention on the vexed dynamics of difference and the solidarities of sameness in the context of antidiscrimination and

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social movement politics” (2013, 787). They recognize that “the metaphors by themselves may render partial understanding of intersectionality” (791). If we look beyond the metaphor of the intersection, they suggest, we will see the trajectory of intersectionality as “part of a larger critique of rights and legal institutions.” Further, the trajectory of intersectionality “reveals how the intersectional lens looked beyond the more narrowly circumscribed demands for inclusion within the logics of sameness and difference” (791). They then decide to move the discussion “from the central question—what is intersectionality?—to a proposed template for focusing three levels of engagement with intersectionality into a feld of intersectional studies” (787; emphasis in original). The three levels of engagement include (1) applications of an intersectional framework to analyze dynamics; (2) the scope and content of intersectionality as theory and methodology; and (3) political praxis using intersectional lens beyond academia (785–86). Efforts of such engagements could be found in the theoretical development of intersectionality in feminist philosophy. For instance, in an anthology Why Race and Gender Still Matter, the contributing authors focus on the idea of intersectionality from a philosophical perspective. The anthology’s editors recognize that intersectionality is “a fundamental collaborative exercise that disrupts exclusionary identity politics,” and they intend to illustrate “the ways in which employment of an intersectional conceptual framework generates novel analyses and new tools for dismantling oppression” (Goswami, O’Donovan, and Yount 2014, 9). With all its merits, it is no surprise that the theory of intersectionality has been widely circulated in feminist discourse. It is almost certain that intersectionality will continue its development, though not without intellectual contestation, in various disciplines as theory, applications, and praxis. In what follows, I will address one potential contestation regarding the normative claims of intersectionality. FEMINIST SOLIDARITY? RACIAL COALITIONS? Crenshaw suggests that to be consistent with the idea of intersectionality, a “bottom-up approach” rather than a “top-down approach” should be adopted to alleviate discrimination (1989, 167). A bottom-up approach begins with addressing the needs and problems of those who are most disadvantaged, in this case Black women. In doing so, Crenshaw contends, “Others who are singularly disadvantaged would also beneft” (167). She suggests that in order to include Black women and embrace the complexities of the social marginalization of Black women, both feminist theories and Black liberationist politics should distance themselves from the single-axis approach. In addition, the marginalized should be placed in the center to avoid

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compartmentalization and to advance political causes: “It seems that placing those who currently are marginalized in the center is the most effective way to resist efforts to compartmentalize experiences and undermine potential collective action” (167). Crenshaw is comparing different ways of thinking about Black women’s oppression and “potential collective action” that would respond to oppression. She claims that identities constructed at the intersection of multiple dimensions forge “organized identity groups in which we fnd ourselves in are in fact coalitions, or at least potential coalitions waiting to be formed” (1991, 1299). By coalitions, she means attempts to organize as a community of color in the context of antiracism. According to her, race can be reconceptualized on the basis of intersectionality as “a coalition between men and women of color” and “a coalition of straight and gay people of color” (1299). In a sense, “potential collective action” and “coalitions” can be considered as forms of solidarity within communities. Crenshaw rightly points out the genesis of the single-axis framework, what sustains it, and what its consequences are. While the theory of intersectionality greatly advances feminist discussions about differences among women by paying attention to socially marginalized women, it has unintentional intellectual and political results. Intellectually, the theory of intersectionality may be a useful theoretical tool to shed light on a multidimensional oppression one experiences, but it could unintentionally contribute to the understanding of women as members of separate groups, who fnd it challenging or are unmotivated to resist gender oppression collectively. Politically, improper applications of the theory of intersectionality could potentially lead to fragmented feminism since it is yet to be explained what intersectionality means to the feminist movement as a whole. It is true that ideas such as “global sisterhood” are built on an insensitive assumption that all women are similarly situated in patriarchy, but it is equally problematic to unintentionally contribute to a fragmented feminism, such as African American feminism, Latina feminism, or Southeast Asian feminism. Intersectionality is believed to be democratic because it posits authority for women of color, which is sanctioned by white feminists. The political implication of intersectionality is that women of color frequently pursue conficting political agendas—for instance, gender versus race—but white women typically do not have to. There are problems with the associated normative claims when Crenshaw’s approach is expanded. It is problematic in that she both seems to want to address solidarity among women (Black women and women of color specifcally) and she seems to argue for solidarity along racial lines that could be in confict with that feminist solidarity. Although it is not clear how Crenshaw would categorize white women and other non-Black and nonwhite women, the intent of her original theory seems to set agendas for Black women but limited agendas for women with which to resist gender oppression together. She suggests that

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Black women should forge a coalition with Black men and LGBTQ+ Blacks. It is understandable that Blacks might see racism as their primary oppression, so recommending solidarity in the Black community may be a good step to challenge racial discrimination. However, it may also unintentionally diminish the feminist goal of eliminating gender injustice. Crenshaw appears to argue for two seemingly contradictory points. On the one hand, she seems to be saying that putting Black women in the center would actually also illuminate the condition of white women and other women in certain respects. On the other hand, she appears to argue that the theme of solidarity is conceived more in race than in gender terms. Given the fact that Black women are also possibly victims of Black men’s sexism, it is not clear how Crenshaw’s argument of solidarity in the Black community would contribute to feminist collaboration. However, if we bear in mind her particular perspective as that of a Black feminist, it would help us understand how these seemingly contradictory points coexist in her analysis. As she claims, the white feminist perspective excludes women of color because “it is based upon experiences and interests of a certain subset of women,” so it is important to “name the perspective from which one constructs her analysis; and for this is as a Black feminist” (1991, 1244 n8). Whereas her analysis draws heavily from research on Black women, Crenshaw also sees her work as “part of a broader collective effort among feminist of color to expand feminism to include analyses of race and other factors such as class, sexuality, and age”; that is, she intends to offer tentative connections between her analysis of “the intersectional experiences of Black women and the intersectional experiences of other women of color” (1244 n8). The idea of intersectionality is supposed to capture the complexity of intracategorical differences, for instance, the differences among Black women. In applications of this idea, the emphasis on class difference among Black women seems to be dropped sometimes. Yet, when Crenshaw conceptualizes identity politics as coalitions within the Black community, she also talks about internal differences. For instance, she argues that experiences of relatively privileged members of oppressed groups should not represent all members of the groups in question: With identity thus reconceptualized, it may be easier to . . . summon the courage to challenge groups that are after all, in one sense, “home” to us, in the name of the parts of us that are not made at home. . . . The most one could expect is that we will dare to speak against internal exclusions and marginalizations, that we might call attention to how the identity of “the group” has been centered on the intersectional identities of a few. . . . Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us and negotiate the means by which these differences will fnd expression in constructing group politics. (1991, 1299)

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Multiple points are packed into the above statement. First, Crenshaw tries to make the particularity of Black women’s experiences visible, then she recognizes internal exclusions and marginalizations, and fnally she acknowledges group politics as a result of negotiating differences. In other words, the idea of intersectionality is much more complicated than the metaphor of the intersection. For this reason, I think the complexity of the multidimensional oppression that Black women experience should be elaborated on in a more nuanced way than a common understanding of the metaphor of the intersection. An alternative model to a simplifed intersectionality should understand the different ways in which different social divisions are concretely enmeshed in and constructed by each other and how they are related to political constructions of identities. More research needs to be done to fully understand Crenshaw’s illustration of the social-legal reproduction of gendered race/ class hierarchies. Crenshaw may be misunderstood as presupposing too great a difference among women; at least she seems to imply that Black women’s experiences are uniquely different from other women. Related to this point, Crenshaw’s argument about the “bottom-up” approach, which more or less resonates with feminist standpoint theory, is more doubtful than it appears to be. With all its merits, for instance centering experiences of the most disadvantaged, the “bottom-up” approach has yet to provide enough evidence to illustrate how the resolution to the problems of Black women applies to other women. The solution for some women might not be suitable for other women. For instance, in Immigrant Women of the Academy: Negotiating Boundaries, Crossing Borders in Higher Education (Alfred and Swaminathan 2004), the editors create space for a group of immigrant women of color to share their multilayered experiences in the academy in the United States such as how they get caught between two cultures, how to search for their own voices, and how to negotiate their identities. It would be interesting to see how the solution to Black women’s issues might work for such immigrant women of color who face different sets of challenges. Most of the writings about intersectionality derive from the work of women of color in the United States, but it is worth exploring whether gender, race, and class are similarly entwined in other national contexts. For instance, Vrushali Patil argues that despite the turn to more nuanced, intersectional approaches, unrecognized issues with the patriarchy continue to problematize how we conceptualize gendered dynamics and power relations within intersectional approaches (2013). One example she gives is transnational feminism that “takes to task the uncritical acceptance of the nation as a necessarily meaningful unit of analysis for feminists” (2013, 847). To Patil, transnational feminism encourages “an examination of how categories of race, ethnicity, sexuality, culture, nation, and gender not only intersect but are

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mutually constituted, formed, and transformed within transnational powerladen processes such as European imperialism and colonialism, neoliberal globalization, and so on” (847–48). She then emphasizes the importance of interrelationships between local and transnational resistance to the patriarchy: “Critical work on patriarchy has neglected a key central dimension: the potential and actual interrelationships of historically and geographically specifc patriarchies to such transterritorial and transnational processes” (848). Patil rightly points out the neglect of transterritorial and transnational processes in the deployment of intersectionality, which is consistent with what takes place on university campuses. For example, when language such as “inclusion and diversity” is used it typically refers to people who are not Euro-ethnic, people with diverse sexual identities, or people with disabilities. Women faculty with foreign cultural origins thus fall into a category void in the intersectional analysis, and as a result, discrimination against their cultural origin might be overlooked. PLAUSIBILITY OF USING INTERSECTIONALITY AS A THEORY OF IDENTITY By discussing the oppressions of Black women in particular, Crenshaw deepens Spelman’s theory about women with their particularities. Crenshaw launches her critique of a single-axis framework from her particular social location as a Black woman. When Crenshaw uses the term “women of color,” she seems in practice actually to mean “Black women,” though she explicitly notes the difference between the two categories. In her argument, Crenshaw uses the term “Black women” and “women of color” interchangeably. As she states, “The value of feminist theory to Black women is diminished because it evolves from a white racial context that is seldom acknowledged. Not only are women of color in fact overlooked, but their exclusion is reinforced when white women speak for and as women” (1989, 154). Note that in this quote Crenshaw’s argument moves from “Black women” to “women of color” as if they are the same category. It is apparent that “women of color” is a much broader category than “Black women.” It is possible that Crenshaw identifes the category of “Black women” with the category of “women of color” because she understands that when people talk about “women of color” in the United States, they actually refer to Black women. This reasoning is strangely reminiscent of Friedan’s identifcation of “white middle-class women” with “women,” which I will explain in what follows. Crenshaw probably does not mean to overgeneralize. If she appears to do so, it could be because she focuses on Black women’s experiences in the U.S. legal context. Although Crenshaw has stated in an interview that she did not

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intend the usage of intersectionality to go beyond her legal argument (see Guidroz and Berger 2009), the theory of intersectionality nevertheless went beyond her original intent. What makes this part of Crenshaw’s argument problematic is precisely what she criticizes: her argument could be misunderstood if one takes Black women to be the representative of women of color, just as white feminists assume their experiences represent the experiences of “all women.” It is unfair to say that they (or Crenshaw) actually think in this way, but this assumption is hiding beneath their arguments. In other words, perhaps they do not intend to assert themselves as the paradigm case, but the paradigm is inherent in their generalizations. This kind of misunderstanding arises when we generalize women from a position of particularity, or further, when we generalize “other” women from a position of our particular social position. Therefore, there must be something wrong with their generalizations or the context in which they make their assumptions. Crenshaw argues from her experience as a Black woman in the United States, where the term “women of color” is assumed to refer to Black or Latina women. The lack of differentiation among women of color may refect a problem with the metaphor of the intersection. The problem is that this idea may not be suffcient to interpret the complexity of women’s experiences and fnd solutions to diminish various forms of oppressions. It is not clear what Crenshaw refers to when she talks about “culture,” though she obviously addresses her concerns in a specifc U.S. social and cultural setting. At one point, when she talks about Black cultural traditions, she says, “Whether these practices are a distinctive part of the AfricanAmerican cultural tradition is decidedly beside the point. The real question is how subordinating aspects of these practices play out in the lives of people in the community, people who share the benefts as well as the burdens of a common culture” (1991, 1294). Crenshaw acknowledges that she capitalizes “Black” as a proper noun because “Blacks, like Asians, Latinos, and other ‘minorities,’ constitutes a specifc cultural group” (1244 n6), but whites or “women of color” do not constitute a specifc cultural group. As she states, “I do not capitalize ‘white’, which is not a proper noun, since whites do not constitute a specifc cultural group. For the same reason, I do not capitalize ‘women of color’” (1244 n6). She emphasizes the role that cultural images play in the social devaluation of women of color: “The stories our culture tells about the experience of women of color present another challenge—and a further opportunity—to apply and evaluate the usefulness of the intersectional critique” (1282). It is very likely that the “culture” she refers to in this statement is the American culture in which she lives, where racial classifcation and conficts are more visible than some other parts of the world. It can be shown in another quote: “Black women, like Black men, live in a community that has been defned and subordinated by color and culture”

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(1989, 162). Recognizing Crenshaw’s position with regards to culture helps to understand why she suggests the necessity of a coalition within the Black community. Yet, it might help us uncover effective solutions for diminishing gender oppression including Black women’s oppression if we look at the gender issue from a more macroscopic angle and if we look at other cultures. A simple fact that Black women might be oppressed by Black men would show that a coalition within the Black community, though helpful in numerous ways, might not alleviate Black women’s oppression. What is at the core of contestation regarding intersectionality, in my opinion, is whether intersectionality should be treated as a theory of identity. Here we return to the two possibilities for understanding intersectionality: as an analytical tool or as a theory of identity. If the approach of intersectionality appears to be problematic, it is partly due to the fact that the problematic approach involves taking intersectionality as a theory of identity. Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge try to ease the tension, arguing that intersectionality is both an analytical tool and a theory of identity. According to them, when using intersectionality as a theory of identity, one should not ignore “the centrality of structural analyses that have characterized intersectionality from its beginning” because “intersectionality has long emphasized a combination of structural and cultural analyses” (2016, 95). They use empirical research of how disenfranchised people use intersectionality as an analytical tool and identity politics for political empowerment and of “how identities are primarily understood as a collective political subjectivity and conscious coalition that also leaves room for individual identity” (99). They examine strands of criticism that confate intersectionality with identity and summarize three of them: “Intersectionality fosters separatism, overemphasizes cultural recognition, and exaggerates victimhood” (100). They argue that the critiques neglect “how intersectionality as a form of critical praxis operates across many different venues” to such an extent that they “constitute theoretical approaches to power and politics that remain plausible in the abstract” (100). Collins and Bilge thus propose that we take “a more holistic approach to intersectionality, one that attends to intersectionality’s critical praxis, creates space to rethink this relationship between intersectionality and the politics of identity” (100). A more holistic approach to intersectionality couples intersectionality with social justice, which “lies in examining how understandings of the politics of identity can constitute a starting point for intersectional inquiry and praxis and not an end in itself” (101; emphasis in original). Utilizing a more holistic approach means that scholars should understand “identities as strategically essential, identities as de facto coalitions, and transformative identities” (101). Collins and Bilge also link identity politics to coalitional politics. They argue that Crenshaw sees identity as coalitional,

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which “creates possibilities for political organizing that attends to intersecting power differentials within the group” (102). In this way, the seemingly contradictory normative claims that Crenshaw makes become more understandable. Crenshaw states, “The intersectional experiences of women of color disenfranchised in prevailing conceptions of identity politics does not require that we give up attempts to organize as communities. Rather, intersectionality provides a basis for reconceptualizing race as a coalition between men and women of color . . . or a coalition of straight and gay people of color” (1991, 1299). Collins and Bilge unpack this statement and explain that ingroup coalitions take place before intergroup coalitions: “Understanding identity as a coalitional location stresses in-group and inter-group power differentials. In other words, conceptualizing identity coalitionally highlights the coalitional labour already at work within the group before deploying it for building inter-group alliances” (102; emphasis in original). They seem to argue that coalitions are strategic, which is consistent with Crenshaw’s statement. CONCLUSION In this chapter and in the previous chapter, I examined the argument for women’s particularity as the solution to the differences among women. Spelman and Crenshaw both argue that particular social locations of an individual woman should be considered to avoid the danger of glossing over differences among women in general. The “difference” refers to the fact that race, class, sexual orientation, and age, among others, have an impact on how women experience gender oppression. Spelman argues that feminists such as Friedan posit an “essential ‘womanness’” by making claims on the basis of the experiences of white middle-class women and that Friedan’s solution to “the problem that has no name” is not suitable for all women because women experience gender oppression differently. I argued that Spelman fails to distinguish the theme of difference (whether all women are oppressed in the same way or whether all women share certain kinds of oppression) from the theme of essentialism (whether there is an essence of women or whether to be oppressed is part of that essence). The intellectual result of this lack of distinction is that focusing on essentialism as the problem leads Spelman to avoid facing the empirical question of the extent to which generalization might or might not be justifed. The unintentional political result of this lack of distinction is that it contributes to the rivalry of women in terms of race. Along the line of differences between Black women and white women, Crenshaw argues that the theory of intersectionality should be adopted as the alternative to the “additive analysis of sexism and racism” to address Black women’s experiences in the U.S. legal context.

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Spelman and Crenshaw have their distinctive positions regarding women’s particular social locations, but their views are similar in certain respects as well. Both argue that we need to pay attention to women’s particularity, that is, talking about women cannot be separated from the particular social locations they occupy. In particular, their race and class background should be considered. Both of them argue against the “additive analysis,” which assumes that race or class, for example, is simply something in addition to the gender issue. Although they both argue that feminists should discuss women with the particularity of their experiences in mind, Spelman and Crenshaw adopt different views. Spelman emphasizes the differences among women as well as the ethnocentric attitudes and mistakes that contribute to ignoring these differences. Crenshaw adds the argument that ignoring differences between the oppression of white women and Black women is a matter of ignoring racism as well as ignoring the fact that the combination of sexism and racism produces a distinctive oppression for Black women. Spelman discusses the more general danger of eliding any number of possible distinctive oppressions, while Crenshaw focuses more on the specifc issue of the overlap of sexism and racism. Spelman talks about the particularity of women in general. In particular, she criticizes the idea that women are defned by the particularity of white middle-class women, which is assumed to be the condition of all women. Thus, the particularity of white middle-class women becomes an essence of women, which implies that white middle-class women are “essential” women. In so doing, the particularities of nonwhite non-middle-class women are ignored; therefore, these women become “inessential.” The point that Spelman makes in her critique of the “additive analysis” is that one’s gender identity cannot be separable from her racial and class identity. One can defnitely argue that the idea of intersectionality offers a useful characterization of the interrelatedness of oppressions arising in a complex society, but one can also argue that it does not hold true in all cultures. For instance, the race issue is particularly salient in the United States while it is less visible in China, since the intersection of race and gender is a particular social structure, for instance, in American society given its specifc history and legacy. The point I am trying to make here is that we all make claims from our social locations and we are limited by our social experiences and visions. Even when well-intentioned, well-educated, and privileged feminist scholars make numerous efforts to think from the perspective of women from other social locations, it is undeniable that we are all confned by our visions no matter how open-minded we try to be. However, this frustration once again reveals the fact that women are oppressed in different forms because a woman can hardly know or understand what it feels like to be oppressed as members of other socially marginalized groups. If women are oppressed differently, then how can we fnd a common ground on which to work together

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to resist gender oppression, or is it even necessary to look for a common ground at all? Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality reveals the potentially antagonistic rivalry between white women and Black women, and between women who (intentionally or unintentionally) practice racism and women who experience racism, but we need a conception of how women at various intersections can collaborate. The purpose of assessing the feminist “difference critique” is to suggest that feminists should focus their attention on their intellectual and normative assumptions for the purpose of facilitating women’s collaborative work. Feminists like Friedan do not claim an “essential ‘womanness’”; rather, she fails to consider the situation of other women when she frames her problem in terms of white middle-class circumstances. Or at most she overgeneralizes, although we have not established this criticism on the basis of textual quotations. That is, the target of the “difference critique” should not be an “essence” of women but rather problematic generalizations of women’s oppression in different forms. Differences among the forms that women’s oppression takes per se are not problems; rather, the problem is how to perceive and generalize these differences properly. For example, we would have to ask why or how the intersection of racism with sexism might make an alliance among women to transform the status quo in the United States. In other words, we need to explore whether it is possible for groups of women, for instance, Black women and white women, to address their respective racial makeup and cultures suffciently for them to cooperate against sexism. My assessment of the feminist “difference critique” has a historical and conceptual point: by presenting the conception and criticism of the alleged claim of an “essential ‘womanness,’” I depicted a revival of feminism in which the challenge to women’s oppression in the United States, such as Friedan’s arguments, came to be challenged as being too narrow. We can see how one might think that a specifc approach, such as Friedan’s, is good for women, but in practice it is too limited. We can also see that some of the errors associated with an “essential ‘womanness’” impede mutual understanding and cooperative action in cultural and political contexts. I have argued that women are oppressed in different forms, but in the arguments that I utilized in the assessment of the feminist “difference critique,” there is one related lingering consideration: the issue of women’s identity. Both Spelman and Crenshaw talk about differences in gender oppression that women experience as well as how to understand women’s identity given differences in their oppression. However, the emphasis on particularity grasps differences among women but fails to construct a useful category of women for helping with women’s collective resistance to structural oppressions. The claim that women experience gender oppression differently does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that they do so in the same way. It seems to me

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that the “difference critique” shifts between the discussion of “differences of women’s gender oppression” (an empirical question) and the discussion of “whether a social category of women is necessary and possible given differences among their oppression” (a metaphysical question). For instance, Spelman’s critique of an “essential ‘womanness’” is a metaphysical argument while what she criticizes is an empirical observation. Although “women” and “women’s oppression” are closely related, it is helpful to make a distinction between the two concepts to determine more clearly what is at stake in the “difference critique.” It seems that we cannot avoid using the term “woman” and when we use it we afford it certain connotations. For example, what exactly do I mean when I say “women are oppressed in different forms”? What “women” am I talking about? Is it a universal “womanness” that is subject to overgeneralization? Or is it just a term used for convenience because we otherwise cannot talk about “women’s” oppression? Thus, the question becomes: Is it possible to defne women with all differences among them? In addition, is the attempt to defne women necessary at all? I shall respond to these questions in the next two chapters, where I suggest that we need to construct the category of women in such a way that we can address differences among women as well as achieve our collective, structural, and political goals.

Chapter 3

Unwanted Feminist Identity Politics Postmodernist Category Skepticism

Feminists have scrutinized the issue of categorization, that is, whether the category of women is a legitimate, necessary, or possible social category, for several decades. According to some feminists, using the category of “women” or the concept of “women” can be problematic in certain contexts for certain purposes. The general metaphysical perspective of gender is under attack because it fails to take into account racial, cultural, and class differences among women or because gender is considered an unreal concept. Feminists who fall under the banner of postmodernism generally make this claim on the latter ground, asserting that gender is unreal. In this chapter, I will focus on gender skepticism regarding the metaphysical question of the category of women: whether forging a women’s identity while acknowledging differences among women is necessary. This chapter explores how the category of women raises questions for feminist criticism and politics. Feminist criticism and politics are interested in understanding and resisting gender oppression but speaking of the oppression of all women may be misleading. Speaking of women in general is problematic because doing so may miss or obscure the ways in which other social conditions (other forms of social oppression) overlap with or even modify gender oppression. Indeed, it may even be that even if all women suffer from some aspects of gender oppression, these oppressions, along with other differences in historical circumstances, may result in their oppressions being quite different from those of other women. In this chapter, I explain what is built into the uses of the term “category,” which is loaded from the perspectives of both critics and advocates. I focus on Wendy Brown’s version of postmodernist category skepticism, critically examining her standing on women’s identity. Brown suggests that the idea of a unifed and coherent subject should be abandoned. She sees the implicit use of this philosophical idea as contributing to a normative criticism; that is, by 41

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attaching an injured identity to women, feminist theories perpetuate a sense of victimhood as primary to women’s identity. Therefore, feminists need an alternative that is political (rather than moral). I argue that a past of injury is not inherent in women’s identity and feminist politics is not at odds with identity politics. Without ontological or epistemological support, feminist politics cannot go as far as Brown hopes. “WOMAN”: AN INJURED IDENTITY Brown is one of the feminists who claim that postmodern theories are effective in illustrating how feminist scholars have supplanted the notion of universal “woman” with the incorporation of “difference” into feminism. The postmodern feminist anti-essentialist critique is occasionally carried to the extreme of asserting that no generalizations at all can or should be made about women. Going along with Judith Butler’s argument of “gender trouble” (1990), Brown suggests that the idea of a unifed and coherent subject, that is, woman as subject, be abandoned because it contributes to equating gender oppression with an injured identity for women. In arguing for an identity for women, feminist theories perpetuate a sense of victimhood as having to do with an injury to women’s identity. She argues that by claiming a women’s identity, feminists are making at least two mistakes: one is that feminists defend an unjustifed “epistemological foundation” (1995, 45) and the other is that they attach “a past of injury” to women (74). She states that feminist politics should not rely on epistemology and ontology, nor should it rely on unjustifed moral claims. Brown argues that clinging to a women’s identity means that one does not let go of the past because producing identity is “both bound to the history that produced it and a reproach to the present which embodies that history” (73). However, “This past cannot be redeemed unless the identity ceases to be invested in it, and it cannot cease to be invested in it without giving up its identity as such, thus giving up its economy of avenging and at the same time perpetuating its hurt—‘When he then stills the pain of the wound he at the same time infects the wound’” (73; emphasis in original). That is, by investing in the unredeemable injury, feminist identity politics perpetuates the hurt of the injury, so we need to avoid the notion of identity in order to cure the injury on identity and we should not linger upon the identity that has a wounded past. Brown seems to suggest that the suffering associated with women’s oppression cannot be relieved by a politics that focuses on identity. According to her, the premise of identity is exclusive (those who do not share the identity are excluded) and the formation of identity is a site of exclusion. Moreover, claiming an identity implies an unjustifed moral

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claim. “In locating a site of blame for its powerlessness over its past—a past of injury, a past as a hurt will—and locating a ‘reason’ for the ‘unendurable pain’ of social powerlessness in the present, it [identity] converts this reasoning into an ethicizing politics, a politics of recrimination that seeks to avenge the hurt even while affrms it, discursively codifes it” (74). Furthermore, by reminding women of the injured past and their powerlessness, identity is not devoid of the injury but rather reinforces it. Insisting on an identity entails that a moral approach of power replaces a more promising way of constructing a political culture. This moral approach of power has to do with whether experiences are epistemologically grounded. Brown argues that feminists cannot move forward in feminist politics if we cannot get out of the mode of moral reproach. She argues that feminist movements such as “consciousness-raising” tend to regard women’s experiences as “Truth,” which claims an “epistemological foundation.” She criticizes the belief that women’s experiences are “anointed as Truth, and constitute the foundations of feminist knowledge” (42). In this way, women’s experiences “acquire a status that is politically if not ontologically essentialist—beyond hermeneutics” (42). According to Brown, the “epistemological foundation” and “Truth” are the ground of moral claims: anointed as Truth, women’s experiences are always related to powerlessness while power always distorts because people who hold it are in the position of dominating others. That is, Truth is always on the side of the marginalized, who are always without power, and in the position of reproaching power, which is abused by who hold it. In doing so, feminists claim their truth is less partial and more moral than the truth of those who misuse power. By claiming an “epistemological foundation,” feminists hold the ground of moral critique on power, which Brown depicts as “ressentiment” (46; emphasis in original) and “a political practice of revenge” (73). Brown thus denies the moral basis for feminist standpoint theory. She challenges the logic of standpoint theory—the subject harbors a truth and truth opposes power—and points out that this logic is problematic because standpoint theory proffers a false belief that situated knowledge is capable of achieving universal norms. She argues that feminist standpoint theory is politically essentialist because it does not offer an explanation of the legitimacy of how women’s experiences are to be granted as epistemologically grounded. Without this explanation, “this strand of feminist foundationalism transports the domain of Truth from reason to subjectivity” (42). Granting the subjectivity of the subject as the source of truth is problematic because the subject adheres to its own truth-value, which is questionable in itself. In fact, according to Brown, this is a manifestation of partiality and self-interest because the standpoint of women’s experiences “cannot admit to partiality or contestability, and above all cannot be subjected to hermeneutics without

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giving up its truth value” (42–43). Therefore, Brown argues that standpoint theory’s need for grounded knowledge of its own is equally unjustifed as the knowledge derived from male supremacy. This groundless justifcation reveals the tension and inconsistency in standpoint theory: on the one hand, it claims that it is a theory of social construction; on the other hand, it claims that women’s experiences and situations are epistemologically more privileged. Standpoint theory thus creates a dilemma: women’s experiences, as well as other experiences of the socially disadvantaged, are all socially constructed and culturally varied, but women’s experiences have a greater value as an epistemological ground. To resolve the dilemma, Brown suggests giving up epistemological foundations; that is, we should give up the moral claim that people of certain groups are more epistemologically privileged than other groups, though it is not clear how she can distinguish one group from another without a frm stance on category and identity. Brown argues that identity politics and postmodernity are rivals in the sense that postmodernity dismantles the collective identity that is characteristic of modern communities while identity politics is a reaction to the dismantlement of identity. According to her, the subject, which is “rational, willing, autonomous, and self-determining,” is a production of modernity (40). The affrmation of the subject makes it possible to reify women’s experiences as sources of an unquestionable Truth, which is characteristic of modernity and liberalism. One of the tasks of postmodernity is to deconstruct the subject by “postmodern decentering, disunifying and denaturalizing of the subject” (40). The purpose of the postmodern deconstruction is to dismantle the subject. “When the notion of a unifed and coherent subject is abandoned, we not only cease to be able to speak of woman or of women in an unproblematic way, we forsake the willing, deliberate, and consenting ‘I’ that liberalism’s rationalactor model of the human being proffers, and we surrender the autonomous, rights-bearing fctional unity that liberalism promises to secure” (40). While Brown admits that gender is “a marker of subjects” and “an axis of subordination,” she questions the tactic advanced by feminist theories to convert gender to a center of foundational self. According to her, it is problematic to fx or circumscribe what “woman” is because if feminist theory does so, then it cannot distinguish its notion of women from an “autonomous, rightsbearing fctional unity that liberalism promises to secure.” In other words, if the subject is a creation of modernity and liberalism, then feminist theory in fact falls into the same camp with liberalism because it fails to challenge the historical constitution of the subject. Brown therefore connects modernity and liberalism with “the unifed and coherent subject,” in contrast to the fact that pluralities are “unwieldy and shifting” (37) to such an extent that they cannot be clearly delineated. Arguing for “separable subjects armed with established rights and identities” over “unwieldy and shifting” pluralities is

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also illegitimate for individuals who are already justifably settled in “their own habits and arguments” (37). Generalization that goes beyond those habits and arguments could transgress the boundary of “their own habits and arguments.” In her argument, Brown uses the term “plurality” in the same sense as “difference.” For instance, she states that “politics refers always to a condition of plurality and difference” (38), but sometimes she uses the term “plurality” as a feature of postmodernity to contrast the “individuality” of modernity, which insists on a coherent subject. Brown acknowledges that we can still use phrases such as “as woman,” but we should use them in a shifting sense that only lasts momentarily. As she states, Dispensing with the unifed subject does not mean ceasing to be able to speak about our experiences as women, only that our words cannot be legitimately deployed or constructed as larger or longer than the moments of the lives they speak from; they cannot be anointed as “authentic” or “true” since the experience they announce is linguistically contained, socially constructed, discursively mediated, and never just individually “had.” (40)

Brown insists that only specifc experiences count, so generalizations from the particulars are illegitimate and impossible. Generalization from specifc experiences runs the risk of reifying diversifed and lived experiences. “SHEERLY POLITICAL”: FEMINIST POLITICS WITHOUT RESSENTIMENT The common political vision that Brown argues for is the struggle for “what we want” or what “I want for us” (49, 75). She asserts that the moral ground for identity, truth, and norms is more problematic than useful because the identity and experiences of women are a contingent construction. She suggests detaching the political goal from the moral goal and arguing for a “sheerly political” struggle: “Surrendering epistemological foundations means giving up the ground of specifcally moral claims against domination—especially the avenging of strength through moral critique of it—and moving instead into the domain of the sheerly political” (45; emphasis in original). She also associates the “sheerly political” with power, and further, she observes that women’s experiences or confessions do not have higher moral values than others and women’s experiences are not devoid of power. As a result, she seems to reject both a women’s identity and the idea of an ethical standard that might be associated with it. Then what should women do with their “past of injury”? Brown suggests women learn “the virtues of ‘forgetting’” because “identity structured in

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part by ressentiment resubjugates itself through its investment in its own pain” (74). That is, if feminists continue to construct identity politics, they are going to continue investing in the pain that is associated with women’s identity. She proposes that we should prevent ourselves from thinking of feminist knowledge as untainted by power in order to live and work politically without carrying on the myths. The myths are created when we claim that there are truths in women’s experiences; therefore, they are more moral and less partial than “theirs,” which may be understood as the male’s. She asks, “Could we learn to contest domination with the strength of an alternative vision of collective life, rather than through moral reproach? In a word, could we develop a feminist politics without ressentiment?” (46; emphasis in original). The alternative that Brown presents is a purely political plan rather than one based on ontology, epistemology, or moral claims: we should cultivate “feminist postmodern political spaces” and practice “postmodern judgment” (50; emphasis in original). According to her, these political spaces are not sharply bounded or fxed but are rather open to contestation and public arguments. Different from judgments that rely on ontology or epistemology, postmodern judgments are constructed in the public realm. “Such judgments require learning how to have public conversations with each other, arguing from a vision about the common (‘what I want for us’) rather than from identity (‘who I am’), and from explicitly postulated norms and potential common values rather than from false essentialism or unreconstructed private interests” (51). That is, a political struggle in these postmodern spaces is the best approach for eliminating oppression because of its detachment from subjectivity, identity, morality, and normativity. In a sense, such a politics is a matter of power against power. As we can see, Brown focuses on the shift from ontological claims (“am” or “being”) to political ones (“wanting”). She believes that this is a “slight shift” from ontological claims to political ones, from fxed interests or experiences to desires in motion, and from “who I am” to “what I want for us.” By requiring “what I want for us,” we go beyond private interests of certain people, which are associated with self-interests in the liberal sense, to the potential common values of the public, because “what I want for us” is a desire for “a political or collective good” (75), which is different from the liberal expression of self-interest. “IN THE NAME OF WOMEN”? Brown associates reliance on the metaphysical idea of the subject with an essentialist idea of women and of an identity specifc to women. This association makes her criticism of identity politics questionable from three perspectives: (1) identity politics relies on truth claims; (2) the subject is individual

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in the liberal sense; and (3) constructing identity reinforces the injury of women. I will launch my critique of Brown’s version of category skepticism from these perspectives. First of all, Brown’s criticism is groundless when she posits that feminist standpoint theory makes truth claims. At this point, it might be useful to look into specifc feminist standpoint theorists who suggest we start our epistemological process from women’s experiences. For instance, Sandra Harding argues that some social situations, namely the situations of the oppressed, are scientifcally superior to others with respect to epistemic privilege. Harding asserts that the discursive accounts of women’s lives “provide richer resources than others for understanding natural and social worlds—that they are epistemically privileged in this sense” (2004a, 260). Harding states that the goal of her project on standpoint theory is to “study-up”; that is, to “understand the conceptual practices of dominant institutions through which their exploitation was designed, maintained, and made to seem natural and desirable to everyone” (2004b, 29). In other words, she means not only to start with but also to go beyond specifc experiences of the marginalized to disclose structures of marginalization. She proposes that new subjects of knowledge should be valued over subjects of conventional knowledge. A characteristic of new subjects is the idea of “strong refexivity” (1993, 69). That is, the subject of knowledge is considered as part of the object of knowledge. This leads to her discussion about objectivity, because strong refexivity is a resource for objectivity. However, Harding is not referring to truth when she talks about maximizing objectivity; rather, she suggests the use of “less false beliefs” instead of “truth” (2004a, 256). According to her, the benefts of using “less false beliefs” is that it does not invoke the notions of Truth in the conventional sense of the term, and it avoids the unassailable exclusiveness of being “the Truth,” or “the one true story.” In fact, what strong objectivity addresses is not an epistemological issue; rather, as Harding argues, what strong objectivity addresses is a moral and political issue. When we start off our thinking from the lives and experiences of the oppressed, we implicitly acknowledge that we are beginning with an unrecognized and unacknowledged reality. In this sense, I do not think such moral claims as Harding’s should be interpreted as truth claims in the way that Brown argues. Second, Brown fails to distinguish the subject of feminist identity politics from the unifed subject of liberalism. The subject in feminist identity politics is not “a fctional unity,” but rather a subject located and situated in the social context of power relations. If a theory advocates “the subject,” she argues, then “the subject” must be coherent and unifed, rendering the theory no different from liberalism. As she asserts, “the autonomous, right-bearing fctional unity” is what “liberalism promises to secure” (40). However, advocating the idea of the subject is not necessarily a manifestation of liberalism.

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The point of the argument is about whether or not the notion of the subject can be reformulated to include experiences of underrepresented subjects to such an extent that the subject is more inclusive and representative. Liberalism advocates an individualistic subject while feminist theorists such as Spelman and Crenshaw suggest that the notion of the subject be generalized from the concrete context where individuals are situated. As Lisa Schwartzman argues, liberalism focuses “primarily on each and every individual as an individual, rather than also calling attention to the social context and to the relations of power in which individuals live” (2006, 7). In other words, by focusing on individuals’ self-interests and by ignoring the social context of power relations, the subject in liberalism is an individual as individual rather than an individual of a social group. By contrast, the subject in feminist identity politics is a member of a social group; in this case, the social group of “women” helps to reveal the fact that women are oppressed not as individuals but as members of the social group “women.” Lastly, Brown mistakes the “injured” identity for women’s nature. I think that identity is a site of inclusion rather than exclusion, as Brown argues. She contends that speaking in terms of women only risks lapsing into a fxation on identity. However, women’s identity is a much more diverse and dynamic concept than Brown postulates and constructing women’s identity does not reinforce women’s “wounded past.” The question is to determine what the best language for characterizing gender oppression is and what the demands that challenge gender oppression would be. According to Brown, in order to cure the injury on identity, we need to avoid the notion of identity, but her argument is not convincing: it is not because identity perpetuates the “injury” but because concrete content—for instance, the past of injury—is not brought into the discussion of identity. In other words, women’s group identity is exactly where the past of injury should be scrutinized because women see more clearly the structure of gender oppression when they examine women’s experiences as a group. Brown makes use of Freud’s theory to explain how the past of injury is reinforced: a compulsion to repeat traumatic events from the past is motivated by our desire to gain control over the event, but this compulsive repetition maintains the power of the event over us by making it the organizing focus of our actions and choices. Brown also makes use of Nietzsche’s nihilism: “man” would rather will nothingness than will nothing at all; therefore, those who embrace their identity categories in fact prefer oppression to annihilation. She accepts Nietzsche’s idea and questions speaking “in the name of women,” but neither Freud’s theory nor Nietzsche’s is useful to capture the nature of feminist theories and practices. Feminists need to theorize and act in the name of women, or need explicit feminist theories and practices, in order to break through society-wide patriarchal power and to eliminate the oppression of women.

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POST-IDENTITY POLITICS Brown is correct when she points out that ressentiment, or the moralizing revenge of the powerless, should not be the driving force for feminist practices and movements. There might be conficts within feminist practices, but they are not the same as the ressentiment about which Brown speaks. Nevertheless she warns that ressentiment is not a constructive force of feminist movements. Indeed, identity politics might reinforce the “wounded attachments” that it intends to detach from. As she states, “Politicized identity thus enunciates itself, makes claims for itself, only by entrenching, restating, dramatizing, and inscribing its pain in politics; it can hold out no future—for itself or others—that triumphs over this pain” (74). However, Brown’s normative arguments are not without faws. I will address three of them here. First of all, Brown’s proposal is that by detaching from an “injured” identity and creating “feminist postmodern political spaces,” one arrives at a feminist politics that does not rely on ontology, epistemology, and moral claims. She believes that this is the most promising approach for feminism. Accordingly, Brown assumes that oppression is linked with women’s identity and if women throw off such an identity (“sites of injury”) and cultivate “postmodern political judgments,” then they would start to gain emancipation politically. Or at least she is saying that emphasizing identity is not the most effective way to challenge oppression. Yet, her standing on the issue of oppression might be built on a misunderstanding of identity. For instance, she argues that we should not and cannot go beyond specifc experiences because “our words cannot be legitimately deployed or constructed as larger or longer than the moments of the lives they speak from” (40). This argument is problematic because by rejecting such an approach of generalization as metaphysical, it is diffcult to discern what and how I want for us. In other words, if one wants to fnd out “what I want for us,” then one needs to fgure out “who are ‘us’” and “why I want this for ‘us.’” In addition, it is not clear why Brown says “what I want for us” rather than “what we want for us,” which seems inconsistent with her statement of “developing political conversation among a complex and diverse ‘we’” (51). A “sheerly political” goal needs to be backed up by purposes for certain groups of people, whose experiences cannot just remain at the level of empirical experiences. Without the ontological and epistemological support, too empirical an approach may lead to illusions or mistakes. By only focusing on the “not larger or longer than the moments” present, it is diffcult to reveal that gender oppression still persists at a structural level. For instance, individual women’s emancipation does not refect that women as a social group are emancipated. Second, forgetting the past does not really contribute to emancipation in the present and future. Brown misunderstands emancipation as the ability

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to be free from social identities and argues that we can never escape our own victimization if we attach ourselves to social identities. Yet, problems do not get solved by avoiding acknowledgment, examination, and analysis. The construction of women’s identity does not have to be caught in a cycle of power that is maintained by a repetitive compulsion, which focuses on oppression rather than empowerment. Maybe it is too soon for Brown to say that if women are oppressed, their identities cannot even be imagined to be useful for progressive feminist politics. Social identities could be sources of oppression, but they could also be sources of empowerment; that is, having a coherent concept of women in order to advance feminist demands is not a dangerous error. Women might be able to be more aware that some obstacles that they encounter have something to do with the fact that they are women. The feminist movement in the 1950s and 1960s is a good example that a refection on the “wounded past” can generate enormous drive and power toward women’s emancipation. If feminists only focus on the “now” and the “present,” as Brown suggests, then they might miss the connection between similar oppressive phenomena in which women are victimized. That is, they might not be able to look at gender oppression in a macroscopic way. Lastly, the postmodernist denial of the ontological possibility or its political justifcation on a priori grounds is unfruitful to feminist projects. Thinkers who characterize themselves as postmodernists often argue that social categories are unreal, or “fctional” using Brown’s term, and it is impossible to construct a category of women because a set of necessary and suffcient conditions for the category of women cannot be provided. The academic feminists’ “postmodern turn,” by engaging in a rhetoric of anti-essentialism, is in part a fight from direct, interactive, and responsible engagement with politics on behalf of certain social groups such as women. Postmodern feminists’ distance from the meaningful work of gender construction misleads feminist practices to a certain extent. As I read Brown, her attempt to detach “a wounded identity” from women’s theories and practices might provide her a more comfortable intellectual terrain politically because she dissolves issues such as racial identity into the “sheerly political” struggle. Postmodern feminists like Brown have yet to show how we can turn feminist theories into sites for engaging interactions between women of dominating groups and women of marginalized groups. Indeed, the “sheerly political” struggle that Brown proposes involves active engagement of an “I” and “us,” but identity politics, which, for example, can help to explain who “us” are, is also crucial for feminist projects. A postmodernist approach, say, the focus on demands rather than identity as Brown argues, is unable to address the problems that came up in chapter 1; that is, the gap between different groups of women, for instance, middle-class and poor, elite and subaltern. Some kind of binding

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identifcation is needed to connect women from different social positions together. In this case, identity draws from shared, though not the same, experiences of oppression. Brown seems to claim that her view is based on experiences rather than ontological and moral claims that can become ideological. However, experiences are not necessarily at odds with ontological and moral norms in the way that Brown suggests. For instance, women’s identity does not solidify women’s experiences nor does it imply that women’s experiences have more moral values than those of others, but rather, it utilizes women’s experiences to reveal gender oppression as a general social phenomenon. For instance, despite the troubled past of how gender issues were treated, Chinese women collectively experienced dramatic changes of their gendered identity post-1949. Although it was the result of a strategic and political move of the State to liberate women, Chinese women nevertheless gained a certain level of freedom and rights. In this sense, identity politics is necessary and women’s injured past does not prevent them from obtaining autonomy as women collectively. Wang Zheng (2016) uncovers the work and ideas of socialist feminists in 1950s China. In the 1950s, female offcials of the Shanghai Women’s Federation visited neighborhoods to organize women, most of them housewives, to get them involved in the women’s liberation movement. Women, both offcials and housewives, called each other jiemeimen (sisters) and they contributed to socialist feminists’ goal of women’s “thorough” liberation and commitment to the “masses” of women. Moreover, Brown’s argument may not be as postmetaphysical as she claims. It seems that the “difference” or “plurality” that Brown talks about is more abstract than the “difference” that Spelman and Crenshaw discuss in the previous two chapters. While Spelman and Crenshaw talk about differences among women’s oppression, which is an empirical observation, Brown seems to talk about a general and abstract “difference,” which is a metaphysical generalization of differences among women’s oppression. For instance, Brown states, “Postidentity political positions and conversations potentially replace a politics of difference with a politics of diversity—difference grasped from a perspective larger than simply one point in an ensemble” (51). It would help if Brown could explicitly connect the term of “injury” to the theme of women’s oppression. It is clear that if women are “victims” of “injuries,” these “injuries” must have something to do with gender oppression. In this sense, Brown is concerned with the same issue as Spelman and Crenshaw are, but, perhaps, from a more metaphysical perspective though she is claiming to be resolutely anti-metaphysical or postmetaphysical. However, language seems to commit one to an ontology whether she likes it or not, and it is not exceptional in Brown’s case. It is not clear whether this sort of aversion to identity has something to do with the assumed connection between identity

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and overgeneralization. As I argued in chapter 1, it seems that Spelman confates the issue of women’s identity with the issue of overgeneralization. The relation between the issue of identity and the issue of overgeneralization is that they are the metaphysical and the empirical expressions of the same effort—the effort to have a sweeping grasp of women as a whole. However, the issue of identity is a more legitimate concern not because it is metaphysical but because it can be talked about using generalization though not overgeneralization. The idea of category and its relation to identity can be demonstrated as claiming that a social category of women is equal to confrming that women have a collective identity. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have critically examined postmodernist gender skepticism—a style of feminist anti-essentialist responses to the “problem of difference”—and I have argued against it because it denies the possibility of gender categorization, though I am quite in agreement with Brown’s goal of political struggle and I understand why she holds such a postmodern view. Gender skepticism arose as a response to the “problem of difference” among the debates over essentialism. It questioned the normative standpoint that early second-wave feminists developed for criticizing and challenging the existing oppression of women. As a “difference critique,” gender skepticism has a theoretical and political legacy for feminism, but it also has its faws. I presented Brown’s denial of the necessity of the notion of “women,” and I argued that Brown’s alternative to women’s identity is unfruitful because a sheerly political “us” is too indefnite to capture the collective gender oppression that women experience. Through criticizing Brown’s version of gender skepticism, I argued that gender skepticism is groundless because its skepticism of the “essentialist foundation” of feminist identity politics does not threaten the possibility of the category of women. So far, we have touched on various but connected themes, for instance, the issue of conceptualization, the problem of overgeneralization, the reliance on metaphysical assumptions, and the need to test concepts by experience but not descend into empiricism. These themes are intellectual points of reference and they connect with practical or political issues. We are implicitly touching on how the project of solidarity requires not only conceptual resources but also some sense of interests or values that allow for a sense of the emergence of solidarity in the midst of its absence. I argued that the relation between this emergence and our conceptualization of gender oppression is linked to gender among other social relations. The idea of women as a group needs to be considered in a more fexible way both metaphysically and politically.

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That is, if we think of women as a group, it does not necessarily mean the category of “women” is an abstract concept that ignores experiential differences among women. Some feminists insist on the necessity of identity politics in the midst of the feminist “difference critique” and postmodernist skepticism over category and identity. For example, Marilyn Frye offers a fruitful way to construct a social category of women considering differences among women, which I will explore in the next chapter.

Chapter 4

Women’s Identity and the Necessity of Differences

In this chapter, I consider how to construct a category in a way that is consistent with recognizing differences among women, which leads to my argument that the category of women should be constructed in a way that refects women’s differences, accommodates the relationship between power and categorization, and contributes to women’s collaboration. However, by arguing for the category of women, I do not intend to reproduce overgeneralization and universal claims. I present Marilyn Frye’s critical analysis and normative views on the issue of gender categorization and I draw on her proposal of constructing a useful category of women by working differences into a structure. Frye points out that plural identity should be categorized as a practice of pluralism in a logically positive category construction, in which genuine subjectivities A: B displace the A/not-A pseudo-dualism. She argues that plural identities are loci of political solidarity and coalition-building and that the category of women does not have to be defned by a set of necessary and suffcient conditions. Frye’s solution—the category of women should be constructed through multilayered correlations—sets an example of how the concept of women can be generalized within women’s differences. In her theory of constructing a logically positive category of women, Frye claims that the category of “women” should be demonstrated by images such as an individual woman located in “a correlational density in a multidimensional quality space” (2005b, 46). I argue that a category of women is necessary for feminist projects and that it is not essentialist to make use of one through a discussion of the relationship between essentialism and ethnocentrism. The debates over essentialism often confate essentialism with ethnocentrism because of the misunderstanding of these two terms. Then I elaborate on the connection between the construction of the category of women, the relational identity, the politics of difference, and the advancement of women’s 55

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solidarity. I conclude that women’s identity constructed in the way that Frye proposes would be helpful for diverting feminism from the debates over essentialism and would refocus it on feminist gender justice. POSITIVE CATEGORIZATION OF WOMEN Frye launches her argument about a category of women with a clear articulation of her objective: [I am] working to re-conceptualize social categories (or at least some kinds of social categories, identity categories) in such a way as to make some kind of “identity politics” both cognitively and politically intelligible. I have thought of the task as “re-metaphoring” or “re-imaging” what social categories are, in order to dissolve the category skepticism that has been expressed in feminist, queer and race theory, and to promote a pluralist ontological imagination that can accommodate the multiplicity of identity. (2005a, 1)

Frye’s project directly addresses the skepticism of identity politics that I talked about in the discussion of Brown. Frye’s mission is to reconceptualize women’s identity to accommodate differences. Frye argues that thinking of “women” as an Aristotelian species or defning “women” as members of a set are unacceptable ways of conceptualizing women. According to her, Aristotle’s idea of species has long been a paradigm case of category: species are defned in an Aristotelian fashion “as a natural category delimited by a distinctive combination of innate traits that constitute the essence of each individual in the category” (1996, 997 n9). That is, if we follow the distinction of species, all individuals will be sorted into discrete kinds. For instance, men and women would be two species each with a distinctive combination of natural features that are biologically determined. To defne women as members in a set, on the other hand, means that individual women share a set of properties or attributes, which are the necessary and suffcient conditions of being members of the set. Frye argues that the twin approaches of “species” and “sets” are two different examples—the material and the abstract modes—of the same container image, in which social categories are imagined as in a space with boundaries fxed by necessary and suffcient conditions and as containing homogenous content within these boundaries. The container logic encourages one to sort individuals as members and nonmembers by going through the list of necessary and suffcient conditions for membership. The container logic is “a metaphor that embodies the worst of both images, sets and species (even on a nonessentialist construal of species)” and “like the image of a species, it blocks thinking

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of one individual as a member of more than one category; like the image of a set, it locks in the picture of a fxed and fxing boundary” (2005b, 49–50). In order to encourage “thinking of one individual as a member of more than one category,” Frye advocates a practice of pluralism in a logically positive category construction, in which genuine pluralist subjectivities A: B displace the A/not-A pseudo-dualism. In the dichotomy of categorization A/not-A, “what A is” is defned by its negation “what A is not.” This kind of duality is inappropriate because it presumes that individuals who have a set of “A” properties are members of the category “A” and casts the remainder into the “not-A” category. The A/not-A is pseudo-dualism because it does not divide the world into two equal parts. “When woman is defned as not-man, she is cast into the infnite undifferentiated plenum. The man/not-man dichotomy makes no distinctions on the not-man side. This helps make it so ‘natural’ to lump women indiscriminately with children in ‘women and children’ and to cast ‘nature’ (which is another name of not-man) as a woman and woman as nature” (1996, 1000). Frye argues that the A/not-A dualism is objectionable because it distorts the condition or makeup of women and it prevents women from being a category by lumping them with other not-man matters. She claims that plurality identity can be and should be conceptualized, but it should be categorized neither as species nor as set membership. Rather, it is genuine pluralist categorization, in which the category is constructed positively in a logical sense because each subjectivity “A” or “B” is selfsupporting and self-defning rather than being constructed by contrast with its negation as what happens in A/not-A. Because a category is constructed not against its negation but rather in a self-supporting way, Frye labels it “a positive category,” in which “positive” is defned in a logical sense instead of an ethical sense. In the positive categorization, what makes a category discrete in the otherwise undifferentiated space and what makes A as A is not essential sameness or attributes, but rather a principle of coherence or a structure. According to Frye, structure is a set of relations that stand between individuals, who are different from each other in a substantial way. It is the presence of internal structure that establishes the setting off of a thing or a sort of thing (a category) from its environment. Structure is a set of relations, and relations stand between differentiated individuals. Structure requires that the things structured are not all alike; it also gives salience to some features and aspects of the things it structures. It gives differential signifcance to different properties and relations of the things it structures. (1996, 1001; emphasis in original)

That is to say, a category is constructed by working differences into structure, rather than sorting things according to a list of properties and attributes.

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The structure requires that the elements that it arranges be in a signifcant variety of relations with each other and that they have internal complexity; thus difference of any specifc kind is preserved and organized. Frye claims that her idea of structure offers a way of conceptualizing women that neither relies on the idea of an essence nor ignores signifcant differences among women. Therefore, having an internal structure as necessary for a category does not imply that the category is an essence. According to her, both essentialism and anti-essentialism work within the same logic—the logic of the container. The reasoning of anti-essentialism runs like this: A category is equal to a set of attributes; therefore, it is equal to an essence. If a category of women is constructed by a set of attributes shared by all and only the members of the category, that is, an essence, then it makes sense to take the stance of anti-essentialism. Frye argues that a category of women does not ignore differences among women. In other words, commonalities, likeness, and sameness among women are not what construct women’s identity. According to her, the logic of difference works like this: if there were no difference, then there would be no structure for differences; if there were no structure, then there would be no category. That is, differences and structures are central to category construction. In Frye’s words, the construction of a positive category of women is one of the varieties of “the practice of differences” (1996, 1007). The A/not-A pseudo-dichotomy makes it diffcult to understand how an individual can be a member of more than one category simultaneously. For instance, category construction involving both gender and race turns out to be diffcult, but Frye’s solution is that the category of women should be demonstrated by images such as individual women located in “a correlational density in a multidimensional quality space” (2005b, 46). That is, the category of women is constructed through multilayered correlations. In a sense, this is a matter of overlapping clusters of similarities and differences among women. The positive category of women does not have built-in exclusivity or closure against other identity categories, so it does not preclude self-constructive involvement in others. For instance, gender can be conceived around social dimensions such as race, class, and culture. In this way, it would not be a problem to understand “Black women,” “female immigrant worker,” or “Chinese-American women” as long as one understands that they are also humanistic overgeneralizations. ESSENTIALISM VERSUS ETHNOCENTRISM REVISITED Frye argues that feminist responses to the “problem of difference,” such as postmodernist gender skepticism, produce numerous theoretical constructs based on a misleading set-rhetoric. She suggests that the immediate attention

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and research energy of feminism should be spent on liberating our conceptions of categories from the confnes of the container metaphor rather than on anti-essentialism. According to Frye, gender itself is an extremely important category of analysis because plural and curdled identities are effective locations for formulating feminist political solidarity and coalitions. To her, defning “women” does not necessarily commit one to essentialism. Frye defnes essences as such: “The world is ultimately constituted of entities each of which exists independently of all others: for instance, Plato’s Forms, Aristotle’s individual substances. . . . Each such entity has a distinctive identity. . . . It is what it is in virtue of one of more intrinsic, innate, structured-in or inborn properties (like rationality and animality), which are its Essence” (2005b, 48). According to this defnition, essences are what make things what they are, but Frye states that there are no essences, and essentialism is false rather than problematic. She points out that feminist theoretical and political efforts produce problematic generalization rather than make a commitment to an essence. These efforts include constructing false unitary pictures of identities, creating social categories that operate as normative constructs, or constructing categories to give some politically dominant group paradigmatic status. A good deal of discussion about sexist, racist, or ethnocentric constructions of human and of woman uses the vocabulary of “center” and “margin.” I am suggesting here that it is useful at least for some purposes to think of this “centering” and “marginalizing” as someone constructing the category of humans or persons as a paradigm-case category, with him- or herself and a small number of folk s/he identifes with located as the paradigm case governing the category. (2005b, 58 n10)

It is no surprise that once again we are in the middle of discussing essentialism, which constantly occupies feminist discourse through to the present day. Frye’s take on essentialism is similar to the one that I outlined earlier in chapter 1. Frye argues that critics of essentialism often confate essentialism with ethnocentrism. What she means is that feminists who argue in ways that others criticize as essentialist, such as Spelman considering Friedan as essentialist, are really criticizing them for being ethnocentric; that is, Friedan is ethnocentric rather than essentialist. Frye defnes “ethnocentrism”: “What is wrong in some of the cases of problematic generalization to be found in some feminist theorizing is that the theorist has situated herself, or her family, or her culture as a paradigm case that structures a paradigm-case type of category. I am inclined to think that this kind of construction is central to much of the thought and perception that we call ‘ethnocentric.’ . . . But it is not essentialism” (2005b, 51; emphasis in original). According to Frye, “essentialism” (whose meaning varies depending on who is using it) is not

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the problem, but “ethnocentrism” is. For instance, when Friedan argues that the solution to women’s oppression is to seek an identity through professional work, she is actually making an ethnocentric argument, taking the situation of women like her as the paradigm case of all women. In other words, Friedan is not claiming that staying at home or working outside the house is the essence of women, but rather she is taking her experience as the paradigm case of all women. “AS WOMEN”: VARIABILITY OF WOMEN’S OPPRESSION AND FLUIDITY OF WOMEN’S IDENTITY Both Frye’s and Brown’s discussions of feminist identity politics address the issue of essentialism. Frye’s proposal addresses concerns of feminists who engage in the “difference critique,” and in particular, their concerns about essentialism. Whereas Brown worries that feminist identity politics is derived from a politically, if not ontologically, essentialist foundation, I agree with Frye that the charge of essentialism is misleading and thus unfruitful for feminist projects. In fact, a feminist category of women can be free from the essentialist charge and capture both the variability and the dynamics of women. Frye’s account of positive category construction helps feminists move forward with the discussion of “difference.” Her proposal of constructing pluralist subjectivities in “the practice of differences” addresses concerns with which feminists are engaged when they launch the “difference critique.” The feminist philosophers that I have discussed to this point are all concerned with how feminists should fnd a way to consider differences among women. Frye’s proposal emphasizes the particularity of different contexts that women inhabit, which is a point that Spelman and Crenshaw bring to our attention. We can generalize about women without claiming an essence for them, so it is theoretically misleading and unnecessary to dismiss all generalization and categorization as essentializing. Frye’s construction of a positive category of women offers an example of how the concept of women depicts the variability of women’s oppressions and allows for the fuidity of women’s identity, therefore helping to make change in the conditions of women imaginable. That is, it is possible to generate a notion of gender that would be a general concept, yet not susceptible to what people fnd problematic when they label positions as “essentialist.” Rather than thinking about essences of women, we might think of gender as a structure of oppression that has general features that take very different forms in different cultures and societies. Some may wonder what is built into the “structure” of gender relations and argue that there is a latent essentialism there. However, according to Frye, what is built

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into this structure are differences and essence simply does not exist. That is, essentialism is a false accusation. Frye’s construction of a positive category of women offers a way to generalize women, so it is an example of how the fallacy associated with essentialism is corrected. That is, a concept of women should not be based on the traditional concept of essence because the oppression of women manifests itself in such varied forms that no single concept grasps the various oppressions that all women experience. This indicates what is problematic about generalization is that it is diffcult to consider all possible situations in the generalization. Yet we need to make it clear that generalization is not the same as essentialism. Frye argues that the plurality identity should not be categorized as set membership. Some may ask whether there are any ways in which we can speak of all women sharing certain distinctive characteristics. For instance, generalizations of women often center on reproduction, which is only relevant to some women and only for part of their lives. This sort of generalization can leave out transgender women, as well as hetero- and lesbian women with no interest or inclination in reproducing. Frye’s version of valid generalization obviously goes beyond this sort of reduction of biological properties. She does not in any way claim an identity of women based on the presumption that women are inferior to men. Frye’s proposal also shows that it is intellectually misleading to insist that feminists give up the category of gender—the intellectual grounding for feminist theories and practices (as Brown argues). That is, it is theoretically unhelpful to automatically dismiss any generalization and categorization as essentializing. In addition, such generalization and categorization embody an emancipated or emancipating vocabulary with which one could envision the feminist goal of overcoming gender oppression. It is ethnocentrism, rather than essentialism, that presupposes that a universal category is necessary or inescapable, similar to the way standards of justifcation, moral principles, or truth are said to be universal regardless of culture and class, without awareness of their limitations. While Frye states, “Women are oppressed, as women” (1983, 16; emphasis in original), Spelman believes that phrases such as “as women” ignore or obscure differences among women. However, it is theoretically incorrect to suspect any systematic marking of difference or any generalization as being “exclusive” and “essentialist.” It is incorrect to assume that categorizing, per se, is essentializing. The “problem of difference,” which is depicted as a battle against essentialism, seems to have a two-sided aspect: on the one hand, oppression cannot be discussed without the normative discussion of its background; on the other hand, thinking of category as an Aristotelian essence or a set membership constrains some feminists from category construction. Yet, if one is simply questioning the specifc claim that there is some categorization improper to

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women, they do not have to deny categories in general. In the debates over essentialism, these two distinctive views are criticized without a clear distinction; thus some useful feminist theories are criticized rashly. It is unhelpful that some claims, such as Friedan’s, confne feminist discussions to issues that are perceived as common to all women independent of race, culture, and other social factors. It is also unhelpful that feminists relinquish the category of gender, which could be the intellectual grounding for feminist theories and practices. The claim that “women are oppressed in different forms” is not in confict with the claim that “there is a category of women.” In other words, a category of women is necessary for feminist projects and it is not essentialist to use such a category. In my opinion, the oppressions suffered by different women should be described as intermeshed or enmeshed to capture the inseparability of one oppressive factor from another. For example, a woman faculty member from a different cultural origin might look at her identity as interplay of multiple factors, such as gender, culture, national origin, and institution. More often than not, she is perceived not simply as an individual but because she is a member of a subgroup of women who are marginalized in more than one dimension. She is not necessarily marginalized at the intersection of all these factors with assumingly clear boundaries, but rather the marginalization she experiences is the product of the interaction of these dimensions, and possibly some hybrid of discriminating factors is generated in the interaction. In this sense, I believe it is helpful to consider women’s identity in a threedimensional network in which the assumingly oppressive factors cannot be separated from each other and some of them are invisible. Frye uses the metaphor of the birdcage to depict the experiences of oppressed people (1983, 4–5). According to her, only if one stops looking at the wire one by one microscopically and takes a macroscopic view of the whole cage, can they see why the bird cannot escape the cage: “It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its fight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confning as the solid walls of a dungeon” (5; emphasis in original). In other words, instead of simply studying the elements of an oppressive structure, the structure as a whole, where “the various element of the situation as systematically related in larger schemes” (7), should be examined. “When you look macroscopically you can see it—a network of forces and barriers which are systematically related and which conspire to the immobilization, reduction and molding of women and the lives we live” (7). This birdcage metaphor helps us “notice that in fact women of all races and classes are together in a ghetto of sorts” (9; emphasis in original). This has to do with women’s membership in the category of women: “One is marked for application of oppressive pressures by one’s

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membership in some group or category. Much of one’s suffering and frustration befalls one partly or largely because one is a member of that category. In the case, it is the category, women” (15–16; emphasis in original). Frye further states why women are oppressed as women due to our membership in the category of women: “Women are oppressed, as women. Members of certain racial and/or economic groups and classes, both the males and the females, are oppressed as members of those races and/or classes. But men are not oppressed as men . . . and isn’t it strange that any of us should have been confused and mystifed about such a simple thing” (16; emphasis in original). The inseparable structure of oppression makes it necessary for feminists to build a structural resistance to oppression. A structural resistance to gender oppression requires theoretical tools and practical goals. On the one hand, the category of women is crucial for creating such a structural resistance because (1) women are oppressed as women and it is important to be able to theorize what “as women” means even when they are oppressed in different ways; and (2) women’s oppression is experienced collectively rather than individually even if it takes distinctive forms. On the other hand, the category of women is crucial for creating such a structural resistance because women need to be aware that only when they unify as women can they resist women’s oppression as women despite their race, class, and cultural differences. Here, the “structure” in terms of oppression and resistance refers to the intermeshed social relations. “As women” means that women experience intermeshed and structural oppression collectively, but it also implies that as women we possess the potential for emancipation. In this sense, the feminist movement needs solidarity, which points out how change in women’s situations is possible with the consideration of the social structure of power relations. RELATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE Frye is not the only feminist philosopher who addresses the correlational identity of women. Discussions of the metaphysical aspect of women’s relational self can be found in Jennifer Radden’s idea of the individual relational self (1996), Sara Ruddick’s conception of the “relational self” (1989), and Catriona Mackenzie’s and Natalie Stoljar’s collection on relational autonomy, interdependence, and the social self (2000). It seems that these authors internalize feminist “web” images. For example, Mackenzie and Stoljar challenge the conviction that the notion of individual autonomy is fundamentally individualistic and rationalistic. They draw on aspects of the feminist critique of autonomy to reconceptualize and confgure the concept of individual autonomy from a feminist perspective (2000). They call the refgured concept

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of individual autonomy “relational autonomy.” The term “relational autonomy” is an umbrella term designating a range of related perspectives, which are premised on a shared conviction that “persons are socially embedded” and that “agents’ identities are formed within the context of social relationships and shaped by a complex of intersecting social determinants, such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity” (4). Thus, the focus of relational approaches is to analyze the implications of the intersubjective and social dimensions of selfhood and identity. The idea of interdependence is also visible in moral and political theories such as care ethics. For example, Eva Feder Kittay (1999) argues for a “connection-based equality which is grounded in our understanding of ourselves as inherently related to others” (70). To her, dependency is an essential aspect of our existence because we are inherently related to others. Human interconnectedness should not be dismissed because “our dependency is not only an exceptional circumstance” (29; emphasis in original). People who care should be cared for; for example, a dependency worker or a parent should be cared for. This reminds me of an important aspect of Chinese family and social relationship xiao (flial piety). For instance, Zhang Xianglong (2007) argues that phenomenologically speaking, the consciousness of flial piety can only be really constituted by a human being’s personal experience. Filial piety is important because its practices recognize rather than deny one’s formation from total dependence. In addition, group identity and the politics of difference are crucial to understand how individuals are located unequally in a “web” of interrelations. For instance, women are located asymmetrically in the “web” that is knit by the social structure of power relations. As Sonia Kruks argues, identity politics departs from the politics of recognition because the former demands for “recognition on the basis of the very grounds on which recognition has previously been denied: it is qua women, qua blacks, qua lesbians that groups demand recognition” (2001, 85; emphasis in original). She considers “difference” as important as “group identity” in understanding identity politics because a group demanding recognition is not making a demand “for inclusion within the fold of ‘universal humankind,’ on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect ‘in spite of’ one’s differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself as different” (85; emphasis in original). That is, they demand recognition as groups on the basis that groups are different from an assumed universal humankind. Similar to Kruks, in Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), Iris M. Young emphasizes the importance of group identity in the politics of difference. Young delineates a concept of social group. To her, “a social group is a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by cultural forms, or way of life” and in a group, members have “a specifc affnity with one another because of their similar experience or way of life, which prompts them to associate

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with one another more than with those not identifed with the group, or in a different way” (43). Like Kruks, Young also cautions against understanding group identity on the basis of shared attributes: “A social group is defned not primarily by a set of shared attributes”; rather, it is defned by “a sense of identity,” or by “identifcation with a certain social status, the common history that social status produces, and self-identifcation” (44). Young argues that a social group is critical for one’s identity because “group meanings partially constitute people’s identities in terms of the cultural forms, social situation, and history that group members know as theirs” (44). Young agrees with Frye that oppression is structural rather than the result of individuals’ choices or policies. She quotes Frye that structural oppression names “an enclosing structure of forces and barriers which extends to the mobilization and reduction of a group or category of people” (Frye 1983, 11). Young argues that “in this extended structural sense oppression refers to the vast and deep injustices some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions, media and cultural stereotype” (41). Moreover, “Groups are real not as substances, but as forms of social relations” (44). As forms of social relations, group identity is not static but fows: “Group identity is constructed from a fowing process in which individuals identify themselves and others in terms of groups, and thus group identity itself fows and shifts with changes in social process” (172). It is clear that both Young and Kruks differentiate a relational group identity from group identity as a set of shared attributes. In addition, conceptualizing groups in a “relational and fuid fashion” helps to understand social group difference, or group differentiation (Young, 47). Contrary to the understanding of self as autonomous and unifed, group differentiation needs to be considered as “multiple, cross-cutting, fuid, and shifting” (48). Group differentiation understood in this way explains why “all persons have multiple group identifcations” (48). Consistent with a relational understanding of group identity, there is an alternative to “an essentializing, stigmatizing meaning of difference as opposition” and the alternative is “an understanding of difference as specifcity, variation” (171). A relational understanding of difference does not mark marginalized groups as “different” from privileged groups; instead, it emphasizes that privileged groups are as specifc as marginalized groups: A relational understanding of difference relativizes the previously universal position of privileged groups, which allows only the oppressed to be marked as different. When group difference appears as a function of comparison between groups, whites are just as specifc as Blacks or Latinos, men just as specifc as women, able-bodied people just as specifc as disabled people. Difference thus emerges not as a description of the attributes of a group, but as a function of the relations between groups and the interaction of groups with institutions. (171)

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There is no universal humankind as a reference point from which groups are marked as different or deviant. Privileged groups are not reference points either. In a relational understanding of difference, meanings of “difference” and “identity” are contextualized and as a result, “in our complex, plural society, every social group has group differences cutting across it, which are potential sources of wisdom, excitement, confict, and oppression” (172–73). Later, in Inclusion and Democracy (2002), Young further argues for “relationally constituted structural differentiations” (7). She claims that we need to conceptualize social groups according to social difference, but social difference should not be reduced to identity. The reason is that identity relies on a logic of substance or a logic of identity to conceptualize groups, under which “a group is defned by a set of essential attributes that constitute its identity as a group” (87). By contrast, social groups should be conceptualized according to a relational logic, under which “individuals construct their own identities on the basis of social group positioning” (82). In other words, Young advocates a relational understanding of difference and rejects a static and essentializing understanding of identity as a set of attributes. Insisting on a relational understanding of identity avoids reifcation of group difference: “By conceiving social group differentiation in relational rather than substantial terms, we can retain a description of social group differentiation, but without fxing or reifying groups” (89). Underlying the distinction between a relational group identity and a reifed group identity is whether group identity consists of a set of attributes, as Frye criticizes. I argued earlier that group identity should not be constituted by a set of attributes and group identity is compatible with “difference” and a relational logic. Groups are overlapping and individuals can be members of multiple social groups at the same time because a relational understanding of group differentiation does not “designate clear conceptual and practical borders that distinguish all members of one group decisively from members of others” (Young 90–91). Individuals are interconnected as members of different groups. As “a function of relation, comparison, and interaction,” group differentiation “allows for overlap, interspersal, and interdependence among groups and their members” (91). Young constructs an account of gender difference as structural difference, in which “gender difference as structured by a set of relationships and interactions that act together to produce specifc possibilities and preclude others, and which operate in a reinforcing circle” (93). Then a social group is a structural social group, which is “a collection of persons who are similarly positioned in interactive and institutional relations that condition their opportunities and life prospects” (97). Positioning is essential to illustrate how social groups are structured because we then can understand “individuals as conditioned by their positioning in relation to social groups without their constituting individual identities” (102). It is through interaction

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of different social markers in the “web” of interrelations that one’s identity is formulated. As Young states, “A person’s identity is not some sum of her gender, racial, class, and national affnities”; rather, “she is only her identity, which she herself has made by the way that she deals with and acts in relation to others [sic] social positions, among other things” (102). Some scholars try to utilize the idea of intersectionality to grasp the complexity of relational identity discussed above. For instance, Ann Garry pairs intersectionality with a Wittgenstinian family resemblance analysis of the “identity categories,” which, in her understanding, is “a safe and useful framework without dangerous implications of gender proliferation or theory fragmentation” (2011, 844). Garry contends that although feminist philosophers tend to give intersectionality “lip service,” they often fail to “construct theories that integrate the insights brought to bear by intersectional analyses” (826). Yet, she advises not asking too much of the concept of intersectionality because “it is neither a methodology nor a theory of power or oppression”; rather, “it provides a framework or strategy for thinking about issues, a set of reminders to look at a wider range of oppressions and privileges to consider their mutual construction or at least their intermeshing (if these are different)” (844). A family resemblance explains “what women are” in spite of differences among them. In Garry’s words, “A family resemblance view acknowledges that although there is nothing—neither a property, an experience, nor an interest—that all women have in common, we know what a woman is and who women are because of crisscrossing, overlapping characteristics that are clear within social contexts” (838–39). Garry believes that the combination of intersectionality and family resemblance is an appropriate approach “for thinking about women, men, Latinos, Anglos, gay men, or transwomen” (838). The issue of transwomen’s identity deserves feminist philosophers’ attention as much as other topics and, in particular, it is of interest to think transwomen’s impact on non-trans people. For instance, Alexis Shotwell and Trevor Sangrey argue that “trans and genderqueer people affect the gender formation and identity of non-trans people” (2009, 56). It is because “identifcation is always relational” that “gender ‘crossing’ . . . affects the gender formation and identity of people other than the trans or genderqueer person” (56). Using “trans” as an umbrella term, they observe a troublesome tendency of focusing on trans and genderqueer people’s identity, which regards their identity either “as a generalized gender menace” or “a generalized gender salvation” (57). Against this tendency, they argue for “a feminist relational model of selfhood” (58), which helps us “understand how and why trans existence shifts the self-formation of people who do not identify as transsexual, transgender, or genderqueer,” and why it is problematic to see “the specifc anxieties, excitements, and desires projected onto trans identity in terms of

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the projector’s identity” (57). In other words, the issue of trans people’s identity should not be looked at only when they are singled out as if they were “different” from “us,” and thus are being treated as specifcs of a universal humankind. “It is a mistake to framework relational gender formation as appearing only when trans people step onto the gendered stage,” because “the complex movement through which we unfold ourselves is constitutionally in part dependent on others” and “it is through and with others that we are gendered, racialized, sexed, made able-bodied or disabled, classed, and so on” (70). It is helpful to think not only how non-trans people are different from trans people but also how trans people and non-trans people connect with and infuence each other. “Identity and identifcation is therefore a sticky process” because gender normalization can be a form of gender oppression, in which one’s identity “might be called into question as a disjuncture widens between her self-identifcation and how she is labeled” (71). The result is a dilemma between a self-identifed identity and a socially perceived identity. A concept of “identifcation-with” might help to resolve this kind of dilemma. Allison Weir advocates “a relational model of identifcation” (2008, 125), which suggests there should be “a shift from a focus on identity as category to a focus on identifcation-with” (111). Similar to Kruks and Young among others, Weir criticizes a reifcation of identity as category—a set of attributes. According to Weir, a shift to “identifcation-with” is a shift “from a metaphysical to an ethical and political model of identity” and “from a static to a relational model” (111). She claims that identity as “identifcation-with” is overshadowed by a focus on identity as category “in part because of a false belief that these identifcations commit us to a conformity to some preexisting identity category” (111). Under the umbrella of “identifcation-with,” in her understanding, are “identifcation with others, identifcation with values and ideals, identifcation with ourselves, as individuals and as collectives” (111). In the end, “We can understand ourselves to be united in webs of interconnection by both relations of power and relations of identifcation” (126; emphasis in original). By connecting “relations of power” and “relations of identifcation,” Weir hopes to “combine our need to risk engagement with difference, and to recognize our positions in relations to power, with our need to be held together—both as individuals and as collectives” (126). FEASIBILITY AND NECESSITY OF CATEGORY CONSTRUCTION Engagement with “difference” and recognition of positionality in relation to power are both crucial to grasp the necessity of differences in discussions of women’s group identity. In this sense, I think Frye’s proposal for constructing

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a positive category of women reveals the connection between category and power in a way of exercising of power-with, rather than a way of exercising of power-over in the universal dichotomous category construction. It is important to recognize that it is the exclusive dichotomy that splits the category of women into fragments. Brown suggests a shift from ontological arguments to political claims as if once claimed as political, a project automatically accommodates differences and is thus collective. As a matter of fact, ontological arguments and political claims coexist: making ontological arguments does not mean these arguments are anti-political. At the same time, claiming something to be political, as Brown rightly argues, might entail the community, and thus collectivity. Yet, when feminists theorize, they should keep political goals in mind. The construction of a logically positive category of women as a way to think outside of the container logic has a politically constructive impact on feminist practices, because if differences and differentiation are logically necessary for the category construction, then they must be necessary for women’s collective activities. In other words, women are in collaboration with each other not because they are the same, but rather because they are different with respect to their experiences of gender oppression. I agree with Frye that problematic generalization may indicate ethnocentrism instead of essentialism. However, whether there is an intentional motivation of the error—ethnocentrism—is not an issue. Rather, the point is that it is inaccurate to characterize all generalizations as essentialism and thus it is problematic to reject generalizations about women. It is fair to ask why the real problem in the “difference critique” is ethnocentrism (as Frye argues), rather than essentialism or some other error. In what follows, I will examine the relationship between essentialism and ethnocentrism and further explore the feminist “difference critique.” In addition, I will argue that Frye’s proposal for constructing a positive category of women while considering differences among women would provide theoretical support, and in so doing, prove why the collaboration of women from different backgrounds is both necessary and possible. Why do critics of essentialism confate essentialism with ethnocentrism? Why does the anti-essentialist critique take the form of accusing some feminists of believing in essence while what these feminists actually do is to privilege the experience of some women over those of other women? Why is it damaging for feminists to focus on essentialism rather than ethnocentrism? There are two problems with ethnocentric perspectives: (1) they are too narrow in their concept of women, and display an inability or lack of incentive to relate to others beyond one’s ethnicity; and (2) they assume that the generalization of situations applies to all women. Here we may face more of a practical issue rather than one of metaphysics because it becomes an issue of how to make valid generalization. At the same time, critics of essentialism

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claim that the mistaken views condemned as essentialist need to be replaced by different theoretical approaches at a comparable level of generality. Still we might ask whether charging an argument as essentialist makes it less ethnocentric, and whether “essentialism” and “ethnocentrism” are two different positions confused by those who challenge them. Imputing an essence of women may serve a view whose most signifcant faw is ethnocentrism, but saying one’s view is ethnocentric does not necessarily imply whether the essence that it imputes to women is acceptable or not. Anti-essentialist feminist critics do not specify what they mean by “essence,” so I take them to mean that they assume a view that cultural/ racial/class biases have something to do with feminist “essentialism.” For instance, Friedan can be accused of looking at women through the lens of a white middle-class suburban culture in the United States in the 1950s. Namely, along the line of the “essentialist” accusation, ethnocentrism can be suspected as the essence of western culture. What anti-essentialism argues against is ethnocentrism or essentialism, which implies that essentialism is the same as ethnocentrism; or they simply mistake cultural bias for essence. When Frye argues that a person who thinks in terms of Aristotelian category or sets is making an intellectual error and that there is a better way of generalizing about women, she is not arguing that one is ethnocentric because one is applying the notion of essence; rather, she is arguing that those who are accused of being essentialists are actually committing ethnocentrism. So, the debates over essentialism are centered upon a misunderstanding, which mistakes “what essence is” for the real problem with the charged “essentialist” position. As a result, the cultural bias of a subset of feminists, that is, white middle-class feminists, is mistaken as claiming an essence for women. The point of claiming that essentialist thinking is the expression of ethnocentric bias, as Frye argues, is to say that those who speak of “essentialism” are not really putting their fngers on the key problem. It might be true that the feminist philosophers who are accused of essentialism use some implicit idea of an essence of women when stating their narrow views, but the real problem is not intellectual so much as motivational, political, or ideological—the real problem is that they are not opening up to the complexity, diversity, and dynamics of women. Doing so requires that a different kind of conceptualization take place, but the precondition for that is not so much strictly intellectual as it is a matter of critical self-awareness and openness. It should be noted that we should not overlook the role that essence plays in ethnocentrism, which remains unaddressed in most anti-essentialist critiques. That is, those critiques do not explain why it is a fallacy to think that women have an essence. It is intellectually inadequate for these critics to use concepts without properly explaining them because of the confusion that their use causes. Arguments such as those by Frye agree that the anti-essentialists

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have a point, but also insist that some generalizing concepts about women are feasible and desirable. However, anti-essentialist arguments, such as the argument of gender skepticism that Brown makes, do not help us understand how such feminist solidarity is possible regarding gender oppression. That is, these arguments do not grasp the sense of a common locus of oppression—gender—when it takes different forms. Yet, feminist solidarity does not depend on one’s recognizing that another being oppressed in the same way as she is; rather, it emphasizes the importance of recognizing the fact that women are oppressed as women. In this sense, solidarity does not require oppression because it can be affrmation that does not depend on oppression. However, gender oppression is a cause that feminists respond to, which motivates us to forge feminist solidarity. That is one of the reasons that we need a category of women in understanding the relationship between solidarity and oppression. It is frustrating that feminism focuses on the discourse of “difference” but lacks a substantial discussion of women’s solidarity. The fact that ideas such as “global sisterhood” do not fully address forces that contribute to women’s solidarity does not mean that such solidarity is not needed or that it is politically vacuous. A more fruitful idea of women’s solidarity should be developed along with gender identity construction though one needs to acknowledge practical as well as theoretical obstacles. In other words, the normative discussion of women should utilize generalization to address and challenge the structural power relations of women’s oppression rather than denying the category of women. Criticism of sexism requires generalization that is otherwise blocked by “anti-essentialist” thought. The “difference critique” in a way unintentionally distracts feminists from collective consideration of women’s solidarity; in particular, anti-essentialism contributes to political fragmentation. However, feminists such as Allison Weir argue that identities can be sources of freedom when they are understood “as complex webs of interactions among diverse relations of power and diverse relations of meaning, love, and solidarity” (2013, 3). Although she characterizes identity as “connection to” and “identifcation with” rather than identity as category, I would like to emphasize that identity—as a ground of solidarity—does not have to be built upon sameness. Both women’s oppression and resistance are structural and collective, so it is important to recognize the collective political goals among specifc political aspirations. Having a properly constructed category of women would greatly help to defne women’s collective political goals. Yet, such a category is not possible without including women’s oppression as part of it. This connection is the link between the two themes—the theme of women’s identity, which I addressed in this chapter and chapter 3, and the theme of women’s oppression in different forms, which I addressed in chapters 1 and 2. When the category

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of women is explicitly constructed in feminist theories and consciously used in feminist movements by white women, they may do so to avoid the race issue despite the fact that there are feminists of color who construct feminist theories explicitly on the race issue. The tension between white feminists and feminists of color may be reduced if not eased when they share collective political goals. White feminists should stop unhealthy self-criticism, which repeats familiar faultfnding arguments without creating space for the recognition of common interests and the development of respectful alliances. Of course, a practical issue to be noted is that certain kinds of privilege contribute to oppression, though they may inhibit solidarity. When white feminists persistently point out that they have placed themselves at the center of feminist theories, they paradoxically reinforce that position. When Black feminists claim that Black women should take the center stage, they replicate the same phenomenon they want to decry. Instead, both groups should focus on collective theorization and political projects, rather than criticizing essentialism. For example, if we look at the structural phenomenon of gender oppression transculturally, say gender oppression in China, we see the birdcage macroscopically, and we also see the need for collective resistance to oppression transculturally. Chinese women may experience gender oppression in different forms, but they are also oppressed as women. It seems that even though cultural or societal structure might be different, that does not change the fact that both Chinese women and American women are oppressed as women in their cultures. Even though certain individual women move from one culture to another, they still face gender oppression. When we look at gender oppression transculturally, it is easier to see what women go through and share as a group, which makes it necessary to explore new possibilities to resist gender oppression collectively. In this sense, it is helpful to include the dimension of culture in feminist discourse. In the following chapters, I will discuss how a category of women can be feshed out through transcultural experiences. CONCLUSION By presenting Frye’s approach for addressing the dynamic relationship between differences among women and the category of women, I argued that Frye offers a fruitful approach to demonstrate that the dichotomy between generality and particularity is false. My discussion of women’s identity shows: (1) whether there is an essence or not is irrelevant to the fact that we can and should construct the category of women, which embodies differences within women and the possibility and the dynamics of what women can be in the future; and (2) the category of women is helpful for feminists to think about various forms of women’s collaboration.

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I conclude that non-ethnocentric category construction is crucial for women’s solidarity across cultural differences because the category of women discloses the power structure of both gender oppression and resistance that is prevalent in various cultures. One may ask what is universal about gender across cultures. Though specifc oppressions differ in different societies, we can nonetheless speak of a universal structure of oppression, for instance, the general tendency toward male dominance, unequal distribution of resources and capacities, and divisions of labor, among others. It is not that women or men have an essence that determines this universal structure of oppression, but that there is a persisting structure of relations between the genders. That is, societies are always structured in part through gender divisions that involve disparities and conficts of these kinds. The anti-essentialist arguments bring into play a number of ways of thinking about differences. It is important to recognize that gender categorization, with its inherent complexity, could be culturally bounded. That is, when the category of women is constructed, differences among women could be considered as products of a specifc culture. For instance, Friedan’s categorization is closely related to American culture in the 1950s, even though gender oppression is not specifc to that culture and takes different forms in various cultures. Thinking of differences in terms of culture would better capture the intermeshedness of the category of women because culture itself is an intermeshed reality. However, by saying that categorization is culturally bounded, I do not mean that categorization is culturally relative because gender is not a culturally contingent conception. Neither does gender run independently of cultural practices because gender dimension is complicated by culture. The concept of gender is not stable or fxed, but neither is it fuid in a postmodernist way. After battling with the misunderstandings and confusions about essentialism and anti-essentialism and gaining a clear idea that a category of women is necessary and possible, we need to learn how to contribute to the collaboration of women in a non-oppressive pursuit among cultural differences. For example, multiculturalism, as an approach popular in feminist discourse, offers a conceptual framework in an effort to make cultural differences salient, protects the rights of minority cultural groups, and preserves cultural diversity or culturally embedded differences. However, I will critically assess the multicultural approach and provide an alternative in part II.

Part II

FROM MULTICULTURALISM TO TRANSCULTURALISM

Chapter 5

Reconceptualizing “Culture” Examining Tensions between Multiculturalism and Feminism

Although frequently used within and beyond academic scholarship, “multiculturalism” remains a vague term. Typically, it refers to various approaches that discuss cultural diversity, or very literally, multiple numbers of cultures. While multiculturalism has been used as an umbrella term to characterize the moral and political claims of a wide range of marginalized groups in political theory, some liberal theorists focus their arguments on “group-differentiated rights” (for instance, see Kymlicka 1989, 1995 and Okin 1998, 1999, 2005). That is, multiculturalism often refers to minority groups who demand recognition of their identity and accommodation of their cultural differences. Multiculturalism rejects assimilation and accepts that minority groups can maintain their distinctive collective identities and practices. For example, Will Kymlicka argues for group-differentiated rights and cultural accommodation. In addition, popular forms of feminism such as global feminism are based on liberal concepts such as freedom, rights, and emancipation within a framework of multiculturalism. Discussions of cultural diversity in feminism have largely taken place in a dominantly liberal context, which is a problem that I seek to address, so I narrow my discussion to the liberal multiculturalism of Kymlicka and his liberal critic Susan Okin. In this chapter, I will present a debate about liberal multiculturalism between these two scholars. I argue that they both rely on a problematic understanding of cultures as selfcontained and well-integrated entities. SOCIETAL CULTURE Kymlicka uses “culture” in a sense that is neither overly restrictive nor too broad. To him, culture does not refer to a narrow sense of culture—the 77

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distinct customs, perspectives, or ethos of a group or association—for instance, cultures of historically excluded groups. Nor does “culture” refer to a broad sense of culture—the “customs” or “civilization” of a group or people—for instance, “Western modern culture.” Kymlicka’s defnition of “culture” is as follows: I am using “a culture” as synonymous with “a nation” or “a people”—that is, as an intergenerational community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland, sharing a distinct language and history. And a state is multicultural if its members either belong to different nations (a multination state), or have emigrated from different nations (a polyethnic state), and if this fact is an important aspect of personal identity and political life. (1995, 18)

The kind of culture that Kymlicka focuses on is “a societal culture,” which involves not just shared memories or values but also common institutions and practices. Kymlicka states that the world contains various societal cultures. A societal culture is “a culture which provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities. . . . These cultures tend to be territorially concentrated, and based on a shared language” (76). That is, societal cultures refer to all practices and institutions that exist in public and private human activities. Societal culture is centered on a shared language, but a shared language is a necessary condition rather than a suffcient condition for a societal culture. That is to say, members of a societal culture may share the same language, but it does not lead to the conclusion that people who share the same language belong to the same societal culture (see Kymlicka 1995, 103 and 218 n29). A societal culture typically aligns with a national territory. For instance, there is not a single culture in the United States, but there is a dominant common societal culture based on the English language that incorporates the majority of Americans, with the rest belonging to a number of minority cultures of immigrants and national minorities. Alongside his defnition of culture, Kymlicka distinguishes two main forms of cultural pluralism: “multinational” and “polyethnic” (1995). Understanding what “national” and “ethnic” mean in his argument is helpful to grasp what he means by “multinational” and “polyethnic.” Kymlicka uses the terms “national” and “ethnic” to refer to a group’s mode of incorporation into a larger society, not its level of political mobilization. In “national minorities,” the frst form of cultural diversity, previously self-governing, territorially concentrated cultures are incorporated into a larger state. For instance, the Canadian government’s “multiculturalism” policy is to support polyethnicity within the national institutions of the English and French culture. In “ethnic groups,” the second form of cultural diversity, individual and familial immigrants wish to integrate into the larger society and to be accepted as full

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members of it. Here, “ethnic group” does not refer to national minorities who do not have political privileges but rather to immigrant groups. According to Kymlicka, a state that is multicultural depends on two conditions: the frst condition is that its members either belong to different nations (a multinational state) or have immigrated from different nations (a polyethnic state); the second condition is that such belonging and immigration is an important aspect of personal identity and political life. Kymlicka points out that “multiculturalism” refers to different things in different countries. Whereas in the United States, the term “multiculturalism” is often used to include the demands of marginalized social groups who are excluded or marginalized from mainstream society, in Canada it typically refers to the rights of immigrants. Although he acknowledges the importance of social movements such as feminism, Kymlicka excludes them from his discussion of multiculturalism. He explains that the marginalized such as women, gays and lesbians, and the disabled do not form distinct “cultures” or “subcultures,” so their demands against their marginalization are not struggles for multiculturalism. Instead, the oppression of these social groups is pervasive despite ethnic and national differences. He argues that the claims of the marginalized are compatible with the claims of cultural minorities. Furthermore, two distinctions need to be made in an understanding of the term “multiculturalism.” One is the distinction between national minorities, which have distinct and potentially self-governing societies that are incorporated into a larger state, and ethnic groups, which constitute immigrants who have left their national community to enter another society. The other distinction is between recognition of cultural differences and recognition of demands initiated by marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community, women, the poor, and the disabled. LIBERAL MULTICULTURALISM Kymlicka develops a theory of multiculturalism that emphasizes the liberal values of autonomy and equality (1989, 1995, 2007a). He makes the egalitarian claim that members of minority groups are entitled to special protections because they are disadvantaged in terms of access to their own cultures compared to members of the majority culture. According to him, in a liberal multicultural society, there are certain resources that should be available to everyone and cultural membership is one such resource; therefore, there is a need to defend minority cultures. Kymlicka makes four points in his defense of liberal multiculturalism: (1) cultural membership is a primary good that everyone is entitled to for the purpose of promoting self-esteem and selfrespect; (2) autonomy and freedom are the basic principles of liberalism;

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(3) individual freedom is tied up with cultural membership; and (4) groupdifferentiated rights are consistent with the liberal principles of freedom. I will examine these four points respectively. First, Kymlicka regards cultural membership as a primary good. According to him, access to culture or cultural membership is one of the primary goods to which all are entitled. Individuals should be viewed as “members of a particular cultural community, for whom cultural membership is an important good” (1989, 162). “Cultural membership is (still) a primary good,” so that cultural membership is part of the consideration that individuals are being equally treated (166). In Kymlicka’s words, “We should treat access to one’s culture as something that people can be expected to want, whatever their more particular conception of the good” (1995, 86). Cultural membership is a primary good for two reasons: (1) it provides individuals with dignity and self-respect; (2) it not only provides various meaningful options for one’s life choice but also assists individuals in making life plans. Second, Kymlicka argues that the principles of freedom are the basic principles of liberalism. He recognizes that there are many visions of liberalism, so he states that the one he defends is grounded in a commitment to freedom of choice. In his words, “The basic principles of liberalism, of course, are principles of individual freedom” (1995, 75; also see 34, 80,186). He argues that liberalism attributes fundamental freedoms to individuals by providing them two freedoms of choice: one is a freedom of choice regarding how they choose to live their lives and the other is a freedom of choice regarding the direction in life they choose. That is, in the liberal tradition, individuals should have resources and freedom to lead lives according to their inner values and beliefs, as well as the liberty to question their beliefs and alter their life plans accordingly. Third, Kymlicka argues that individual freedom is tied up with cultural membership. To him, there is a close connection between freedom and culture. He argues that culture plays an important role in liberal-democratic theory due to the fact that cultural membership provides individuals with cultural preconditions for living a good life—freedom of choice and freedom of changing. As he says, “Respecting minority rights can enlarge the freedom of individuals, because freedom is intimately linked with and dependent on culture. . . . I will argue that individual choice is dependent on the presence of a societal culture, defned by language and history, and that most people have a very strong bond to their own culture” (1995, 75). That is to say, cultures are important to individuals’ freedom, so cultural membership should be taken into account within these liberal principles. Last, Kymlicka argues that group-differentiated rights are consistent with the liberal principles of freedom. Group-differentiated rights are consistent with individual freedom because liberals only endorse minority rights that respect individual freedom. According to him, group-differentiated rights

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should be granted for ethnic groups, and national minorities can be justifed via three arguments: (1) equality-based arguments, which claim that disadvantages that the minority groups face can be corrected by group-differentiated rights; (2) history-based arguments, which claim that the minority should be granted group-differentiated rights for historical reasons; and (3) arguments that cultural diversity has intrinsic values (see 1995, chapter 6). Kymlicka recognizes that his defense of group-differentiated rights might raise issues in contexts where the minority has illiberal restrictions on its members, so he distinguishes his liberal account of multiculturalism from the “conservative” or “traditionalist” approach to multiculturalism. He claims that the “conservative” approach mistakenly assumes multiculturalism as a right to preserve “authentic” cultural traditions while liberal multiculturalism is a matter of the intentional transformation of people’s cultural traditions. Liberal multiculturalism asks “both dominant and historically subordinated groups to engage in new practices, to enter new relationships, and to embrace new concepts and discourses, all of which profoundly transform people’s identities and practices” (2007a, 99). In other words, it is the liberal account of multiculturalism, which concerns both the dominant and the subordinated, that provides the framework for contemporary multiculturalist policies. “SOME POOR WOMEN IN POOR COUNTRIES” Okin seems to hold a similar defnition of culture and multiculturalism to Kymlicka’s. Okin never explicitly explains what she means by the two terms, but in her discussion of Kymlicka, she does not criticize his defnitions or the implications of his usage of these terms. At one point, she mentions “culture” in the context of education and comments that minority groups are left out of “what is taught as ‘culture’—including history, literature, philosophy, and so on” (1998, 661), which suggests that she understands “culture” as a cultural artifact. In other places she suggests an account of cultures as monolithically patriarchal with minority cultures being generally more patriarchal than the surrounding western culture. As she says, “Sex discrimination—whether severe or more mild—often has very powerful cultural roots” (679; emphasis in original). Sometimes, it seems that she identifes “culture” with “tradition” in terms of patriarchy. For instance, she says, “Sometimes, moreover, ‘culture’ or ‘traditions’ are so closely linked with the control of women that they are virtually equated” (1999, 16). Other times, it seems that she identifes “culture” with “ethnicity.” For example, she says, “In the context of (this) multiculturalism language, history, or religion—any combination of which are sometimes referred to as ‘ethnicity’—are frequent markers of distinct cultures” (1998, 662). She says at another place that in the international

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arena, “women’s human rights are often rejected by the leaders of countries or groups of countries as incompatible with their various cultures” (1999, 18). Okin argues that there is a difference between “some poor women in poor countries” (1994, 15) and women in western industrialized countries. That is, the former live in a generally more patriarchal culture than the latter. She argues that the justifcation of group rights from a liberal standpoint fails to appreciate two things: one is the degree to which a culture is patriarchal and the other is the measure of its willingness to change. She brings attention to the institutional structure of a culture; that is, one’s social location in a particular culture is equally as important as the development of self-respect and self-esteem in that culture. Given that minority cultures are more patriarchal than the majority culture, minority rights may worsen women’s oppression. In her words, “The situation of some poor women in poor countries is different from—as well as distinctively worse than—that of most Western women today” (15). She argues that the focus on differences among women and the respect for cultural diversity does great disservice to many women around the world, whereas she acknowledges that gender inequality has similarities in their causes and effects, but not in their extent or severity. She claims that gender inequality exists in all cultures, but it exists to a greater extent in cultures that are strictly religious or traditional. For instance, western women do not face the cruel branding of women in other cultures, such as foot binding, clitoridectomy, and purdah. These are demonstrations of “the case of a more patriarchal minority culture in the context of a less patriarchal majority culture” (1998, 680). According to Okin, group rights should not be granted to cultural groups living within liberal societies if the minority culture is more patriarchal than the majority culture. In her own words, While a number of factors would have to be taken into account in assessing the situation, they [women in minority cultures] may be much better off, from a liberal point of view, if the culture into which they were born were either gradually to become extinct (as its members became integrated into the surrounding culture), or, preferably, to be encouraged and supported to substantially alter itself so as to reinforce the equality, rather than the inequality, of women—at least to the degree to which this is upheld in the majority culture. (680; emphasis in original)

That is, in a liberal society, minority cultures are normally more patriarchal than the majority culture, so the elimination of gender inequality in minority cultures would imply the need for their assimilation into the majority culture or their extinction, preferably the former. A particular culture does not generate self-respect and self-esteem in its members if (1) it fails to provide individuals, especially women, their places within the culture; and (2) it forces

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certain (normally subordinate) social roles upon its members. Since most cultures, especially minority cultures, are patriarchal, granting rights to the minority is not the solution to protect women and girls. Worse, “they [minority rights] may exacerbate the problem” (680). Therefore, for the sake of the healthy development of women, those patriarchal cultures are better off being incorporated into and accommodated to the majority (liberal) culture or they should cease existence all at once. In Okin’s writings, there are two concepts of multiculturalism. One is the politics of recognition or identity politics in the narrow context of education, which demands the recognition of marginalized groups such as women, people of races, the poor, the LGBTQ+ community, and indigenous people. The other is the protection of cultural group rights in the wider social, economic, and political nation-state, which demands the protection of the distinctive cultures of minority groups within the nation-state. Okin clarifes that she focuses on the second concept of multiculturalism, that is, arguments for group rights are built upon liberal premises. Based upon the above understanding, she holds the same defnition of multiculturalism as Kymlicka does. What needs to be noted is that neither Kymlicka nor Okin defnes multiculturalism in terms of marginalized groups. As Kymlicka says, Defning multiculturalism in terms of ethnic and national differences may lead to a neglect of disadvantaged groups, whose demands get obscured beneath the fashionable concern for multiculturalism. This is a legitimate concern, but it is worth noting that the danger runs in both directions. That is, some advocates of a “politics of difference,” whose focus is primarily on disadvantaged groups, obscure the distinctive demands of national groups. . . . The best way to ensure that neither sort of group is made invisible is to keep them clearly distinguished. (1995, 199 n10)

Similarly, what Okin is concerned with is “the wider social, economic, and political context, though still within the nation-state” (1998, 661). In her understanding, the issue that “groups such as women, people of races other than Caucasian, gays and lesbians, formerly colonized peoples, minority ethnic or religious groups, and indigenous populations” are left out of education, which is “sometimes referred to as ‘the politics of recognition’ or ‘identity politics’, is not the kind of multiculturalism I am concerned with here” (661). Kymlicka distinguishes a narrow sense of multiculturalism, which is the preservation and protection of minority group rights, from a broader sense of multiculturalism, which is commonly used in the United States. In Kymlicka’s words, Some people use “multicultural” in an even broader way, to encompass a wide range of non-ethnic social groups which have, for various reasons, been excluded or marginalized from the mainstream of society. This usage is

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particularly common in the United States, where advocates of a “multicultural” curriculum are often referring to efforts to reverse the historical exclusion of groups such as the disabled, gays and lesbians, women, the working class, atheists, and Communists. (1995, 17–18)

Kymlicka claims that these two senses of multiculturalism express themselves in different countries: “In Canada, it typically refers to the right of immigrants to express their ethnic identity without fear of prejudice or discrimination; in Europe, it often refers to the sharing of powers between national communities; in the USA, it is often used to include the demands of marginalized social groups” (198 n9). TENSIONS BETWEEN FEMINISM AND MULTICULTURALISM Okin points out that there are tensions between feminism and multiculturalism because asking for special protections for, and accommodations to, patriarchal communities may reinforce gender inequality within these communities. She argues that tensions between feminism and multiculturalism might be best addressed by focusing on how to alleviate the multiculturalism versus feminism dilemma. Okin challenges Kymlicka’s liberal multiculturalism by arguing that there are some conficts between feminism and the liberal claims for group rights. Okin published two overlapping articles on multiculturalism and feminism in the late 1990s (1998, 1999). Okin states that the 1998 article, which has a more neutral title, contains a longer and more philosophical version of the same argument she makes in the 1999 article. She contends that readers misinterpret her when they consider her holding an affrmative answer to the question “Is multiculturalism bad for feminism?” or consider her to be suggesting that societies have to choose between feminism and multiculturalism (see 2005, 71–72). To do justice to Okin’s argument, I mainly discuss and cite her 1998 piece here, where Okin argues that Kymlicka has not adequately or directly addressed the relationship between gender and culture. She states, I shall argue that there are tensions between feminism and multiculturalism which have, so far, been insuffciently attended to by either feminists or defenders of group rights. . . . I want to argue that there is considerable likelihood of confict between feminism and group rights for minority cultures, and that this confict persists even when the latter are claimed on liberal grounds, and are limited to some extent by being so grounded. (1998, 664)

In what follows, I will unpack her view on tensions between feminism and multiculturalism. However, before doing so, I would like to address Kymlicka’s effort to avoid such tensions.

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To avoid the feminism versus multiculturalism dilemma, Kymlicka distinguishes between two kinds of “group rights”: one is “internal restrictions” and the other is “external protection” (1989). “Internal restrictions” claim rights to restrict the choice of its own members in the name of preserving the culture, while “external protections” claim rights against the power of the larger society. From a liberal standpoint, “internal restrictions” are impermissible because they create or exacerbate inequality and injustice within the group, while “external protections” are acceptable because they help promote justice and autonomy of individuals. Kymlicka claims that both feminism and multiculturalism challenge the inadequacy of the traditional liberal concept of individual rights. That is, feminism and multiculturalism have a common interest in fghting liberal complacencies: (1) both pay attention to the structure of societal institutions, including the workplace and family; (2) both provide the same explanation for why traditional liberal theories are not satisfactory—the distinctive needs and interests of women and ethnocultural minorities are never addressed in traditional liberal theory; and (3) both look to similar remedies for the inadequacy of traditional liberal theory—rights for women are required to replace the traditional treatment of the liberal theory that fails to recognize the interests of women and cultural minorities. Okin argues that those who defend liberal claims for group rights of minority cultures, Kymlicka for instance, overlook two factors. One is that minority cultural groups, as well as the majority society, are gendered; the other is inequality in the private sphere. Regarding the frst factor, Okin explains that although all cultures practice sex discrimination and patriarchy, women in western liberal cultures have more freedom and opportunities than women in many of the world’s other cultures. In other words, granting minority group rights to patriarchal groups may worsen the situation of women in those cultures. Regarding the second factor, Okin explains that patriarchy is subtler and less formal than public injustice, so it remains a question whether Kymlicka’s test of a liberal culture is justifed, because he overlooks the private sphere. Fewer cultures than he assumes are actually liberal; therefore, there is less protection of women’s rights than he assumes. Establishing group rights to enable some minority cultures to preserve themselves may not necessarily be in the best interest of girls and women of these cultures since these cultures might be illiberal. Okin argues that conficts between feminism and multiculturalism persist even when multiculturalism is grounded in liberalism. According to her, Kymlicka’s arguments for group rights are based on the rights of individuals and confne such privileges and protection to cultural groups that are internally liberal. Okin shows that the defense of group rights on liberal grounds would encounter problems when women and gender are taken into account. Thus she suggests that the liberal model of multiculturalism should ensure

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the participation and adequate representation of the less powerful members of more patriarchal groups, in particular, women. As evidenced by her argument, Okin’s normative position lies in her endorsement of liberalism. She suggests that conditions of “some poor women in poor countries” are different from those in western liberal cultures. According to her, evidence that western women are less oppressed includes their being allowed to engage in paid labor while “some poor women in poor countries” are prohibited by their regions or cultures to work for pay. Poverty, a lack of paid employment opportunities for women, and highly patriarchal cultural norms are likely to enhance women’s oppression in those cultures. Furthermore, Okin points out that “oppressed people have often internalized their oppression so well that they have no sense of what they are justly entitled to as human beings” (1994, 19). That is, the oppressed might accept their oppression and even be cheerful about it for the sake of survival. In this case, Okin argues, outsiders can often be better analysts and constructive critics of social injustice than those who live within the relevant culture and lack a critical distance from the culture in question. Along with this line of thinking, Okin unsurprisingly argues that the majority culture has a special responsibility to members of minority groups, whose oppression it may exacerbate by granting them group rights without careful consideration of intragroup inequalities. That is, granting group rights to a nondemocratic community amounts to taking the same side with those in power in a more patriarchal culture. Okin asserts that tensions between feminism and multiculturalism might be best addressed by focusing on how to resolve the multiculturalism versus feminism dilemma. For women who are members of relatively more patriarchal minority groups (than liberal western groups), it is not a simple choice between culture and rights. The solution that Okin proposes is that “discussion about group rights should be premised on a good-faith effort to ensure that liberal-multicultural aims do not contribute to unequal intra-group social power that is perpetuated by undemocratic means” (2005, 73). That is, she believes that liberalism is a working social theory to promote gender equality and that liberalism usually respects women’s equality more than most minority cultures that currently seek group rights within liberal societies do. PROBLEMATIC ACCOUNTS OF CULTURE AND TROUBLED NOTIONS OF LIBERALISM In the previous sections, I identifed what Kymlicka and Okin mean by culture and multiculturalism. I also showed that Kymlicka and Okin seem to share similar defnitions of culture and of multiculturalism since there was no

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dispute about the defnition and implication of these two terms. For Kymlicka and Okin, culture is the sum total of all human practices and institutions in both the private and the public spheres, that is, “a culture” is similar to “a nation” or “a people.” By multiculturalism, they mean that minority cultures need to be granted group-differentiated rights on liberal principles. In this section, I will argue that the tensions presumed by Okin between feminism and multiculturalism stem partly from her problematic account of culture, which regards cultures as self-contained and well-integrated entities to such an extent that cultures are sharply distinct. To be fair, Okin’s critical analysis of culture and multiculturalism has its strengths. She questions cultural practices that oppress women in cultures other than her own, and she rightly acknowledges potential tensions between respecting cultural identities and protecting women’s rights. Her concerns that granting group-differentiated rights might exacerbate gender inequality are legitimate. My criticism is that Okin’s concerns should be posed differently; to be more specifc, her legitimate concerns could be posed in a way that accommodates a different conceptualization of culture. Okin holds an oversimplifed concept of culture, which overlooks internal contestations of cultures. We can infer that her view of culture is monolithic from her statements that minority cultures are more patriarchal than the majority culture. The majority culture, however, is not always less patriarchal than minority cultures, but rather, the patriarchy of the majority culture and minority cultures are manifested differently. Okin fails to note the internal diversity of cultures and overlooks the deep sexism of western cultures, which suggests a measure of ethnocentrism. Strangely similar to Okin is the way that western feminist scholars often contrast historical cases of Chinese women against contemporary liberated women. For example, they often speak about premodern women who suffer foot binding, concubinage, and lack of education as examples of Chinese women’s oppression as if these conditions were representative of present-day Chinese women (see Okin 1999). As a result, these scholars draw the conclusion that “they” are more oppressed than “us.” At times Okin does not address the oppression that western women experience, and speaks as if they had already achieved gender equality. Yet, in assumed liberal societies such as the United States, the gender issue is far from being settled, which can be shown by various cases discussed in part I. In a positive sense, the diversion of attention from the oppression of western women to the oppression of women in other cultures draws our attention to the latter. However, calling attention to the oppression of women from other countries may result in western feminists underestimating the severity of the oppression of western women. Although Okin insists that her arguments are more nuanced than they often appear to be, in general she operates with a binary view of culture. For instance, in her statement that western liberal

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cultures are less patriarchal than other cultures, she unconsciously dichotomizes the world into “our culture” versus “their cultures,” “our liberal state” versus “their non-liberal traditions,” and “our less patriarchal society” versus “their more patriarchal norms.” Okin focuses exclusively on sexual violence in other cultures; thus, she does not do justice to the historical progress of those cultures, and she pays inadequate attention to the possible changes and trends in those cultures. She is insensitive to the political context in which minority cultural claims are made and mistakes religions or traditions of a particular culture as the culture. She views these religions and traditions as internally static or irredeemably patriarchal. Without a thorough study of the full dynamics of the power relations within a particular culture, it is doubtful that the judgment about that culture would be faithful and accurate. For instance, Okin rightly criticizes that the Chinese culture cruelly brands women through foot binding. Yet she neither acknowledges that the resistance to foot binding was initiated by women nor does she mention that foot binding is no longer practiced. She presents foot binding as a static, persistent, and isolated phenomenon that has survived historical changes and developments. Such simplifed defnitions of culture, which assume that minority cultures are unifed, traditional, uncontested, and unaffected by their social contexts, are problematic. It is a common but unfruitful pattern to assume “we” are culturally dynamic while “they” are culturally static. QUESTIONING THE LIBERAL FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF MULTICULTURALISM Okin’s concept of culture becomes more problematic when we focus on her normative position about how to address gender inequality within the context of cultural conficts. In addition, the liberal branch of multiculturalism adopts a concept of culture that is problematic and fawed, so I will argue that Okin’s critique of multiculturalism is inadequate in terms of her adoption of a problematic account of culture from multiculturalism and her endorsement of liberalism. That is, Okin’s criticism of multiculturalism is misplaced partly because she is not using an adequate notion of culture. Yet, overall I agree with her critique that the multicultural view is inadequate, though we arrive at this conclusion from different angles. I sympathize with Okin’s concerns that granting minority group-differentiated rights might worsen gender inequality within a particular group. Indeed, as Okin argues, gender inequality is worse in some places of the world than others, though I would not necessarily agree with her overgeneralizing statement that women in western liberal societies are much better off than “some

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poor women in poor countries” in terms of gender equality. One might wonder if the assumption that women in western societies are better off than “them” has more to do with the wealth of the western liberal societies than the gender of their citizens and the poverty of “those countries.” However, more prosperity and more wealth of a society does not guarantee a higher level of gender equality and vice versa. Okin rightly points out that any legitimate liberal model of multiculturalism must take into account voices of the marginalized such as women. She also rightly points out that “some poor women in poor countries” are in the best position to explore the best options for themselves. However, Okin’s suggestion that a reformed (with gender equality in mind) western liberalism is the best approach for feminism is problematic for the following three reasons. First, Okin needs to specify which groups of women, in which countries, and in what circumstances internalize their oppressions. She undercuts their capacities with her assertion that the oppressed tend to internalize their oppressions, and as a result, committed outsiders are better analysts of the oppressive situations because of the critical distance they possess. On a certain level, I acknowledge the values of the role of distant observers because they can see gender oppression macroscopically in another culture. For example, a woman who immigrates and lives in a different culture might be able to sense gender oppression transculturally. However, I think a key part of successful critical distancing is suspending attitudes of arrogance or superiority. Okin’s judgment that western women are less oppressed because they have the opportunity to work outside their house is not justifed. It is notable that some “other” cultures do not prohibit women from working for pay outside of the home. In fact, to better diagnose gender oppression in “other” cultures (and in western cultures), efforts from both directions are needed: on the one hand, the agency of the oppressed is crucial to the awareness of the oppression because they have the local knowledge of their situations; on the other hand, outsiders can provide a helpful complementary perspective to fully assess the situations. More credence needs to be granted to minority women’s agency and more work needs to be done in navigating the complex interdependence of gender and culture in women’s experiences in a particular culture. Second, Okin overlooks the more systemic aspects of patriarchy and thus is limited to a controversial understanding of minority patriarchy. She assumes that a minority’s distinctive set of norms would give rise to patriarchal forms of regulation to which women submit and that these norms also defne these women’s cultural identity. Yet, the specifc patriarchy in minority groups should not be excluded from a broader sense of patriarchy. Far from being neutral, majority norms—in some cases, patriarchal majority norms— have shaped both practices at the heart of cultural conficts and normative

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frameworks within which claims for cultural accommodations are evaluated. In addition, multiculturalism does not imply all cultures are equally good or justifable in their treatment of women, so Okin seems to confate multiculturalism with ethical relativism. It is clear that not only the majority culture has infuence on gender norms of minority cultures but also minority cultures have infuence on gender norms of the majority culture, though their standing as minority cultures makes direct infuence more diffcult. For example, minority communities, such as the LGBTQ+ community, have been making constant efforts to educate the general public and have gradually transformed, though with much and ongoing diffculty, the majority’s perception of and attitude toward gender orientation. Last, Okin’s suggestion that liberalism is a “one-size-fts-all” solution to alleviate women’s oppression is doubtful. By liberalism, Okin means the values of equality and individual freedom; she seems certain that liberalism guarantees gender equality. Although it has both internal contestations and the potential to change, liberalism as a social theory does not function as effectively as projected. For example, although the United States publicly supports gender equality in many respects, struggles to transform social norms and practices to make such equality a reality are incomplete and ongoing. Liberalism is an idea to promote individual freedom, but it remains unknown whether every culture will accommodate it because: (1) liberalism as a working theory is criticized by feminists within the United States for its reliance on categories and concepts that are belied by women’s experiences, and thus are part of the workings of patriarchy; (2) liberalism might not be the solution to gender inequality in every culture because it can be rejected as a western (and imperialistic) ideology; and (3) something more suitable than liberalism to alleviate gender inequality in various cultures might grow from intercultural communications and competitions. THE CLAIMS OF CULTURE Much of the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism is related to a problematic understanding of “culture,” so it is worth specifying what “culture” means. “Culture” is a diffcult notion to defne because it has gone through a complicated historical development and is used differently in various disciplines and thought systems. We often use terms such as “American culture,” “Chinese culture,” or “multiculturalism” without scrutinizing what we mean by them, partly because “culture” appears to be a self-evident notion. To see where the confusion about the uses of culture comes from, we need to think broader and more holistically. In this section, I will briefy explain what “culture” is and does, offer defnitions of culture, and talk about the uses and

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abuses of “culture” in the politics of cultural difference. I will also offer my explanation of the functions of culture, through which I intend to relate my understanding of culture to scholars who address culture and multiculturalism. The Notion of Culture Raymond Williams’s work makes a decisive contribution to the development of cultural studies by transforming our understanding of culture. He acknowledges that culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language, mainly due to its variations of use. He points out that in archaeology and in cultural anthropology, “culture” is primarily referred to as material production, whereas in cultural studies, “culture” is primarily referred to as signifying or symbolic systems: “Between languages as within a language, the range and complexity of sense and reference indicate both difference of intellectual position and some blurring or overlapping. . . . The complexity, that is to say, is not fnally in the word but in the problems which its variations of use signifcantly indicate” (1983, 91–92). In the midst of the complexity, Williams distinguishes three general categories in the defnition of culture. The frst is an “ideal” defnition: “Culture is a state or process of human perfection, in terms of certain absolute or universal values” (2001[1961], 57). The second is a “documentary” defnition: “Culture is the body of intellectual and imaginative work, in which, in a detailed way, human thought and experience are variously recorded” (57). And the third is a “social” defnition: “Culture is a description of a particular way of life, which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour” (57). Williams then defnes the theory of culture as “the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life” and the analysis of culture as “the attempt to discover the nature of the organization which is the complex of these relationships” (63). To Williams, a key word of the analysis of culture is the discovery of “patterns of a characteristic kind,” because “it is with the relationships between these patterns, which sometimes reveal unexpected identities and correspondences in hitherto separately considered activities, . . . that general cultural analysis is concerned” (63). He then distinguishes three levels of culture: (1) the lived culture of a particular time and place that is only fully accessible to those living in that time and place; (2) the culture of a period that is recorded, from art to the most everyday facts; and (3) the culture of the selective tradition that connects lived and period cultures (see 66). Cultural theorist Tony Bennett further qualifes and complicates the genealogies of the concept of culture as a way of life. He reviews key aspects in the development of “culture” in American anthropology pioneered by Franz Boas and continued by Boas’s students. According to Bennett, if one follows

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Williams’s defnition of “the theory of culture as the study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life,” three distinctive aspects of culture can be identifed: “First, it interprets culture as ‘the whole pattern or confguration of values and meanings in a society’; second, it includes all forms of culture, whether ‘high,’ ‘popular’ or ‘low’; and third, it views these expressive forms as an integral part of social life” (2015, 546). However, these distinctive intellectual qualities were rarely encountered in the cultural studies literature and in anthropology in America during the 1920s–1940s; the American culture concept instead “focused on the relations between race, nation and culture” (548). Bennett indicates that it is precisely the spatial register—connecting space to the concept of culture—that anticipates “contemporary debates concerning the relations between culture, nation, and processes of hybridization” (548). As a result, the spatial register “informed the concept’s governmental deployment, in 1920s and 1930s America, as a resource of managing the relations between America’s white ‘nativist’ stock and new generations of immigrants” (548). “Culture,” then, functions as a new surface of government, partially displacing that of race, in the development of American multicultural policies in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to the explanations in cultural studies and in anthropology, a provisional statement of some aspects of culture, in my opinion, could be useful to identify patterns of culture. Here we are looking at a defnition that is not too defnitive but rather worth specifying because one often talks about functions of culture when one defnes it. That is, a defnition of culture could also be a functional defnition of culture that answers the question of “what cultural practices do” rather than “what culture is.” There are at least three interrelated functions of the notion of “culture”: culture as background, as resources, and as a force with the ability to shape capacities. (1) Culture functions as a general background to social experiences and as embodied in the practices of specifc institutions because culture articulates and sustains the values, identities, sensibilities, motivations, and practices of child rearing and education, among others, that are distinctive of a given society or its subsocieties. (2) Culture provides resources for individual development that can be internalized through personality formation and ongoing social life. (3) Culture functions as a force for development of people, by which people emerge within specifc societies as agents oriented to values, meaning, possessing identities, and internalizing rules and capacities. When we compare different types of societies, issues of institutional differentiation are important because cultures are in relation to meaning and value structure, as well as in relation to the corresponding articulation of women’s accepted social roles. In various types of society, women’s social roles might be different. Some may think that culture consists of social factors such as gender, race, and class and these social factors are mediated through

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culture; others may think cultural differences are different from differences related to social positions. The current trend in U.S. academia is to talk about differences among women in terms of cultural differences when we address issues that are specifcally “cultural” within multiculturalism. What is at issue here is that if culture is understood and used as a comprehensive concept, in which gender differences, racial differences, and class differences are all addressed, then in theory, there should not be tensions between feminism and multiculturalism. The problem is that scholars often use the term “culture” in different ways. If we accept the working defnition of “culture” as “a whole way of life” or “the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts,” then one could possibly assume that social factors such as gender, race, and class are mediated through “culture.” That is, culture could be used as a blanket term to cover almost every aspect of society. It is not exactly clear whether Kymlicka or Okin would adopt this defnition of culture, but they seem to map cultures onto nations and peoples, for example, French culture or African culture. When cultures are mapped onto nations, it looks as if culture is a self-contained concept. Here, it would help to examine the notion of “nation,” what “culture” has to do with it, and the cultural root of nationalism. One way to look at the relation between culture and nation is to identify hegemonic discourses in use because power relations are often culturally coded. For instance, the gender dimension of culture is clearly culturally coded. Culture also plays a role in the formation of identity, in particular national identity. To become a member of a nation, one needs to embrace the national identity. Culture and Nation In his book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson aims to “offer some tentative suggestions for a more satisfactory interpretation of the ‘anomaly’ of nationalism” (2006[1983], 4). He examines how nationalism leads to the creation of nations, or imagined communities. In his opinion, nationality, or nation-ness, as well as nationalism are “cultural artefacts of a particular kind” (4). He claims that once these artifacts are created, “they become ‘modular,’ capable of being transplanted, with varying degrees of self-consciousness, to a great variety of social terrains, to merge and be merged with a correspondingly wide variety of political and ideological constellations” (4). He defnes the nation as “an imagined political community” and it is “imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (6). The nation is imagined not because it is fake or disingenuous; instead, it is “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (6; emphasis in original). Nations, though as imagined

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communities, generate a sense of collectivity: “It is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (7; emphasis in original). The close connection between nation and comradeship results in nationalism, which has a cultural root. Charles Taylor draws on Anderson’s work in his formulation of the concept of the social imaginary. Taylor sketches an account of the forms of social imaginary that have underpinned the rise of western modernity, pointing out that western modernity is inseparable from a certain kind of social imaginary. By social imaginary, he means “the ways in which people imagine their social existence, how they ft together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations” (2002, 106). Through the social imaginary, which enables the practices of a society, people imagine their whole. According to Taylor, new conceptions of the moral order of society are ideas of some infuential thinkers frst, then the moral order is mutated into social imagery through the development of certain social forms in western society such as the market economy, the public sphere, and the self-governing people. The social imaginary provides norms or expectations for people: “Our social imaginary . . . incorporates a sense of the normal expectations that we have of one another, the kind of common understanding which enables us to carry out the collective practices that make up our social life” (106). The discussions of cultural roots of nationalism in political theories help to explain, though at the same time complicate, what we mean when we talk about “American culture” or “Chinese culture.” Maybe “American” and “Chinese” are not as self-contained as Kymlicka and Okin imagine them to be. Perhaps we should be more careful about what we say of “culture” when we map them onto nations or peoples, as Kymlicka and Okin do. The nation is an imagined community because one’s idea of the nation is not necessarily based on one’s experience of the nation. Rather, one works with a notion—an imagination—of what people do in the nation. For example, when we think of France, it is not that we experience what it is, but that we imagine what it could be. One could identify with a nation, but a nation is not necessarily what one thinks it is even if we have experienced it. Culture fosters imagination and the imaginary, letting people feel the commonality that makes their nationality. From a political sense, “nations” as a political and legal concept seem to have clear contours and boundaries, so most people can prove their nationality using legal documents. Yet, cultures do not always have clear boundaries. It seems that more about “culture” needs to be specifed, which shall be done in an explanation of the transformed culture and “transculturation.”

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THE “THIRD SPACE” Historian William Sewell claims that the term “culture” has two meanings: one is culture as an abstract category of social life and the other is culture as a concrete and bounded body of beliefs and practices. The former is singular, which is typically contrasted with other abstract categories of social life, such as economy and politics; and the latter is plural, which represents distinctive worlds of meaning. In the plural sense, a culture can be contrasted with another culture, for instance, “the American culture” and “the Chinese culture.” The distinction between an abstract and singular sense of culture and a concrete and plural sense of culture is meaningful. The reason is that when we say that cultures are connected with politics and economies, we use the term “culture” in the singular sense, while when we say that American culture is a melting pot culture, we use the term “culture” in the plural sense. Sewell also offers two models of culture: the classic model and the transformed model (see Sewell 1999, 52–55). The classic model views the concept of cultures as coherent and distinct entities while the transformed model considers the concept of cultures as fuid. The classic model is based on the assumption that cultures are logically consistent, highly integrated, consensual, resistant to change, and clearly bounded. The transformed model, by contrast, assumes that cultures are contradictory, loosely integrated, contested, subject to constant change, and weakly bounded. Tony Bennett explains the shift from the classic model to the transformed one as a move away from cultures that are “described as fxed and separate entities” (in Bennett, Grossberg and Morris 2005, 68). In the transformed model, by contrast, culture is described as fuid: “The terms cultural hybridity, cultural fows, transculturation, cross-cultural dialogue, and cultural in-betweenness thus all draw attention to the fuidity and impermanence of cultural distinctions and relationships” (68). That is, the transformed concept of culture depends on the notion of “difference” or differentiation. Culture is not a static and non-changing notion; rather, it is in the process of constant growing, diverging, and converging. The dynamism and fuidity of the concept of culture is crucial to grasp ideas such as “crosscultural dialogue” and “transculturation.” Homi K. Bhabha develops the term “the third space,” which is consistent with the transformed model of culture, when he suggests we should address cultural differences and cultural diversity. The “third space” is a place that “makes the structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process, destroys this mirror of representation in which cultural knowledge is customarily revealed as integrated, open, expanding code” (1994, 54). Along with his proposal of the “third space,” Bhabha points out that a nation is produced as narration, a sort of cultural artifact. A nation is constructed through narrative strategies: “The scraps, patches and rags of daily life must be repeatedly

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turned into the signs of a coherent national culture, while the very act of the narrative performance interpellates a growing circle of national subjects” (209). Through narrative strategies, such as the writing, production, teaching of histories, and other collective tales, the nation is constructed as a continuous unit. In such strategies of representation, “the peoples” is constituted as one. The “third space” is a space of ambiguity and ambivalence, but it is also a space of reconfguration and creation. Some people choose to live in the “third space” and the book Accidental Immigrants and the Search for Home (Kelly 2013) categorizes this group of immigrants as “accidental immigrants” because, unlike economic immigrants or political refugees, they make intentional life decisions such as education or career advancement that lead to immigration. The book explores the life stories of four accidental woman immigrants from childhood to adulthood and how they come to terms with the idea of “being-at-home-in-the-world.” Existing in the space in between cultures, accidental immigrants are neither inside nor outside, but “open to new ways of thinking; therefore, they have the advantage of being able to reinvent themselves” (87). This “in-between” position is like the “third space,” which “has the possibility of being a creative, transformative location” (86). In a sense, being an accidental immigrant is a privilege because it opens doors to brand new worlds. Chicana authors have also embraced the “third space.” For instance, Gloria Anzaldúa defnes a borderland as a “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (1987, 3). With “borderlands,” Anzaldúa refers to not only the physical Texas-U.S. Southwest/ Mexican border but also “the psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands that are not particular to the Southwest” (Preface). Relatedly, Chela Sandoval uses the term “third space” to point to the social space where “a politicized differential consciousness arises” (2000, 70). “Differential consciousness,” to her, is a consciousness that “arises between and through meaning systems” (179). The “third space” is a space of difference, which permits “feminists of color from very different racial, ethnic, physical, national, or sexual identities access to the same psychic domain, where they recognized one another as ‘countrywomen’ of a new kind of global and public domain, and as a result generated a new kind of coalition identity politics, a ‘coalitional consciousness’” (70). Later, Adela C. Licona develops a “third-space theory” and “borderlands rhetorics,” in which she recognizes borderlands rhetorics as third-space sites (2012, 1). She starts with Anzaldúa’s idea of “borderlands,” then moves into Sandoval’s term “third space.” In her understanding, the term “borderlands” implies “a still-spatialized though not necessarily geographic context where two or more things come together and, in so doing, create a third space of sorts,” whereas

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“third spaces” are “the in-between spaces that are created at virtual and material intersections” (4). “Third space” is both a location and a practice: “As a location, third space is a relational space of contestation—often in the form of discursive struggle—and can also be one of shared understanding and meaning-making. As a practice it can reveal a differential consciousness capturing the movement that joins different networks of consciousness and revealing a potential for greater understanding” (13). RECONCEPTUALIZING “CULTURE” From the above discussions of “culture,” it is clear that the concept of culture as deployed within a liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism is problematic because it does not take into consideration internal contestations, historical processes, and social contexts within a particular culture that demonstrate the variability of that culture. This defnition depicts culture as self-contained and well-integrated, overlooking the degree to which the development of a culture occurs. In addition, mapping “culture” onto nations and peoples has unexpected social implications as discussed earlier. Here, I propose that feminists need to reconceptualize “culture” to better serve feminist projects and that the liberal concept of culture should be reconceptualized with cultural interdependence and communication in mind. An alternative concept of culture is one that is internally contested, interactive, and fuidly defned. This new conceptualization of culture is consistent with the views about the interrelated and fuid concept of women that I discussed in part I. The alternative concept of culture is a more adequate notion than the one used by the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism because it grasps that (1) most contemporary cultures overlap with each other and without sharp boundaries from which they could be isolated from each other, though there are isolated cultures that are more “traditional” and as such do not interact much with surrounding (modern) cultures; (2) most contemporary cultures are internally diversifed and contested; (3) most contemporary cultures are sensitive to contexts, attentive to the politics of cultural construction, and are the product of specifc and complex historical processes; and (4) most contemporary cultures are interactive and interdependent. The alternative concept of culture helps us understand cultural conficts from a perspective of cultural interconnections rather than from a dichotomized perspective of liberal majority culture versus illiberal minority cultures. Metaphorically, the alternative concept of culture views “culture” as a sphere or space that an individual is located in, but this space does not have a clear-cut boundary. Cultural features are seen within any given economic or political activity, so culture is also a sphere of social reality. Culture is

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something that we can acquire, so it can be viewed as something that shapes the way we experience the world. For example, an immigrant living in the United States can learn English or acquire practices and habits associated with American culture. Literally, some people might say that white women and women of color do not share the same culture because they belong to different races, but we can also say they share the same culture if they live in the same country. The key point here is whether we regard culture as an issue separated from race and class. If one singles out “culture” as a separate social factor, then she could naturally assume that people in “other” cultures wear their cultures more heavily than people in her culture. When we speak of cultural differences, we do not speak of a set of variables that operate separately from class or race; instead, they are intertwined. However, speaking of cultural differences does not necessarily justify speaking of different cultures because different groups do not really have entirely different values or interpret the universe in completely different ways. In other words, cultures are not self-enclosed entities that are neatly bounded and precisely delineated. We could say that the structure of cultures organizes differences with a certain degree of coherence so that cultures are not too fuid to grasp and defne. Structure helps us understand an otherwise undifferentiated idea of culture and it is “reifcation” to speak of cultures as though they were entirely different from one another. For example, there is not always a clear boundary between Chinese culture and American culture. When a Chinese immigrant examines her transcultural experiences, it is impossible for her to clearly identify where American culture starts and Chinese culture ends. Even if from time to time, she can say for sure what is American and what is Chinese in the “third space” where the two cultures interact, she might not be able to tell one from the other all the time. However, this does not stop her from using terms such as “American culture” or “Chinese culture” and from knowing what she means by using these terms. In this sense, the alternative concept of culture is consistent with the concept of women I discussed in part I because a certain level of generalization is necessary due to the fact that we need terms to be able to communicate. The concepts are not totally fuid, without core and form. For example, we need concepts such as “American culture” and “women,” though the concepts are in constant reformulation. The alternative concept of culture is consistent with the theory of women’s oppression as a general structure of power relations. As I argued in part I, the concept of women should (1) involve the variability of women’s experience, and (2) grasp the dynamics of possible changes for women. The alternative concept of culture and the constructive concept of women address both the variability and the dynamics of women and cultures respectively. Women live in cultures and the gender oppression that they experience originate from cultures they inhabit. Interactions,

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diversions, and conversions of cultures help women see better structures and patterns of gender oppression. In a word, the alternative concept of culture would help feminists understand women’s experiences in different cultures in a more fruitful way than the concept of culture presented through a liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism. CONCLUSION Multiculturalism is one of the key responses to the issue of “difference” raised in part I. In this chapter, I presented Okin’s concern that multiculturalism might be detrimental to feminism. Okin argues that the protection of minority cultures—the main claim of Kymlicka’s version of multiculturalism—is in fact harmful for women and girls in those minority cultures. I argued that Okin’s feminist critique of multiculturalism, with its merits and faws, is based on a problematic account of culture. Okin operates with a questionable assumption that the minority culture is often more patriarchal than the majority culture, or she appears insensitive to the political context in which minority cultural claims are made, thus assuming that the religions and traditions of a particular culture are internally static or irredeemably patriarchal. I also argued that Okin’s inaccurate understanding of “other” cultures prevents her from fnding a productive solution to women’s oppression. By doing so, I drew the conclusion that some defenders and feminist critics of multiculturalism misunderstand cultures as separate, closed, and internally uniform and that cultures are more dynamic and loosely defned than multiculturalists suggest. This problematic aspect of the account of culture seems to be inherent in the multicultural approach when we think of the literal meaning of the word multiculturalism. I think that part of the problem comes from the fact that “culture” is often mapped onto nations and peoples. I also argued that the concept of culture as a self-contained and well-integrated entity should be reconceptualized with cultural interdependence and communication in mind. A reconceptualized “culture” uses a fuid concept of culture as internally contested and diversifed and this constructionist concept of culture is consistent with the conceptualization of women that I discussed in the earlier chapters. However, I would like to point out that I deal with cultural differences while realizing there is a complicated ambiguity of the interplay of gender, class, race, and culture. One key thing to acknowledge is that although I am aware of all the issues, culture—defned as socially shared values and historically formed identities—includes racial, national, ethnical, and economic differences. Racial differences, which are pronounced in the United States, can be theoretically included in the discussion of cultural differences because it demonstrates a specifc cultural dimension of the society.

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In his essay “Culture is Ordinary,” Raymond Williams looks at the connections between the place where he grew up and a way of life, conveying a sense of culture’s ordinariness. “Culture is ordinary, in every society and in every mind,” he says (2014[1958], 3). In his understanding, there are two senses of culture—a whole way of life (the common sense) and the arts and learning (the special processes of discovery and creative effort). Williams insists on the signifcance of the conjunction of the two. He does not provide a solution to the problem of how these two meanings of culture join together; rather, he continually strives to show that culture is puzzling. Neither do I suppose I have a satisfactory understanding of culture. Societal relations, including gender relations, are fltered through culture: hegemonic ideas of gender are produced and reproduced in practices of “culture.” The ones who occupy the position of “as normal” dominate the discourse through culture, so challenging their oversized impact is also a cultural problem. Feminism and multiculturalism are related struggles, but the normative proposals of multiculturalism do not entirely escape the problems that critics have identifed with existing theories of multiculturalism. The tendency of mapping cultures onto nations makes sense, but it is also problematic at the same time: First, culture means different things in different disciplines and scholars use the term in a variety of ways for different purposes; second, nations, as some political theories claim, might be imagined and culture could be used as an ideological vehicle; and third, some people’s cultural experiences, such as cultural experiences that take place in the “third space,” may or may not be mapped onto nations. When culture is used as an ideological vehicle, overemphasizing cultural differences could result in a stereotype of multiculturalism. In some sense, the tension between feminism and multiculturalism also implies a tension between liberalism and multiculturalism. My criticism of multiculturalism in this chapter is focused on the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism shown through the debate between Kymlicka and Okin. Some supporters of multiculturalism hold more fuid views of culture, though some of them agree upon an understanding of multiculturalism that is illuminated by liberalism and its values. In the next chapter, I will take a closer look at dynamics within multiculturalism and its inner logic.

Chapter 6

Challenging “Multiculturalism” Multicultural Feminism and the Ideology of Multiculturalism

In the previous chapter, I used the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism as an example to point out some of the diffculties that multiculturalism faces. In particular, I took issue with the concept of culture used in the arguments, and I proposed a revised concept of “culture” as a dynamic and fexible pluralism with multilayered plural identities. Some may argue that my understanding of culture sounds very similar to that of multiculturalism when interpreted in certain ways. That is, I might be challenged that I made a sweeping argument because I seem to understand “culture” in all versions of multiculturalism as a self-contained and well-integrated entity. In other words, even if I get this view of culture from Kymlicka and Okin, and even if that is what they really mean, it does not imply that other defenders and critics of multiculturalism would hold the same views as these two infuential scholars. Indeed, not all versions of multiculturalism are the same and there might be other interpretations, which include a more dynamic and fuid conception of culture than what’s implied in Kymlicka’s and Okin’s work. In this chapter, I will respond to the abovementioned challenges by presenting multicultural feminism—some feminist scholars’ efforts to make multiculturalism more defensible. I refect on these feminist efforts, in particular their critiques of problematic understandings of cultures. In different ways, they link their criticisms of multiculturalism to identity politics and they criticize mosaic or strong multiculturalism and the use of “culture” as an ideological vehicle. CHALLENGING “MULTICULTURALISM” Before I present feminists’ defense of multiculturalism, I would like to specify where I stand regarding multiculturalism. In my opinion, the transformed 101

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concept of culture leads to an examination of the limitations of the multicultural approach. In this section, I will explain the weakness of multiculturalism by tracing its diffculty both intellectually and normatively and argue that as a framework it must reconstruct the problematic notion of culture on which it stands. An alternative concept of culture points to possibilities of expanding the narrow view associated with multiculturalism. The interactive understanding of culture has important implications for the normative aspect of debates over multiculturalism: (1) it shifts the focus from defning a culture to illustrating how cultural affliations have an impact on people; and (2) it emphasizes the need to develop context-sensitive approaches to evaluating claims of minority cultures. Multiculturalism has theoretical and practical advantages when it is used in feminism. Although in some cases it has a tendency of mapping cultures onto nations and the notion of multiculturalism has been debunked by feminist critiques, as a critical theory multiculturalism provides a more helpful theoretical framework than ethnocentrism for understanding cultural differences among women. It undermines the tendency of a certain group of women (white, First World, middle-class, educated, heterosexual) to presume to speak on behalf of all women; thus, it can increase the recognition of social and cultural diversity. Practically, it aims to avoid social chaos by reconciling the relationship between minority and majority cultural groups. However, the multicultural approach also has theoretical and practical limitations. The theoretical challenge that multiculturalism faces is that much of its theory relies on a common conception of cultures as well-integrated, clearly bounded, and self-generated entities, defned by a set of key attributes. This limited account of culture is inherent in the idea of multiculturalism; it is also a prevailing concept of culture among scholars who advocate for multiculturalism. With this conception of culture at the heart of commonly understood multiculturalism, culture is assumed to be the exclusive source for seeking freedom. For example, Kymlicka regards cultural membership as a key component to individual freedom. He defnes culture as a “primary good,” which means that cultures provide their members with meaningful ways of life, so every individual should have the freedom to possess this “good.” On the fip side, the liberal understanding of “good” might trigger resistance to cultural imperialism from cultures that don’t adopt liberalism (e.g., assumed minority cultures, Third-World cultures). Kymlicka assumes that people have the same understanding of what “good” is, even though what “good” means might vary in different cultures. One of Kymlicka’s contributions is criticizing a view of human goods that is culture-independent. However, accommodating group rights in liberal multiculturalism might not be the best solution for problems related to issues of cultural diversity. As Okin points out, the connections between culture and individual freedom and self-respect are not

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as straightforward as Kymlicka suggests. Not every minority culture would associate the majority cultural membership with freedom and self-respect. At one point, Kymlicka points out that “cultures do not have fxed centers or precise boundaries” (1995, 83), but he then proceeds as if the history and language of that culture are the culture, having a center and boundary lines. The commonly adopted theory of multiculturalism also faces a feminist practical challenge in its inability to contribute to solidarity. The account of culture that Kymlicka and Okin utilize does not help with feminist solidarity because it overlooks the multidimensional nature of cultures and the ways in which gender practices in different cultures have evolved through cross-cultural interactions. Since the social structure of politics and historical processes are all intertwined with culture, it is not an overstatement to say that culture produces values and norms. The misconception that cultures are self-contained does not account for the possibility of interactions of women in various cultures. The presumption that “other” cultures are more patriarchal than western culture without examining how patriarchy plays out in particular political and historical contexts can lead to separation between western feminism and Third-World feminism, resulting in a threat to feminist solidarity. Not all feminists would agree that solidarity is the goal of feminist projects. Yet, as I argued in part I, women are oppressed as members of the category “women,” so the alleviation and elimination of women’s oppression should be collective and structural. Solidarity is a plausible goal that will help women resist gender inequality collectively; however, multiculturalism as a framework offers limited help for feminists to attain this goal. The liberal sense of multiculturalism that both Kymlicka and Okin espouse is that the protection of minority “group-differentiated rights” is based on the liberal values of autonomy and equality. According to Kymlicka, culture not only enables individual autonomy but also cultivates individual self-respect. I argue that multiculturalism as a framework should be rethought, not because there is an either/or choice between minority group rights and feminism, but rather because multiculturalists’ emphasis, such as Kymlicka’s, on “groupdifferentiated rights” might lead to separateness and divisiveness among feminism, rather than feminist solidarity. Some may argue that varied cultural exchanges are occurring under the framework of multiculturalism and these eventually would contribute to gender equality in less patriarchal cultures. For example, Andrew Mason argues that either the main theories of multiculturalism do not depend on a fawed essentialism, or they could relatively easily reconstruct their arguments to avoid a fawed essentialism. He claims that some multicultural assumptions can be reconstructed in order to avoid relying on “an essentialist conception of culture” (2007, 221). He considers a few of the main interpretations of a conception of culture as essentialist and concludes that although some

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versions of infuential multicultural arguments may employ essentialist assumptions of culture, none of them needs to do so. He does not specify how this reconstruction can happen and what would be the result, but he suggests that “the truth, no doubt, lies somewhere between the extreme view that adapting to cultural change is either impossible or unfairly burdensome, and the view that the burdens associated with such change are never any greater than those borne by, say, a middle-aged worker who needs to retrain because the industry in which he has been employed no longer economically viable” (243). Mason suggests that adapting to cultural changes can imply a large range of things under the banner of a revised version of multiculturalism. I argue that this line of argument overlooks two facts: one is that current cultural exchanges likely will continue to be based on a model of tolerance and protection of “minority” cultures. For instance, some feminists claim that we should tolerate minority group rights to such an extent that doing so could lead to accepting practices that we would deem patriarchal and unacceptable in other cultures, for example, denying women a secondary education or higher education. The consequence of this tolerance and nonintervention is that it creates division due to feminist polite indifference or coldness. There is a demand for recognition from two competing claims: on the one hand, we want to protect women on the basis of their common oppression as women; on the other hand, we often base that protection on the specifcs of their cultural groups. As a result, these cultural exchanges often do not result in genuine dialogues. The other fact overlooked by this sort of argument is its suggestion that we should apply a liberal ideology to presumed illiberal “minority” cultures, which makes it sound more like cultural chauvinism than cultural interaction. Cultural interactions should be initiated and negotiated among cultures rather than one assuming one’s ideology is superior to others and taking it for granted that its own ideology would be helpful for others as well. This strategy of liberalism is based on the assumption of a dichotomized picture of egalitarian majority cultures and oppressive minority cultures, resulting in cultural supremacy rather than cultural interaction. This strategy also lacks selfrefection on one’s own ideology, which might lead to resistance and hostility from another culture. In my opinion, a process of cultural interaction should be intercultural and transcultural, rather than cultivating a monopoly on “other” cultures. In this sense, multiculturalism as a framework simply is not capable of exploring productively the relevant process of cultural interaction and change in order to promote genuine dialogue and effective collaboration. However, some supporters of multiculturalism may argue that the best practice of multiculturalism is facilitating interaction, interconnectedness, respect, and mutual growth, not simply permitting “coexistence” and tolerating “difference.” That is, they may argue that my assessment—multiculturalism

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should be rethought because it relies on a problematic account of culture and it can lead to separateness and divisiveness among feminists—seems unwarranted. Indeed, multiculturalism is not static and it can, for instance, borrow ideas from other disciplines to intensify its force of criticism, as argued by cultural anthropologist Terence Turner. THE STEREOTYPE OF MULTICULTURALISM Turner contends that anthropology has been ignored in cultural studies. He distinguishes “culture” as in anthropology from “culture” as in identity politics, and examines the differences and connections between anthropology and multiculturalism. He traces the genealogy of multiculturalism: “The term multiculturalism has come to be used primarily in connection with demands on behalf of black and other minority groups for separate and equal representation in college curriculums and extra-academic cultural programs and events” (1993, 411; emphasis in original). According to him, multiculturalism assumes “more general connotations as an ideological stance towards participation by such minorities in national ‘cultures’ and societies, and the changing nature of national and transnational cultures themselves” (411). For him, multiculturalism is a political movement for cultural empowerment that is oriented toward programs of social change, critical mobilization, or cultural transformation. Therefore, multiculturalism is often used as a form of identity politics: “As a code word for minority demands for separate recognition in academic and other cultural institutions, multiculturalism tends to become a form of identity politics, in which the concept of culture becomes merged with that of ethnic identity” (411; emphasis in original). However, from an anthropological standpoint, Turner argues, this move of multiculturalism becoming a form of identity politics faces both theoretical and practical risks: It risks essentializing the idea of culture as the property of an ethnic group or race; it risks reifying culture as separate entities by overemphasizing their boundedness and mutual distinctness; it risks overemphasizing the internal homogeneity of cultures in terms that potentially legitimize repressive demands for communal conformity; and by treating cultures as badges of group identity, it tends to fetishize them in ways that put them beyond the reach of critical analysis—and thus of anthropology. (412)

Turner suggests that multiculturalists should be mindful of anthropology. To make anthropology useful in multiculturalist discourse, he suggests, one should realize that multiculturalists use the term “culture” in different ways

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and for different purposes than anthropologists. Multiculturalism, developed as a theoretical analysis, is “primarily a conceptual framework for challenging the cultural hegemony of the dominant ethnic group (or the dominant class constituted almost exclusively by that ethnic group)” (412). Culture, for multiculturalists, then, refers primarily to “collective social identities engaged in struggles for social equality” (412). Therefore, unlike in anthropology, culture in multiculturalism is not an end in itself—“as an object of theoretical research or teaching”—but a means to an end (412). Turner also points out contradictory tendencies—a critical approach and a difference approach—within contemporary Anglo-American multiculturalism. The contradictory critical and difference approaches to culture leads to critical multiculturalism and difference multiculturalism respectively. Critical multiculturalism “seeks to use cultural diversity as a basis for challenging, revising, and relativizing basic notions and principles common to dominant and minority cultures alike, so as to construct a more vital, open, and democratic common culture” (413). In sharp contrast, difference multiculturalism is “multiculturalism of the cultural nationalists and fetishists of difference, for whom culture reduces to a tag for ethnic identity and a license for political and intellectual separatism” (414; emphasis in original). Difference multiculturalism, in Turner’s opinion, is the stereotype of multiculturalism that is promoted in academia, and it is described as if “it were a homogeneous set of ideas and attitudes” (414). Relatedly, Turner notices a practice of the “romancing of otherness” that involves inequalities of power in cultural studies. “Romancing of otherness” often reifes semiotic contrasts into social/political oppositions. “As a form of reifcation or romantic essentialism, it presupposes the abstraction of cultural phenomena from their real social and political-economic context,” thus “leaving the social and political signifcance of the ‘difference’ as a vacuum to be flled by the cultural theorist” (415). According to Turner, “romancing of otherness” leads to “an intellectual pseudopolitics that implicitly empowers the theorist while explicitly disempowering real cultural subjects,” and “renders invisible the common grounds of cultural continuity and identity which alone render cultural and social differences meaningful in real cultural and political practice” (415). That is, in practices of “romancing of otherness,” cultural subjects are “othered” and abstracted from cultural continuity by cultural theorists as if theorists and subjects do not share the common grounds of cultural continuity. In Turner’s understanding, multiculturalism is a reaction to the hegemony of the dominant culture and it gains traction when multiethnic states are weakened: “The increasing political importance of culture as an ideological vehicle for the new forms of ethnic nationalism and identity politics . . . has made it a favored idiom of political mobilization for resistance against central political authorities and hegemonic national cultures” (423). Culture

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then comes to “serve as the basis both of imagined communities and individual identities deemed to be ‘authentic’ in contrast to repressive, alien, or otherwise ‘inauthentic’ normative codes, social institutions, and political structures” (424; emphasis in original). In this way, “culture” reinforces the idealistic culturalism of disciplines that are primarily involved with the idea of multiculturalism. In Turner’s analysis, the meaning of “culture” is currently undergoing yet another of its historical transformations because the risks are often accompanied by important theoretical and political possibilities. For example, he suggests that culture, as capacity and empowerment, can be used to work toward a convergence of critical anthropology and critical multiculturalism. Turner is correct in his comments on the stereotype of multiculturalism, fetishism of difference, and “romancing of otherness.” In a sense, “culture” in the stereotype of multiculturalism is “being othered” to such an extent that it serves a fetishism of difference. In the unfortunate “romancing of otherness” and in the stereotype of multiculturalism, and when culture is mapped onto nations and peoples, the subtlety and complexity of culture is overlooked. WHOSE CULTURE? WHICH CULTURE? Multiculturalism has also received criticism from other schools of feminism in addition to the liberal feminist critique. For instance, Seyla Benhabib defends multiculturalism, but she challenges the assumption that cultures are clearly defned entities, which she calls the reductionist sociology of culture. She argues that this faulty belief dominates much of “strong” multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic. She presents an alternative approach that understands cultures as continually creating, recreating and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between “us” and “them.” That is, she does not believe in the purity of cultures nor does she identify them as meaningfully discrete wholes. Instead, she regards cultures as “complex human practices of signifcation and representation, of organization and attribution, which are internally riven by conficting narratives” and believes that culture has some degree of internal differentiation because it is “formed through complex dialogues with other cultures” (2002, ix). If we accept the internal complexity and essential contestability of cultures, then “struggles for recognition that expand democratic dialogue by denouncing the exclusivity and hierarchy of existing cultural arrangements deserve our support” (ix). Motivations of culturalist movements matter a great deal because “we want to preserve minority cultures within the liberal-democratic state or because we want to expand the circle of democratic inclusion” (ix–x; emphasis in original). Benhabib does not think democratic inclusion and the preservation

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of cultural distinctiveness are mutually exclusive, though if forced to choose, she would choose the former over the latter: “Democratic equality and deliberative practices are quite compatible with cultural experimentation and with new legal and institutional designs that accommodate cultural pluralism” (x). Culture, then, becomes “an identity marker and differentiator” (1). Benhabib argues that a reductionist sociology of culture has normative political consequences because this faulty epistemology limits how we think of human diversity and pluralism. To be more specifc, the faulty epistemic assumptions behind the reductionist sociology of culture include the following: First, cultures are clearly delineable wholes; second, cultures are congruent with population groups and a noncontroversial description of the culture of a human group is possible; and third, even if cultures and groups do not stand in one-to-one correspondence, even if there is more than one culture within a human group and more than one group that may possess the same cultural traits, this poses no important problems for politics or policy (4). A reductionist sociology of culture is motivated by the epistemic interest in power and it takes place when “culture” is observed by outsiders. To outsiders, “cultures are unifed, harmonious, seamless wholes that speak with one narrative voice” (102). The outsider is the observer “who seeks to comprehend and to control, to classify and to represent the culture to the other(s).” The epistemic interest in the power of outsiders “leads to the silencing of dissenting opinions and contradictory perspectives, and yields dominant master narratives of what the cultural tradition is, who is in, and who is out” (102). Benhabib argues that the view of culture from the outside contributes to the tensions between feminism and multiculturalism. For example, she comments that Okin “writes as if cultures are unifed structures of meaning in other respects” (103). Such an understanding of culture can be found in Okin’s statement: “Many of the world’s traditions and cultures, including those practiced within formerly conquered or colonized nation-states—which certainly encompass most of the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia—are quite distinctively patriarchal” (1999, 14). According to Benhabib, “Okin maps cultures onto nation-states and onto continents. No differentiations are made between cultural traditions, peoples, territories, and political structures. . . . Whose culture? Which culture? When? Where? And as practiced by whom?” (103). Benhabib is critical of strong multiculturalism, or “mosaic multiculturalism.” She states explicitly, “Sociological constructionism leads me to the conviction that strong multiculturalism, or what has been called mosaic multiculturalism, is wrong, empirically as well as normatively” (7–8; emphasis in original). By strong or mosaic multiculturalism, she means the view that “human groups and culture are clearly delineated and identifable entities that coexist, while maintaining frm boundaries, as would pieces of a mosaic”

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(8). What is problematic about strong or mosaic multiculturalism is that it is “very often mired in futile attempts to single out one master narrative as more signifcant than others in the constitution of personal identities” (16). As a result, strong multiculturalists “have to face the embarrassing fact that most individual identities are defned through many collective affnities and through many narratives” (16). Benhabib looks into Kymlicka’s argument of multiculturalism and comments that Kymlicka’s privileging of “certain forms of collective identity over other possible identity markers” forces him into “an illegitimate reifcation of ‘national’ and ‘ethno-cultural’ identities over other forms” (60). She asserts that there are no such “societal cultures” as Kymlicka calls them, which are those that “[provide their] members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities” (Kymlicka 1995, 76). She argues that Kymlicka confates institutionalized forms of collective public identities with the concept of culture, because “there is never a single culture, one coherent system of beliefs, signifcations, symbolizations, and practices, that would extend ‘across the full range of human activities’” (Benhabib 60). Therefore, Kymlicka’s defnition of societal culture is “holistic, monochronic, and idealistic in that it confuses social cultures with social signifcation” (61). For example, Kymlicka states, Given the enormous signifcance of social institutions in our lives, and in determining our options, any culture which is not a societal culture will be reduced to ever-decreasing marginalization. The capacity and motivation to form and maintain such a distinct culture is characteristic of “nations” or “peoples” (i.e. culturally distinct, geographically concentrated, and institutionally complete societies). Societal cultures, then, tend to be national cultures. (1995, 80)

The consequences of this defnition of culture for Kymlicka’s normative positions are, according to Benhabib, that Kymlicka falls into the trap of culturalist essentialism. Benhabib contends that Kymlicka’s understanding of culture is static and preservationist. She draws on the anthropological research work done by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1992) to challenge the mistaken assumption underlying Kymlicka’s argument. Gupta and Ferguson state, The distinctiveness of societies, nations, and cultures is based upon a seemingly unproblematic division of space, on the fact that they occupy “naturally” discontinuous spaces. . . . It is so taken for granted that each country embodies its own distinctive culture and society that the terms “society” and “culture” are routinely simply appended to the names of nation-states, as when a tourist visits India to understand “Indian culture” and “Indian society.” (1992, 6–7)

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That is, Kymlicka may assume that culture, space, and place are fundamentally linked. In Benhabib’s understanding, space then becomes “a kind of neutral container for cultural difference, societal practices, and conficting historical memories” (67). Using Gupta’s and Ferguson’s words, space as a neutral container “functions as a central organizing principle in the social sciences at the same time that it disappears from analytic purview” (7). This analytical disappearance of space is quite intriguing and, in Benhabib’s opinion, “Kymlicka’s concept of societal culture and his distinction between immigrant groups and national minorities is most guilty of the analytical ‘disappearance’ of the problematic isomorphism of space, place, and culture” (67). Benhabib thinks that the world we live in is “a globalized world of uncertainty, hybridity, fuidity, and contestation” (186), where a philosophically adequate understanding of cultures and cultural identity would “emphasize that cultures are formed through complex dialogues and interactions with cultures; that the boundaries of cultures are fuid, porous, and contested” (184). MULTICULTURAL FEMINISM According to Ayelet Shachar, there are two “waves” of literature on multiculturalism. The frst “wave” occurred between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, and Kymlicka was the most infuential fgure. The second “wave” took place in the late 1990s, and consisted of critiques of frst “wave” multiculturalism. The critics argue that the frst “wave” multiculturalism overlooks “some of the potential risks and costs to more vulnerable group members” (Shachar 2007, 115). The literature on feminism and multiculturalism, or the feminist critique of multiculturalism, is part of the second “wave” multiculturalism. In Shachar, the formative stage of the feminist critique of multiculturalism, which could be represented by the feminism versus multiculturalism debate, is largely over. The reason for that judgment is that “most stakeholders in the multicultural debate . . . acknowledge the potential tension between respecting cultural identities and protecting women’s rights” (116). The debate over multiculturalism and feminism, according to Shachar, is now entering its second stage as discussed later. Shachar identifes three distinctive variants of the feminist critique of multiculturalism—liberal feminism, postcolonial feminism, and multicultural feminism—each of which illustrates various dilemmas raised by the intersection of gender and culture. The liberal feminist position has been most effectively articulated in Okin’s writings. Postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism is generally “associated with a rejection of simplistic and uncritical understandings of culture” (123), which can be seen in works such as Uma Narayan’s and Chandra T. Mohanty’s. Shachar argues that

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there is an irony in the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism, such that “by focusing almost exclusively on sexual violence, abuse, and murder committed by members of minority groups, postcolonial feminists are themselves unwitting participants in the production of an impoverished, not to mention pejorative, notion of cultural and legal pluralism” (125). In addition, “It is unlikely that most multiculturalists would defend the ‘abuses of culture’ that postcolonial feminists rightly criticize. Furthermore, adamant feminists such as Okin hardly need a reminder that the majority of women have not yet achieved full equality in most, if not all, countries in the world” (126). Multicultural feminism, as a response to the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, develops elements of both feminism and multiculturalism. “Unlike the over-emphasis on group identity manifested by frst-wave multiculturalism, or the liberal-feminist tendency to underestimate the value of such identity, multicultural feminism treats women as both culture-bearers and right-bearers” (126; emphasis in original). Multicultural feminism also has learned from the postcolonial critique and rejects a “simplistic defnition of ‘culture’ that assumes that minority communities offer unifed, uncontested narratives of tradition, which are ‘pure,’ ‘authentic,’ or unaffected by their social context” (126). According to Shachar, multicultural feminism no longer lingers on the debate on culture and instead focuses on applications of multiculturalism. In her words, “What multicultural feminists advocate, in short, is a shift in the focus on analysis from endless debates about ‘culture’ (which are evident in the disagreements between liberal and postcolonial feminists) towards a more critical understanding of the political and juridical dimensions of multiculturalism and citizenship that may dramatically shape women’s conditions” (129). Shachar intends to overcome the diffculties that other forms of critiques of multiculturalism face. She identifes two strands—the internal and the external critiques—of multiculturalism. The internal critique of multiculturalism focuses on the potentially negative effects that multicultural accommodation policies might have on the rights and interests of members of cultural communities. The external critique of multiculturalism, on the other hand, “challenges the wisdom of adopting any multicultural policy that legalizes difference, since this entails ‘hardening’ cultural identities into political categories” (2001, 259; emphasis in original). Okin’s argument, Shachar claims, is a form of the external critique of multiculturalism. In Shachar, although these internal and external critiques offer important and insightful contributions to the multiculturalism debate, they face persistent methodological and casuistic diffculties. She points out four diffculties (see 288–91): (1) an empirical problem—the major works in the multicultural literature that often rely on ad hoc examples and stylized hard cases to illustrate philosophical and legal problems associated with the claims

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of minority rights; (2) a methodological diffculty—the attempt to generalize a theory of group rights based on insights gathered in a non-systemic fashion from very different national and regional contexts; (3) a defnitional problem—the often-unstated assumptions that underlie the conceptions of “culture” and “identity,” which shape the multiculturalism debate and are not fully scrutinized; and (4) a casuistic problem—the multiculturalism debate that is based on the assumption that “culture is the cause of inter-communal tensions—rather than a political resource that can be effectively mobilized; or, in other cases, an outcome or refection of ongoing power struggles and identity reconfgurations” (290; emphasis in original). According to Shachar, much of the multicultural literature proceeds on the basis of the problematic casuistic assumption that “culture is (a) the genuine reason for ethnic conficts; or (b) the source of discrimination against minority groups; and (c) a legitimate basis for accommodation” (290–91; emphasis in original). Shachar then speculates on what she calls “a methodological/casuistic critique of multiculturalism” to overcome the diffculties that multiculturalism faces. There are two variants of the methodological/casuistic critique of multiculturalism. One is the critical branch, which points out “the misguided methodological and cause-and-effect assumptions that uncritically guide much of the current multiculturalism debate” (288). The other is the reconstructionist branch, which “attempts to go beyond the critique of existing normative and legal approaches by seeking new and better ways to deal with the challenges of accommodating difference and respecting rights” (288). She claims that both work together to explore “the specifc mechanisms of accommodation appropriate to different context” (293; emphasis in original). The motive for proposing a new approach to multicultural accommodation comes from the realization of the “paradox of multicultural vulnerability.” Shachar notes that there is a tendency within some schemes of minority rights for women to bear the disproportionate cost of minority protection, which she calls the “paradox of multicultural vulnerability” (1999, 2000, 2001). That is, some schemes for reducing the minority’s vulnerability to the majority may increase minority women’s vulnerability to discrimination within their own community. “Well-meaning accommodation policies by the state, aimed at leveling the playing feld between minority communities and the wider society,” argues Shachar, “may unwittingly allow systematic maltreatment of individuals within the accommodated minority group—an impact, in certain cases, so severe that it nullifes these individuals’ rights as citizens” (2000, 386). A recognition of the “paradox of multicultural vulnerability,” to Shachar, is “a sober acknowledgement of the potentially negative effects of well-intentioned ‘respect for difference’ policies, which often impose the heaviest costs of accommodation on the most vulnerable constituents of minority communities” (2001, 294).

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CULTURAL DETERMINISM Is there still a choice to be made between feminism and multiculturalism? Is it possible to have it both ways? That is, if not a strong multiculturalism or mosaic multiculturalism, might we have at least a weak or feminist multiculturalism? Kymlicka responds to critiques and comments that Shachar, unlike Okin, doesn’t view the “paradox of multicultural vulnerability” as “inherent to the very idea of minority rights, or as a blanket objection to the idea of minority rights, but rather as a crucial factor that needs to be kept in mind when examining the justice in context of particular policies” (Kymlicka 2007b, 45 n29). Kymlicka refects on the debate on minority rights in a postscript to his article “The New Debate on Minority Rights”: This article was originally written in the late 1990s, and refects the more confdent mood of the times. My optimistic prediction about the trend towards liberal culturalism seems more diffcult to sustain today. Indeed, some commentators argue that we are witnessing the very opposite trend: namely, an across-theboard “retreat from multiculturalism.” On this view, multiculturalism will come to be seen as simply a passing fad of the 1980s and 1990s, replaced by a return to more traditional ideas of homogeneous and unitary republican citizenship, in which ethnocultural diversity is banished from the public realm. (49–50)

While Kymlicka acknowledges that his article might be too rosily optimistic, he thinks the critics of multiculturalism are also too sweeping in their judgments. He insists on the liberal paradigm: “On closer inspection, what we actually see is a more complex set of trends. Ethnocultural diversity comes in many different forms, and with respect to several of them, the basic trends I identifed in the direction of a liberal form of multiculturalism and minority rights remain frmly in place” (50). According to Kymlicka, the ideology of multiculturalism may be used as a vehicle for maintaining illiberal practice, but “cultural rights are an integral part of human rights, which are universal, indivisible and interdependent” (51). Kymlicka still frmly believes in the liberal paradigm in multiculturalism, whose ideology I will further examine in this section. I also want to point out that “a return to more traditional ideas of homogeneous and unitary republican citizenship” is not the only option if one retreats from multiculturalism. Rather, there exist alternative approaches that would better accommodate the gender issue among cultural difference in “a more complex trends.” Anne Phillips, for instance, identifes “cultural determination” in the debate over multiculturalism. She argues that discussions of the tensions between the recognition of cultural diversity and the pursuit of gender equality are marred by exaggerated talk of cultural difference.

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Phillips promotes a more defensible multiculturalism that addresses both the hierarchies of culture and the hierarchies of gender (2010). She notices that one feminist strategy to mitigate the tensions between multiculturalism and feminism is to interrogate the very notion of “culture,” as seen in Narayan (1997, 2000a) and Leti Volpp (1996). These feminist critics challenge the reifcations that understate diversity and contestation within cultures, exaggerate difference between cultures, and manufacture deep value dissonance where none such exists” (Phillips 2010, 4; emphasis in original). Along with this line of criticism, Phillips asserts that “debate about tensions between gender equality and cultural diversity has been marred by misleading stereotypes of culture,” and that “an exaggerated language of cultural difference has lent itself to ethic reductionism, cultural stereotyping and a hierarchy of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’” (4). She then argues against “cultural determinism,” in which “cultures have been misdescribed as organized around static defning values; misrepresented as more distinct from one another than they really are; and wrongly conceptualized as ‘things’ that determine the actions and attitudes of their members” (4). In addition, she questions a hierarchy of cultures when “culture” is reifed as a “catch-all explanation of what individuals from minority or non-Western groups do” (5). Phillips acknowledges efforts made to criticize the concept of culture in multiculturalism: “The problems feminists have identifed with the workings of multiculturalism are now more commonly taken as demonstrating the compete incompatibility between the two” (2). She notes that “theorists of multiculturalism now routinely pay their respects to the idea that cultures are plural, fuid and overlap with other cultures” (6). With this fuid understanding of culture, the issue then becomes whether multiculturalism still needs to be questioned. Phillips asks: “So who are dangerous essentialists whose rigid and reifed understandings of culture have generated a false opposition between respecting cultural diversity and ensuring women’s rights? Where is the supposed essentialism? What exactly is my problem?” (7) Phillips then answers her own questions: “It is determinism, rather than essentialism, that mainly preoccupies me, for, even when theorists explicitly reject the idea of cultures as separate, bounded or internally uniform, they still tend to represent minority or non-Western culture as more determining of behaviour and beliefs than the relatively amorphous ‘society’ that is permitted to shape behaviour and beliefs elsewhere” (7). To her, the study of culture is not only a matter of studying exotic, remote cultural groups; it is also the study of one’s own society or group. However, there is “a distinction between those who are deeply embedded in their cultures and those (from majority or Western groups) who can wear their culture more lightly” (8). As a result, “culture” is made more important than it is in explaining events in non-western or minority cultures than it is elsewhere. The thing is, the academics who write about

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the political theory of multiculturalism may defend the “right of culture,” but they are “likely to be less culturally embedded than those they write about” and “in popular thinking, culture has become almost synonymous with minority or non-western culture. Much the same has happened in normative political theory” (62). What distinguishes the majority who can wear “culture” more lightly and the minority who wear “cultures” like badges of group identity? Iris M. Young answers this question by analyzing a normalizing logic utilized in multiculturalism when she criticizes the liberal paradigm in the politics of cultural difference. THE NORMALIZING DISCOURSE OF TOLERATION Young distinguishes a “politics of cultural difference” from a “politics of positional difference” (2007). Although she thinks that the two approaches are compatible and we should not accept one and reject the other, she suggests that it is important to notice the conceptual and practical difference between the two approaches. In her understanding, a “politics of positional difference” addresses groups who are formed primarily as a result of various social hierarchies, whereas a “politics of cultural difference” focuses on the interaction within political states of multiple cultural or ethnic or religious groups. She believes that a shift of focus in political theories from the former to the latter in the 1990s and the 2000s is unfortunate because “it tends to obscure important issues of justice and because it tends to limit the framing of difference politics to a liberal paradigm” (60). That is, this unfortunate shift results in the failure to distinguish structural racial inequality from nonracial cultural misrecognition. Young is critical of the liberal paradigm because when promoting social justice, it ignores social positions or backgrounds. For example, Kymlicka paradoxically overlooks certain social positions by focusing on a specifc social position. In Young’s words, “The motive of Kymlicka’s theory is precisely to challenge the singularity of the self-conception of the nation state; but his logic of group difference may follow a similar logic” (78). Young is worried that under the liberal framework, a politics of cultural difference “focuses too much on the state in relation to individuals and groups, and does not see relations in civil society either as enacting injustice or as a source of remedy” (80). Consistent with her criticism of the liberal paradigm, Young criticizes a normalizing use of the model of toleration, which assumes a well-constituted “we” who should or should not tolerate “them.” She argues that many theorists of the politics of cultural difference defne their issues in terms of

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toleration, so much so that the politics of cultural difference easily slips into expressing and reinforcing a normalization. Framing issues of difference in terms of toleration, according to Young, often introduces a normalizing logic in debates about multiculturalism that takes the following form: The primary participants in the debate are members of the “we,” who argue among themselves for and against toleration. This “we” is the point of view of the dominant culture, which also assumes itself to have the power to infuence the authorities who allow or forbid. While those holding the point of view debate among themselves whether toleration is the appropriate stance in this case, they all presume themselves to occupy a position as normal, which means not only in the statistical majority, but also holding values that lie within the range of acceptable and even good. (86)

That is, when challenging social inequality, those who involve with multiculturalism paradoxically contribute to new social inequality, using the same logic that they criticize. Young argues that the normalizing discourse of toleration is typical of the logic of the politics of cultural difference and it has something to do with the liberal paradigm: “The ‘we’ in these questions occupies the position of the majority Western liberals. ‘We’ can raise these questions about the extent to which the gender practices of the minority culture can be tolerated because among ‘us,’ women have the same freedom and autonomy as men. Our gender individualism is the norm against which the practices of many cultures come up deviant” (88). Although its force may have diminished since the end of the last century, multiculturalism probably will continue to be used in political theories to think about the issue of women in different cultures. Problematic understandings of “culture” in multiculturalism highlight tensions between women’s rights and cultural diversity. Multicultural feminism tends to ease the tensions by redefning “culture,” which is fruitful both theoretically and politically. Indeed, problematic views about what a “culture” is do not by themselves nullify the validity of multiculturalism, but we need to think about the paradox in the normalizing discourse of toleration inherent in multiculturalism. The paradox of multicultural accommodation illustrates diffculties and limitations that multiculturalism faces as a political theory. A different approach to interpret and accommodate cultural difference than multiculturalism might bring in new perspectives to refect on its limitations. The alternative approach would emphasize the interconnectedness of cultures and cosmopolitan experiences gained through processes of boundary crossing, boundary blurring, or boundary shifting. It would challenge the dichotomy between “dominant” cultures and “minority” cultures. By an approach, I do not mean a theory, but rather “something like an orientation in thinking, a framework of

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argument within which a number of different theoretical positions are situated against a broadly common background of basic commitments concerning the appropriate character or shape of argument in political philosophy” (Laden and Owen 2007, 1; emphasis in original). What concerns me more is a tendency of proliferation and institutionalization of multiculturalism and cultural diversity in higher education, which gives academics an illusion that we deeply care about “other” cultures, but do not recognize that we can be content with the superfcial coexistence of multicultures. This oversight may prevent us from confronting uncomfortable feelings and awkward moments of not knowing how to interact with people from “other” cultures, as well as from further engaging with real people from different cultures in meaningful ways. Perhaps I am not criticizing multiculturalism as a political theory per se, but rather the fact that multiculturalism becomes empty when applied in higher education. The lesson I draw from my premise of needing an alternative approach to multiculturalism is that only through genuine interactions can we truly understand cultural difference and engage in difference. If recognizing and accommodating cultural difference is a frst good step, then what is next? I believe that an alternative approach may open up new pathways of thought to address cultural diversity, one that emphasizes transculturation, which forces us out of the false impression generated through the proliferation and institutionalization of multiculturalism. In the rhetoric of multiculturalism, there is an authoritative “we” who is assessing “other” cultures, which renders multiculturalism ethnocentric, even though it is intended to challenge ethnocentrism. A genuine sense of culture identifes values and exhibits meanings of life through daily life. Culture is a process of integrating individuals into practices of formation of identity and education is a cultural process. We need to be careful about what we advocate and promote in higher education: after all, culture is ordinary. It is through an outside judgmental observer “we” that “their” ordinary cultures appear to be exotic and in need of scrutinization. In the next chapter, I will further criticize the we/them dichotomy by drawing on postcolonial feminist critiques of multiculturalism. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have argued that the multicultural approach is limited partly because (1) multiculturalism implies a problematic account of culture; (2) critiques of multiculturalism within the framework of multiculturalism would not solve the problem: correcting the problematic account of culture; and (3) multiculturalism does not contribute to feminist solidarity. Ideally, the women’s movement is a collective movement, which includes resistance to

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various forms of oppression in different cultures. To be able to accomplish that, we need to further assess multiculturalism in order to disclose the shortcomings of “taking a multicultural approach” that result in a static apolitical vision of culture. Despite what multiculturalist adherents intend and despite the amendments made by feminists, there is still a paradox of a normalizing discourse related to multiculturalism, which divides an “us” who recognize and tolerate “their” cultures that “we” think are different from “ours.” With the diffculties of multiculturalism, I argue, we need to think about an alternative to the multicultural approach, and a framework of cross-cultural or transcultural dialogues should be in order, which I will address in the next chapter.

Chapter 7

Displacing Multiculturalism with an Alternative Framework A Way to Advance the Postcolonial Feminist Critique of Multiculturalism

Earlier, I criticized the problematic concept of culture espoused by the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism and suggested that we should reconstruct “culture” in a way that is fuid. I also presented a multicultural feminist critique of multiculturalism, which provides a revised version of the concept of culture. In this chapter, I will further interrogate the account of “culture,” drawing on works of the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism. Postcolonial feminists such as Uma Narayan and Chandra T. Mohanty argue that there is a major problem—the problematic understanding of “other” ­cultures—within multicultural studies. They criticize the problematic concept of culture used by multiculturalists within the framework of multiculturalism with the hope that they will become more sensitized to the context and the history of cultural differences. I am indebted to Narayan and Mohanty for their postcolonial critique of the problematic concept of culture, but I would like to advance the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism through exploring an alternative to the multiculturalist framework in order to better accommodate an idea of cross- and inter-cultural interactions. THE “PACKAGE PICTURE” OF CULTURES Narayan is critical of the notion of culture that is so often found in multicultural studies, but she still suggests that international women’s solidarity is possible within the framework of multiculturalism. Although Narayan suggests “a genuinely enriching forms of multiculturalism” (1997, 157), I will argue that her endorsement of multiculturalism is incompatible with her 119

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critique of the notion of culture, which shows that multiculturalism could impede international women’s solidarity. According to Narayan, well-intentioned feminists attempt to avoid gender essentialism but end up practicing cultural essentialism: The project of attending to differences among women across a variety of national and cultural contexts then becomes a project that endorses and replicates problematic and colonialist assumptions about the cultural differences between “Western culture” and “Non-western cultures” and the women who inhabit them. Seemingly universal essentialist generalizations about “all women” are replaced by culture-specifc essentialist generalizations that depend on totalizing categories such as “Western culture,” “Non-western cultures,” “Western women,” “Third World women,” and so forth. (2000a, 81; emphasis in original)

To be more explicit, cultural essentialism designates the view that “assumes and constructs sharp boundaries between ‘Western culture’ and ‘Non-western cultures’ or between ‘Western culture’ and particular ‘Other’ cultures” (82). Accordingly, women who live in those cultures are distinguished as “Western women,” “African women,” and so on. In particular, “Western culture (women)” and “Non-western cultures (women)” are set in a contrasting relationship as if they were sharply distinctive spheres. In addition, cultural essentialism, in Narayan’s opinion, often “confates socially dominant cultural norms with the actual values and practices of a culture” (82). Narayan claims that cultural essentialism relies on the problematic “package picture” of cultures, a view that “understands cultures on the model of neatly wrapped packages, sealed off from each other, possessing sharply defned edges or contours, and having distinctive contents that differ from those of other ‘cultural packages’” (2000b, 1084). To put it another way, the “package picture” of cultures takes “a culture of national and cultural context as sealed rooms, impervious to change, with a homogeneous space ‘inside’ them, inhabited by ‘authentic insiders’ who all share a uniform and consistent account of their institutions and values” (1997, 33). According to Narayan, this notion of culture is essentialist due to the fact that it shares some of the following problematic features: (1) it asserts that cultures are distinctive entities with arbitrary boundaries; (2) it assumes that cultures are static, rigid, fxed, or homogeneous with no internal plurality and ongoing changes; (3) it assumes that cultures are ahistorical and apolitical; and (4) it assumes that certain aspects are the defning elements of culture, such as dominant cultural norms that jeopardize women (see 2000b, 1084–85). Narayan claims that cultural boundaries are not naturally given, but are human constructs that involve political agendas, history, and changes. For instance, how an individual is assigned to a certain culture involves complicated political and historical processes.

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To understand cultural issues in national contexts other than their own, Narayan argues, one needs to be sensitive to the contexts of other nations. For instance, dowry murder, in which Indian women are burned by their families for dowry, is understood by the western academy as an outcome of extreme domestic violence against women in India, but an outcome nonetheless. Meanwhile, other aspects of domestic violence in India do not receive as much public attention as dowry murder. By contrast, domestic violencerelated homicides in the United States get less attention from feminist scholars. Narayan’s study shows that the proportion of women in the U.S. population who are fatal victims of domestic violence is similar to the proportion of women in the Indian population who suffer dowry murder (see 1997, 96–100). One of the reasons that there is such “asymmetry in focus” (90) on fatal domestic violence in India is due to a lack of explanation of how feminist issues are identifed and developed in different national contexts. In this case, feminists fail to look into dowry murder with both the consideration of the U.S. context and the Indian context. American scholars take dowry murder as representative of “Indian culture.” This emphasis both singles out a certain oppressive practice against Indian women as a social norm of Indian culture and fails to refect social changes over the culture as well as Indian women’s challenges to such norms. For Indian women, it is more feasible to organize against dowry murder than against general issues of domestic violence due to the absence of effective legal, social, and educational systems. American feminists’ fltered cultural perception of Indian culture makes dowry murder stand out among acts or kinds of domestic violence, which is then taken by westerners as the issue of Indian women. Anti-Essentialist Strategies Narayan shows the political implications of her critique of the concept of culture by arguing that the essentialist notion of culture is detrimental to feminist projects. She suggests that notions such as “Western culture” or any particular culture be reconstructed in anti-essentialist ways and that feminists think of cultural differences in anti-essentialist ways. Some anti-essentialist strategies include (1) being sensitive to the historical and political processes by which a particular culture is regarded as a distinctive culture; (2) emphasizing internal diversity, plurality, multiplicity, changes, and conficts of a particular culture because culture is not internally consistent and monolithic; (3) being aware of the fact there is no single perspective of culture that can be the sole and authoritative representative of a particular culture because problematic generalization glosses over internal diversity; and (4) being actively engaged in women’s issues in cultural contexts other than one’s own and engaging in cross-cultural interaction (see 2000a, 81–90).

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Narayan points out that women’s solidarity is important for feminist agendas and notes that progressive Third-World feminists are not immune from cultural essentialism. Some Third-World feminists assert that notions such as “equality” and “human rights” are western values and therefore there are no common interests between western women and Third-World women. Narayan argues that this sharply contrasting picture not only skims over the genuine conficts within each culture but also makes it diffcult to think of possible collaboration between western women and non-western women. In so doing, progressive Third-World feminists reject possible social changes for women. Narayan argues that Third-World women should not reject “equality” and “human rights” as western values as they would be guilty of assuming cultural essentialism. If they cannot avoid such an essentialist conception of culture, they would not be able to team up with western feminists to fght against gender inequality. In Narayan’s words, “Rejection of feminism as a Western construct makes it problematic for international women’s solidarity” (92). While criticizing the notion of culture used by multiculturalists or advanced through multiculturalism, Narayan proposes to “develop and sustain robust, credible, and genuinely enriching forms of multiculturalism” (1997, 157). She suggests that Third-World individuals play an active role in shaping the agendas and understandings of multiculturalism: “Not all visions or versions of multiculturalism are moral or political equals, and both mainstream Western and Third-World subjects need to engage with the question of what sort of multicultural perspectives we wish to support or endorse” (156). According to Narayan, there are different versions of multiculturalism, but it is not clear in this statement which version or versions she endorses and what claims the version(s) make. Yet, her main focus is primarily “multiculturalism within U.S. academia” (see 154–57), in which westerners refuse to judge “ThirdWorld issues” and thus fail to engage critically with Third-World individuals. The fip side of this multicultural attitude, according to Narayan, is that ThirdWorld individuals are assigned (by westerners within U.S. academia) roles of Emissary, Mirror, and Authentic Insider to be the representative of their own cultures, thus suggesting that these are the roles that Third-World individuals can play and the spaces that they can inhabit (see 1997, chap. 4). Narayan describes the assignment of these roles to Third-World individuals using the metaphor of sending kids to their rooms, which prevents them from dealing with “important political questions that have to do with the complexities of national and global cohabitation” (155). Problematic Charge of “Cultural Essentialism” In her critique of the “package picture” of culture, Narayan delineates what culture is not or should not be, but she has yet to convey her own

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understanding of “culture.” She may regard culture as a form of social reality, which converges with nationality and social identity. For instance, she talks about “Indian culture,” “African culture,” and “Western culture,” which should be considered more dynamic than they are typically perceived. I agree with Narayan’s criticism of the problematic concept of culture being ahistorical, apolitical, decontextualized, and lacking internal diversity. Her critical analysis of culture reveals that the concept of culture is more sophisticated than treating culture as static and fxed. However, I have some reservations about her criticism of western feminism that charges them with committing “cultural essentialism.” My disagreement is not based on her actual criticism of the “package picture” of cultures but, rather, on the charge of “cultural essentialism,” which I will explain by offering two reasons. First, I am not sure whether it is logically sound to equate the “package picture” of cultures with “cultural essentialism.” As I discussed earlier, Narayan argues that cultural essentialism “assumes and constructs sharp binaries between ‘Western culture’ and ‘Non-western cultures’ or between ‘Western culture’ and particular ‘Other culture’” (2000a, 81). However, assuming cultures as distinctive entities needs not commit one to essentialism, even if the boundaries of these distinct entities are arbitrary. I contend that Narayan uses the term “essentialism” because multiculturalists employ the problematic notion of culture as ahistorical, apolitical, or decontextualized; however, they are not taking these features as the essence of culture. For example, western feminists often use the example of female infanticide in China as a case to show the severity of gender oppression in China compared with other cultures without taking into consideration the complexity and dynamics of the social contexts. Yet it is not clear that they are guilty of cultural essentialism by using such an example, which is also the case with the example of dowry murder. Similarly, when Third-World feminists assume that “equality” and “human rights” are western values, they do not actually take these features as the essence of western culture. Second, cultural essentialism is a problematic charge in that Narayan does not focus suffciently on the real problem that renders the concept of culture troubling. The “package picture” of cultures is problematic not because it commits cultural essentialism and we should scrutinize what we mean by “essence” and “essentialism” when we use the terms. Rather, this notion is problematic because it fails to comprehend the fact that (1) cultures have internal variability, plurality, and real differences; and (2) it could be the essence of culture to have dynamics (the historical and the political contexts, and the ongoing changes). However, I do not mean to imply that cultures have “essences”; I simply have reservations about what the accusation or labeling of essentialism really amounts to, and whether this accusation accomplishes much theoretical work.

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INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY In her writing, Narayan does not specify what she means by “multiculturalism,” so she might use this term in the same sense as Kymlicka and Okin. That is, multiculturalism may mean that cultural groups, especially minority cultural groups, deserve differential group rights. Kymlicka claims that these two senses of multiculturalism express themselves in different countries: “In Canada, it typically refers to the right of immigrants to express their ethnic identity without fear of prejudice or discrimination; in Europe, it often refers to the sharing of powers between national communities; in the USA, it is often used to include the demands of marginalized social groups” (1995, 198 n9). Narayan’s normative position rightly points to the strategies for resisting the problematic notion of culture and encourages feminists to restore history and politics to the notion of culture. She also rightly points out that the problematic perception of culture could be a barrier in the direction of possibilities for feminist agendas and women’s international solidarity. I agree that international women’s solidarity is important for feminist projects because it can be deployed as a political strategy to resist gender oppression within and across cultures. Although not all feminists would agree that solidarity is the most important component of feminist agendas, it helps to bear in mind that fostering international women’s solidarity is an effective strategy for raising awareness about the social structures of gender oppression across cultures as well as a crucial step for disrupting oppressive social structures. However, Narayan’s account may be hampered in its attempt to foster women’s solidarity because multiculturalism might continue to reproduce the “package picture” of cultures. Narayan further explains how exactly “cultural essentialism” makes the formation of cross-cultural knowledge problematic. At one point, she explicitly specifes that cultural essentialism differs from ethnocentrism because “multiple mediations” are or were going on when cultural essentialism comes into being (1997, 104). According to Narayan, “multiple mediations” make the perception of a certain trans-border culture fltered and distorted not only by essentialist and/or ethnocentric western lenses but also by essentialist and/ or ethnocentric Third-World lenses. She clarifes that cultural essentialism cannot be reduced to ethnocentrism or racism because ethnocentrism only contributes partly to the perpetuation of such distortions. Other factors also play a part in the perpetuation of cultural distortions. In Narayan’s analysis, “multiple mediations” flter the information that crosses national borders and reshapes, edits, and reframes it in a western national context. Performing “multiple mediations” could be cultural ethnocentrism because the misperception of a particular culture through distortion and fltration is similar to having an ethnocentric attitude to that culture. In this sense, Narayan’s theory

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offers a clear explanation of the relationship between cultural essentialism, “multiple distortions,” and ethnocentrism. However, from an empirical perspective, Narayan has yet to recognize that women’s international solidarity cannot happen within the multicultural framework. She suggests resisting various forms of anti-multiculturalism by both being critics of anti-multiculturalism (to defend multiculturalism as a working framework) and being critics of multiculturalism (to revise certain aspects of multiculturalism such as the notion of culture), but it would help if she could specify how feminists can complete these two tasks at the same time. Narayan’s reconstructed notion of culture provides a more contemplative understanding of cultures because of her consideration of political agendas and historical processes. It is crucial not to defuse conficts and contestations when we think of the possibility of women’s international solidarity. After all, feminist efforts should be made to establish a dialogical relationship among women within a culture and across cultures, and work toward women’s collective resistance and struggle. CULTURES OF DISSENT In the previous section, I critically examined Narayan’s critique of the problematic notion of culture and I have argued that her critique has some elements of an alternative to multiculturalism, though she does not explicitly provide a philosophical alternative. In this section, I will draw on Mohanty’s critique of the notion of culture and her view on cross-border women’s solidarity, arguing that her criticism points to the inadequacy of multiculturalism and hints at the possibility of a new and more plausible framework to discuss cultural differences. Mohanty emphasizes the importance of particularity in analyses of culture: Western feminist scholarship on the Third World must be seen and examined precisely in terms of its inscription in these particular relations of power and struggle. There is, it should be evident, no universal patriarchal framework that this scholarship attempts to counter and resist—unless one posits an international male conspiracy or a monolithic, ahistorical power structure. There is, however, a particular world balance of power within which any analysis of culture, ideology, and socioeconomic conditions necessarily has to be situated. (2003, 20)

A static and distinct concept of culture is problematic, according to Mohanty, because it does not refect internal contradictions and ongoing changes, and it risks becoming dehistoricalized and depoliticized. In Mohanty, certain concepts of culture lack an account of power relations; thus,

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relations of domination and resistance are not refected in these problematic concepts of culture. The dehistoricalized and depoliticized concept of culture depicts cultures as suffciently distinctive such that it is diffcult if not impossible to compare and evaluate cultural differences. Mohanty uses the example of women’s studies classes in the United States to show that U.S. academia adopts a problematic “discourse of cultural pluralism,” which is “a pedagogy in which we all occupy separate, different, and equally valuable places and where experience is defned not in terms of individual qua individual, but in terms of an individual as representative of a cultural group. This results in a depoliticization and dehistoricization of the idea of culture and makes possible the implicit management of race in the name of cooperation and harmony” (204). Mohanty challenges “a harmonious, empty pluralism” in higher education (193) and “the proliferation of ideologies of pluralism” (196). According to her, pluralism as ideology was heavily promoted on campus in the past few decades. As a result, “harmonious, empty pluralism,” in which harmony replaces conficts, becomes the symbol of the achievement of cultural pluralism. In “harmonious, empty pluralism,” white faculty and students play the role of listener and Third-World individuals are considered as authoritative representatives of particular cultures. In Mohanty’s explanation, there are two dangers associated with the idea of “harmonious, empty pluralism”: one is tokenism, which mistakes personal or individuated discourses of a culture as the authentic picture of that culture; the other is that personal narratives gloss over larger issues that stem from structured political power relations in that culture. This kind of promotion makes cultural pluralism manageable, but it also avoids genuine conversations regarding cultural differences. Cultural pluralism becomes more manageable because the institutionalization of pluralism determines the voices a minority person can have and to what extent they can be heard. However, because power relations and political agendas are crucial to cultural differences and because “harmonious, empty pluralism” does not touch the deep political and power-based issue of cultural conficts and contestations, current cultural pluralism is an inadequate response to cultural differences. To redefne the concept of culture, Mohanty suggests that feminists need to create “cultures of dissent” because such cultures are not in existence yet (215). Cultures of dissent make visible the structure of power relations and politics in the concept of culture, so that oppositional and collective voices are heard rather than “empty,” “harmonious,” and individual voices. According to her, cultures of dissent are sites of resistance and struggle, which refect conficts, privileges, and dominations, rather than a collection of various discrete cultural entities. Mohanty does not specify what she means by “culture,” but her concept is more closely related to the power relations

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between nations, or groups of nations in her discussion of “the proliferation of ideologies of pluralism” and “cultures of dissent.” For instance, she suggests using languages such as “One-Third/Two-Thirds Worlds,” which refers to the division of social power, in conjunction with “First World/Third World” and “North/South” to overcome the limitation of the false dichotomy of First/ Third World (see 226–27). “SOLIDARITIES ACROSS DIVISIVE BORDERS” Whereas she criticizes the concept of culture used by multiculturalism and of cultural differences in the multicultural discussion, Mohanty nevertheless endorses multiculturalism as a framework, though she criticizes the institutionalization of multiculturalism. As she states, “While multiculturalism itself is not necessarily problematic, its defnition in terms of an apolitical, ahistorical cultural pluralism needs to be challenged” (208). It is apparent that she does not equalize “an apolitical, ahistorical cultural pluralism” with multiculturalism. Her challenge is within the framework of multiculturalism, which is not problematic for Mohanty as long as it is defned in terms of a political and historical cultural pluralism. What is problematic is not multiculturalism itself, but rather the institutionalization of multiculturalism. According to Mohanty, this institutionalization is often “a response to antiracist student organizing and demands or in relation to the demand for and institutionalization of ‘non-Western’ requirements at prestigious institutions in a number of academic institutions nationally” (208). The institutionalization of multiculturalism, in particular, responds to the recognition of demographics in the United States. As Mohanty quotes, “For the university to conduct ‘research and business as usual’ in the face of the overwhelming challenges posed by even the very presence of people of color, it has to enact policies and programs aimed at accommodation rather than transformation” (208). The institutionalization of multiculturalism in the academia is indeed problematic and it is fair to say that it robs multiculturalism of its power as a political and historical force. For example, although Mohanty’s work is widely circulating in feminist discourse, there is a tendency to “appropriate her work into hegemonic feminist knowledge production while simultaneously emptying it of its fundamental theoretical commitments to decolonization” (Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013, 805). To challenge the institutionalization of multiculturalism, Mohanty suggests building “solidarities across divisive boundaries” (191). If we are able to understand our collective cultural differences within a political and historical context, she argues, then we will be able to build solidarity across borders. For this purpose, she proposes a feminist solidarity model that allows two

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things to happen: one is to focus on “mutuality and common interests” (243) rather than differences; the other is to bridge local feminist movements with international feminist movements given that the redefned concept of culture is not a sharply defned and separated one. Mohanty suggests that crossborder solidarity should be built on the basis of “common differences” (225). She uses this phrase to show that differences are not simply “differences,” but are specifcally located in a dynamic relationship between particularities and commonalities that can form the basis of solidarity: “The challenge is to see how differences allow us to explain the connections and border crossings better and more accurately. It is this intellectual move that allows for my concern for women of different communities and identities to build coalitions and solidarities across borders” (226). Mohanty believes that through the feminist solidarity model, feminists can put into practice the idea of “common differences” as the basis for coalitions and solidarity across differences and borders. Mohanty’s critique of a “harmonious, empty pluralism” powerfully challenges the problematic way of dealing with cultural differences. Her proposal of creating cultures of dissent is helpful for associating power relations and political agendas with the understanding of culture. However, I doubt that her sense of “cultures of dissent” will be able to be manifested in the current framework of multiculturalism, and I suspect that a “harmonious, empty pluralism” might overpower “cultures of dissent.” The diversity talk on university campuses mostly promotes tolerance of cultural differences rather than confronting cultural conficts. Well-intentioned people, especially white faculty and students who are aware of their white privilege, learn to be sensitive to cultural differences to such a degree that their sensibility evolves into avoidance of negative judgments on “other” cultures. This kind of avoidance has a positive consequence because people become more sensitive to cultural differences, but it also has a negative consequence because it promotes an institutional avoidance of genuine engagement among cultures. Individuals from “mainstream” culture and those from “other” cultures are all left voiceless in this intentional avoidance because (1) individuals from “other” cultures do feel entitled to ask for more interaction since their cultural differences have already been acknowledged; (2) “mainstream” individuals might risk being “not sensitive to diversity and cultural differences” or “racist” when they initiate interactions that could evolve into cultural contestations and conficts. As a result, neither of the parties assumes they are in a position to be dissenters of the “harmonious, empty pluralism.” To prove her proposal—that “cultures of dissent” could be formulated in western academia—plausible, Mohanty needs to show whether the academy could provide incentives for dissent and strategies to discourage the proliferation of a “harmonious, empty pluralism.”

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Mohanty rightly proposes cross-border feminist solidarity as the avenue for women’s connection and communication. I agree with her that feminist solidarity is crucial for women’s resistance to structural gender oppression, but her proposal of feminist solidarity is not altogether compatible with multiculturalism. While she claims that multiculturalism itself is not problematic, she does suggest that the defnition of multiculturalism needs to be transformed from “an apolitical and ahistorical cultural pluralism” into a political and historical cultural pluralism (208). If we redefne culture and cultural differences while acknowledging the forces of politics and history, she contends, then multiculturalism would be restored as an unproblematic framework. It is not immediately clear whether Mohanty identifes “multiculturalism” and “cultural pluralism”; she does not use these two terms interchangeably. Otherwise, the challenge of “an apolitical, ahistorical cultural pluralism” would be equal to the challenge of “an apolitical, ahistorical” multiculturalism. Since Mohanty views multiculturalism in general as functional but views cultural pluralism as problematic, we may draw the conclusion that “multiculturalism” and “cultural pluralism” are defned differently in her theory. This conclusion is rather puzzling because typically multiculturalism and cultural pluralism can be used interchangeably. Maybe Mohanty means that multiculturalism built on “cultures of dissent” would be different from a “harmonious, empty pluralism,” but even if this was the case, it remains unclear how multiculturalism as a framework can be unproblematic while cultural pluralism is under severe attack. It remains a question whether multiculturalism would nurture “common differences,” which Mohanty considers the basis of feminist solidarity. Mohanty proposes the creation of “cultures of dissent” and feminist solidarity at the same time, which is why she comes up with the idea “common differences.” She states, “In knowing differences and particularities, we can better see the connections and commonalities because no border or boundary is ever complete or rigidly determining” (226). Mohanty then suggests that we need to consider commonality with difference and conficts. By “common differences,” she could mean that what we have in common is that we all have experiences of differences, but the experiences of differences can be different. The idea of “common differences” is the consideration of commonality among differences and conficts, which is a dialectical relation that can be found in the following statement: “The challenge is to see how differences allow us to explain the connections and border crossings better and more accurately, how specifying difference allows us to theorize universal concerns more fully” (226). The basis of feminist solidarity therefore is both commonalities and differences. This statement is powerful because it helps us recognize that having commonality does not naturally generate solidarity. In other words, solidarity is in fact not so much challenged by the existence of

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differences among people, as it is by the assumption, in advance, that solidarity only comes naturally when we can recognize commonality. However, it is not clear whether multiculturalism would be able to acknowledge the powerful concept of “common differences.” To summarize, I agree with Mohanty that the concept of culture needs to be redefned to include genuine diversity with consideration of power relations and political agendas, and that feminist solidarity is crucial for feminist projects. Mohanty also hints that with the redefnition of the concept of culture, multiculturalism as a framework would require transformation, but I doubt that the feminist solidarity model that Mohanty envisions would be possible within the framework of multiculturalism. Mohanty intends to reconfgure the conception of cultural differences and to foster cross-cultural feminist solidarity but retaining the multicultural approach may not help her complete this mission. The multicultural approach does address cultural differences, but it leaves inherent conficts unresolved and weakens a potential for achieving solidarity partly because liberal values might not be accepted by women in all cultures and globalization may have negative impacts on women in “other” cultures. An idea of solidarity is not merely about the acknowledgment of differences but also about which specifc differences are acknowledged and what feminists should do with differences. Both the theoretical diffculties that Mohanty’s critique reveals and the factual split of feminism indicate the urgent need to examine limitations of the multicultural framework and to seek an alternative. Mohanty’s critique points to the fact that there is something wrong with the multicultural approach, and maybe in response to this problem, she shifts her research focus from Third-World feminism to the idea of “transnational feminism.” ASCENDANCY OF TRANSNATIONAL FEMINISM Mohanty discusses “transnational feminist crossings” and “transnational feminist intellectual projects” when she reviews the transformation of academic culture and feminist scholarship under neoliberalism (2013, 967). She criticizes the tendency of “a hegemonic intellectual culture of postmodernism” (976), which misreads her previous work such as “Under Western Eyes” and “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited” (both reprinted in Mohanty 2003) as “support for a theoretical and methodological emphasis on ‘the local’ and ‘the particular’—hence, against all forms of generalization” (2013, 976–77). She claims that this misreading of her work “ignored the materialist emphasis on a ‘common context of struggle’ . . . and undermined the possibility of solidarity across differences” (977). Mohanty’s intellectual work has been focused on decolonization of feminist scholarship and theory, and she emphasizes

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the importance of feminist solidarity across borders in her later work: “Since the early 1990s my work has increasingly emphasized the need for systemic analyses, for an examination of broader patterns and structures of domination and exploitation. It is in the context of a call for systemic analyses that I have argued for the building of resistance and solidarity across borders” (967). Transnational feminism arose in response to the inadequacy of (white) global feminism and international feminism. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan claim that transnational feminist practices require us to “articulate the relationship of gender to scattered hegemonies such as global economic structures, patriarchal nationalism, ‘authentic’ forms of tradition, local structures of domination, and legal-juridical oppression on multiple levels” (1994, 17). These “scattered hegemonies” are both local and global, and transnational feminism aims to “map these scattered hegemonies and link diverse local practices to formulate a transnational set of solidarities” (19). Grewal and Kaplan emphasize the need for “feminist critiques of the Western model of sisterhood in the global context” (4; emphasis in original). According to them, different from global feminism, which elides “diversity of women’s agency in favor of a universalized western model of women’s liberation that celebrates individuality and modernity,” transnational feminism compares “multiple, overlapping, and discrete oppressions rather than to construct a theory of hegemonic oppression under a unifed category of gender” (17–18). In other words, transnational feminism intends to “address the concerns of women around the world in the historicized particularity of their relationship to multiple patriarchies as well as to international economic hegemonies” (17). Grewal and Kaplan use the term “transnational” to stand for “several decades of UN conferences on women, the emergence of global feminism as a policy and activist arena, and the rise of human rights initiatives that enact new forms of governmentality” (2001, 665), but they recognize that transnational “signals an alternative to the problematic of the ‘global’ and the ‘international’ as articulated primarily by western or Euro-American second-wave feminists” (666). They note that we should still use the term “transnational” to address the asymmetries of the globalization process, but the term “has been overused to the point of meaning nothing in particular” (666). Richa Nagar and Amanda Lock Swarr also distinguish transnational feminism from international feminism and global feminism. They consider transnational feminism as “a conceptual framework that strives to liberate itself from the political and intellectual constraints of international feminisms and global feminisms” (2010, 4). International feminisms are regarded “as rigidly adhering to nation-state borders and paying inadequate attention to forces of globalization,” while global feminisms are subjected to “critical scrutiny for prioritizing northern feminist agendas and perspectives and for homogenizing women’s struggles for sociopolitical justice, especially in colonial

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and neocolonial contexts” (4). At the same time, they consider the specifc ways in which “particular transnational collaborations and solidarities can be articulated” (5). Ranjoo Seodu Herr calls global feminism “white global feminism,” which, in her opinion, is distinct from “international feminism.” The former “advocates transcending national boundaries,” while the latter presupposes nation-states as discrete entities (2014, 4). Herr also differentiates transnational feminism from Third-World feminism because both have differing attitudes toward nation-states and nationalism: “Transnational feminists by and large consider nation-states and nationalism as detrimental to feminist causes, whereas Third World feminists are relatively neutral to, and at times even approving of, nation-states and nationalism” (2). In Herr, transnational feminism and Third-World feminism may share similarities, but “they have diverged in their proper domains of investigation, with transnational feminism concentrating on the transnational level and Third World feminism focusing on local and national context” (1). Third-World feminism focuses on “Third World women’s activisms in their particular local/national context,” whereas transitional feminism focuses on “feminist organizations, networks, and movement occurring outside and beyond individual nation-states at the transnational level” (2; emphasis in original). Third-World feminism received attention in the early 1990s as a response to false universalist claims of white global feminism, but transnational feminism became more infuential in the 2000s, partly due to the fact that “various transnational feminist networks have made remarkable progress in pursuing gender justice at the transnational level against neoliberal global capitalism and fundamentalist religious movements” since the 1990s (2). Thanks in large part to activities of transnational feminist networks and NGOs, especially around the United Nations World Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995, “even Mohanty, whose earlier works were seminal in the popularization of Third World feminism, now characterizes her current scholarship in reference to ‘transnational feminist practice’” (4). According to Herr, Mohanty’s move away from Third-World feminism is discernible in the late 1990s when Mohanty and Jacqui M. Alexander argue for “a comparative, relational feminist praxis that is transnational in its response to and engagement with global processes of colonization” (Alexander and Mohanty 1997, xx). They point toward “transnational feminism” rather than “global sisterhood (defned as a ‘center/periphery’ or ‘frst-world/ Third-World’ model)” (xxix). In doing so, they specify the meanings of “international” and its relationship with the “domestic.” Race is invariably erased from any conception of the international (based on nation, devoid of race), all the more so because of a strict separation between

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the international and the domestic, or an understanding of the ways in which they are mutually constituted. To a large extent, underlying the conception of the international is a notion of universal patriarchy operating in a transhistorical way to subordinate all women. The only plausible methodological strategy here, then, is to make visible and intelligible (to the West) the organizational practices and writings of Third-World women through a discrete case-study approach. “International,” moreover, has come to be collapsed into the cultures and values of capitalism. (xviii–xix)

Then they move away from the term “international feminism” toward “transnational feminism,” as indicated in expressions such as “these defnitions of ‘international’ (what we refer to as ‘transnational’ from now on)” (xix). The term “transnational feminism,” then, is used to complete what “international feminism” tries to accomplish. In Herr, Mohanty’s turn to transnational feminism becomes more obvious in the early 2000s: “This transition is due in part to Mohanty’s recognition of not only the ‘imprecision’ and ‘inadequacy’ but also the danger of ‘institutionalizing’ the categories of ‘Western’ and ‘Third World’” (Herr 10). “Most important, however, Mohanty’s shift to transnational feminism has crucially to do with her acknowledgment that ‘the politics and economics of capitalism [is] a far more urgent locus of struggle,’ given ‘that global economic and political processes have become more brutal, exacerbating economic, racial, and gender inequalities’” (10). Thus, Mohanty’s focus has shifted to anticapitalist transnational feminist practice: “Those who have joined the transnational feminist bandwagon, however, have increasingly focused on neoliberal global economy, as Mohanty’s case illustrates. This is due to the expanding power of neoliberal global capitalism and the urgency for feminists to resist its deleterious effects on Third World women” (Herr, 12). Despite the transnational trend, Herr argues that nationalism is important for feminism. For instance, she constructs a Third-World feminist defense of multiculturalism by paying attention to the voices of racial ethnic women (2004). She argues that Okin’s oversights and misinterpretations can be traced to her uncritical adoption of two problematic assumptions. The frst is that racial ethnic women are thoroughly subjugated by their culture, which is problematic because the portrayal of racial ethnic women in most cases is “predicated on an uncritical subscription to pervasive stereotypes of an ‘average’ racial ethnic woman of Third World origin as a victim of her culture” (87). Second and relatedly, “Okin subscribes to a highly essentialized view of minority culture as static and backward-looking, as opposed to a vibrantly changing and forward-looking Western culture” (87). Herr advocates for Third-World women’s agency: “Women of nonliberal nations, as cultural insiders, are indeed the best agents for reforming their national culture, as

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culture is a complex and constantly shifting plexus of interlocking values, institutions, and social practices of which only culturally immersed and emotionally attached members can have a reliable understanding” (2008, 48). Herr argues for “the relevance of nation-states and nationalism for transnational feminism and the urgency of reclaiming Third World feminism” (2014, 1). For her, the collaboration of Third-World feminism and transnational feminism is the best way to achieve noncolonizing feminist solidarity across borders. The reason that Herr insists on defending the importance of nationalism for Third-World feminism and transnational feminism is that nationalism can create the agency to enable women in Third-World countries. BEYOND MULTICULTURALISM Previously, I have presented both the postcolonial feminist reconfgurations of the notion of culture and the critics’ proposals of cross-cultural feminist solidarity. I argued that the critics rightly criticize the concept of culture that multiculturalism utilizes, but none of them explicitly considers how multiculturalism as framework is incompatible with the reconstructed concept of culture and how multiculturalism inhibits cross-cultural feminist solidarity. Both Narayan and Mohanty criticize multiculturalism, pressing toward a redefnition of “culture” to redress problems in multiculturalism. Narayan suggests “a genuinely enriching forms of multiculturalism” and Mohanty shifts to transnational feminism. By discussing their suggestions of transforming multiculturalism, I want to call attention to the necessity of an alternative to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism requires transformation, which is shown through the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, multicultural feminism, and the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism. The different variants of feminist critique of multiculturalism demonstrate, I argue, that we need to take a historicized and boundary-contesting view of the term “multiculturalism” all the way to a distinctively different strategy. The fact that feminist critics of multiculturalism keep using the term shows how deeply rooted the term has become. At any rate, I am indebted to various feminist critiques of multiculturalism, but I suggest we should go one step further. I argue that to truly complete the mission of criticizing problematic multiculturalism, we have to transform vocabularies to support a new framework. I propose that rather than remedying multiculturalism, feminism needs a transition of framework from multiculturalism to an alternative. Theoretically, a commonly understood multiculturalism relies on a problematic notion of culture, in which culture is viewed as a set of shared characteristics and attributes and as a separate, closed, and internally uniformed entity, such as demonstrated in

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the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism. This is exactly the target of feminist criticism such as multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique. If one continues to construct theories under multiculturalism, as multicultural feminism does, it would be self-defeating to believe in the establishment of substantial rather than superfcial interaction: on the one hand, the self-containment of the cultural defnition presumes some barrier and boundaries among cultures; on the other hand, the problematic defnition of culture demarcates cultures and makes differences tangible to such an extent that it leads to the perception that the perceived barriers are insurmountable. I am not persuaded that multiculturalism will be able to accommodate the reconstructed notion of culture as multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique hope for, not because I do not agree with their criticism. Rather, it is because cultures are more dynamic than the liberal multiculturalism suggests, which is well demonstrated in multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique of multiculturalism. Therefore, multiculturalism as a framework must undergo a substantial transformation to accommodate a redefnition of culture. It remains a question whether multiculturalism is still multiculturalism if it is transformed substantially; after all, the postcolonial feminist critique indicates the necessity of a shift from multiculturalism to a new framework. The direction of feminism in the United States went from the work of “second-wave” feminists to using various approaches to address cultural differences among women, among which multiculturalism became one of the leading theories in social and political philosophy. Yet, multiculturalism is limited in its capacity for increasing meaningful cross-cultural exchanges partly due to the normalizing logic inherent in multiculturalism and the institutionalization of multiculturalism. It is now time for a different framework. The purpose of the “difference critique” is to draw attention to the fact that feminists have not done suffcient work to make feminism inclusive, and the intention of the “difference critique” is that women should be collaborative instead of being unintentionally infuenced by ethnocentrism. Certain aspects of cultural differences focus on the ethnic portion of cultures without situating differences within histories and contexts or refecting on why and how certain cultural phenomena are considered as different (from the “western” culture). The divide of feminism is not healed by the “difference critique” but, rather, against or despite its good intentions, the divide is made broader. Various feminist critiques of multiculturalism point to the fact that the general multicultural assumption that cultures are simply separated entities becomes an intellectual obstacle that impedes feminist solidarity instead of contributing to genuine collaboration and interaction. It is a great irony that philosophical attention to “difference” stops feminists from seriously talking to each other.

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To correct the limitations of multiculturalism, I suggest that we go beyond the current multicultural framework and make a transformative shift to an alternative model. This alternative should emphasize the aspects of communication and dialogue that can create both a sensitivity to cultural differences and an active engagement between cultures. This alternative should be executed with full awareness, courage, and devotion to problems affecting “other” women. To complete this task, we need an in-depth understanding of an alternative to multiculturalism and how it differs from the multicultural approach. From a theoretical perspective, the alternative to multiculturalism must hold a dynamic concept of culture, which allows us to see that cultures are not only internally contested but also interactive and mutually constitutive. This view of culture acknowledges the contingency and variability of individuals’ experiences of cultures as well. Thus, the alternative to multiculturalism must contain an intellectual concept and practice of culture that is different from that of generally understood multiculturalism. In this new framework, the negative and the positive aspects of a culture would be faithfully recorded. Rather than the western avoidance of a critique of “other” cultures, we need a framework in which true stories of “other” cultures are revealed. The alternative to multiculturalism must recognize that cultures are not rigidly defned, but are open-ended, overlapping, and in need of intercommunication. The alternative is crucial in analyzing gender and cultural diversity in the cross-cultural context: not only should westerners (in the assumed sense) recognize “other” cultures are different from their own but they should also recognize that their culture is different from “other” cultures. That is, western culture should quit being the referent norm and both western culture and “other” cultures should attend to their own limitations as well as to their internal diversity and conficts. For instance, even in North America, Canada and the United States share some commonality but also exhibit important distinctions. For another example, numerous evidences points to the persistence of gender inequality in western culture. The humble recognition of limitations may help cure the western culture of ethnocentrism, thus enhancing dialogues between cultures. The alternative must be able to promote genuine cultural dialogues since it is going to confront cultural contestations and conficts. I acknowledge that I am reluctant to use terms such as “western culture” or “westerners” in my discussion because I am not sure whether we can categorize “western cultures.” I am using these terms because I follow the terminology that feminist critics use to keep the argument consistent, but it also shows their prevalence within feminist discourse and our inability to have conversations without the convenience of them. From a practical perspective, the alternative must be helpful in facilitating solidarity across cultural differences. A key normative implication that

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follows from adopting a dynamic view of culture is that there should be a shift for evaluating cultural claims from one based upon inherent features of cultural groups to one based upon the social and political effects of cultural differences. The alternative must adopt a view of culture that is more attentive to the politics of cultural construction and contestation: cultural communities have long interacted and shaped one another in their interactions, and they have been internally heterogeneous from the start (so the cultural difference is not a concern). This dynamic concept of culture is both a product of internal contestations within a specifc culture and complex historical processes of interaction with other cultures. American culture is a good example of this, though it could be challenging to be exact about what constitutes American culture. Hence, the social conditions of women’s solidarity should be characterized as something else rather than multicultural. Given the right conditions, feminism under the alternative framework is more promising than feminism under multiculturalism. That is to say, the alternative must be compatible with women’s solidarity, which is related to difference/commonality of gender oppression. Some might object that it is suffcient to transform multiculturalism using a reconstructed notion of culture and that the transition from multiculturalism to an alternative could be a nominal one. In other words, they might claim that if feminists amend the problematic concept of culture, such as what cultural multiculturalism does, then multiculturalism would continue to function well as a framework. Besides saying that it is inadequate to simply criticize the problematic concept of culture, I have two comments on this objection. The reconstruction of the concept of culture must be substantial enough to distinguish itself from the problematic concept of culture; thus the reconstructed concept of culture cannot function as the foundation of multiculturalism. For instance, we observe that in the United States nowadays, minority cultures are not distinctive cultures that are sharply separated from “American culture” or from each other. In other words, minority cultures such as Chinese culture and Latino culture have vague and obscure contours. One example is the state of California, where members of both cultures might have more in common with each other than they would with their own cultural members in their countries of origin. In other words, what is “Chinese” and “Latino” is not as clear as we typically assume because the boundaries are fuzzy. Given this acknowledgment of culture being vaguely defned, the replacement of multiculturalism with an alternative is what the reconstructed concept of culture requires logically. The replacement of multiculturalism with an alternative is a substantial theoretical change rather than a semantic exercise. The problem is that the term “multiculturalism” problematically pulls the framework back to its problems; therefore, we need a new framework to complete the mission and construct strategies of engagement.

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I am skeptical that a reconstructed concept of culture—political, historical, closely connected to power relations, and contested in terms of cultural majorities and minorities—would sustain multiculturalism because it does not adequately address the underlying defciencies associated with the multicultural framework. Multiculturalism is problematic because it works with an inadequate idea of culture, which means that if we want to reconstruct the concept of culture, we need to stop referring to the problematic framework. Multiculturalism is exactly the framework wherein multiculturalists generate their problematic concept of culture. Feminists cannot continue to work within the framework of multiculturalism because the reconstruction of the concept of culture will not allow that to happen. In other words, we need to reconsider the relationship between the problematic concept of culture and multiculturalism. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have presented both Narayan’s and Mohanty’s postcolonial critique of the notion of culture used by multiculturalism. I have called attention to their proposal that feminism needs a concept of culture that can capture the variability and the dynamics of cultures. I have argued that these two postcolonial feminists rightly point out that certain aspects of multiculturalism are problematic. Mohanty intends to reconfgure the conception of cultural differences and to foster cross-cultural feminist solidarity, which eventually sees her shift to transnational feminism. The multicultural approach does address cultural differences, but it leaves inherent conficts unresolved and weakens a potential for achieving solidarity partly because liberal values might not be accepted by women in all cultures and globalization may have negative impact on women in “other” cultures. Multicultural feminism, for instance, with all its merits, has yet to address feminist solidarity across cultural differences. An idea of solidarity is not merely about the acknowledgment of differences, but also about which specifc differences are acknowledged and what feminists should do with such differences. Both the theoretical diffculties that Mohanty’s critique reveals and the factual split of feminism indicate the urgent need to examine limitations of the multicultural framework and to identify an alternative. Mohanty’s critique points to the fact that there is something wrong with the multicultural approach, and maybe in response to this problem, she shifts from Third-World feminism to the idea of “transnational feminism.” I have proposed that feminism needs not only a reconstructed concept of culture but also a new framework to advance multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique. I have argued that the reconstruction of the

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concept of culture challenges the foundation and the language of multiculturalism. An alternative is more favorable than multiculturalism because (1) the alternative accommodates the reconstructed notion of culture; and (2) the alternative enhances women’s cross-cultural solidarity. By proposing a framework transition from multiculturalism to a new alternative, I sense that feminists would have a more effective framework to understand cultural differences and actively engage in cultural dialogues. I also think that feminists would have a more effective framework to initiate and foster solidarity across borders, whether it be national borders or assumed cultural borders. I will introduce the alternative to multiculturalism and specify how it would manifest itself in feminism in the next chapter.

Chapter 8

The Transcultural Perspective as the Alternative to the Multicultural Approach

In the previous chapters, I argued that feminist debates over differences among women and related problematic generalizations are in part due to ethnocentrism. Although ethnocentrism is not the only criticism of multiculturalism, the current multicultural framework does not suppress but unintentionally encourages it. In this chapter, I will suggest that a transcultural perspective might provide an alternative to the multicultural approach for discussing cultural differences among women. I will specify what the transcultural perspective is and what it promises for feminism. I argue that if feminism employs the transcultural perspective, it will be able to make generalizations without falling into ethnocentrism. The transcultural approach was developed by the Russian-American cultural theorist Mikhail Epstein, who offers a useful epistemological framework for feminists for exploring the possibility of women’s collective struggles. Unlike the multicultural approach, which asserts a completeness of each culture, the transcultural perspective suggests that the transcultural experiences of a specifc group may reduce the oppression of the members of that group, by providing them with a starting point for emancipating themselves from subordination imposed by the culture of origin. The transcultural themes, I argue, have been present in the background of feminist scholarship, such as the work by María Lugones. THE TRANSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE Epstein introduces the concept of transculture as a type of consciousness that envisions the unrealized potentials and possibilities of existing cultures. For him, culture is a complex of tightly interconnected levels or types of activity, each of which is separable from another in theory, but woven together 141

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in practice. The transcultural world, which is like a multidimensional space, does not lie apart from, but within, all existing cultures. This multidimensional space is the site of interaction among all existing and potential cultures; thus, transculture is richer than the totality of all known cultural traditions and practices. Transculture is not a specifc culture or cultural identity, or the sum of them; rather it is “beyond” the entire cultural realm, and yet not fully outside any specifc culture. To Epstein, just as culture helps individuals break their dependence on nature, transculture will help individuals break dependence on specifc cultures. A culture is capable of exceeding its own boundaries and contains possibilities for transculture. “Transculture” is not a property or feature shared by all individual cultures, though all cultures are already in relation with, or overlap with, other cultures. The purpose of breaking free from any given culture is that individuals can be rid of isolated symbolic systems and value determinations of their culture and gain creativity at the cultural boundary crossing, rather than escaping from their given culture: “Transculture lies both inside and outside of all existing cultures as a Continuum, encompassing all of them and even the gaps and blank spaces between them. The transcultural world is a unity of all cultures and noncultures, that is, of those possibilities that have not yet been realized” (Epstein 2009, 333). The crucial point is that in transcultural experiences, individuals transcend their cultural identities and are outside of any specifc culture, so they stop clinging to their national, racial, sexual, ideological, or other identities. Transculture, as it is defned, seeks to move beyond the hegemony of any single dominant culture by recognizing the existence of a multiplicity of distinct cultures, which presupposes an existing interaction between cultures. That is, transcultural thinking aims to broaden one’s framework of identifcation so that one may imaginatively inhabit a range of cultural identities that are themselves shifting and mutable. Transculture means the freedom of every person to live on the border of one’s “inborn” culture or beyond it. Transculture is both deconstructive and constructive: it deconstructs determinism and constructs new possibilities. Epstein uses the word “deconstruct” in a similar sense to Jacques Derrida, who does not refer to it as a negative operation that destroys structures of meanings, but rather as the potential of reconstruction. As Epstein states, “Such a ‘positive deconstruction’ celebrates the proliferation of interpretive possibilities and unrestricted semantic play set free from any one signifed, not by negating the ‘signifed’ as such, but by the potentiation of new signifables” (Epstein and Berry 1999, 160–61; emphasis in original). Transcultural experiences then bring out the actualization of potentials for new interpretations. According to Epstein, any specifc cultural identity is too narrow for the full range of human creative potentials. Multiculturalism prevents infnite self-differentiation by affrming certain cultural identities in individuals, but an individual should not be determined

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in terms of race, nation, gender, or class. Identities are self-enclosed and highly oppositional; for instance, female is set as the opposition of male and white is set as the opposition of black. (Epstein does not capitalize “black” or “white” when he refers to races.) In transculture, gender, national, and racial identities can be replaced by an endless process of multiple identifcations: “The global society can be viewed as the space of ultimate diversity: diversity of free individuals rather than that of fxed groups and cultures. Once again, a rule of thumb for transcultural diversity: oppose yourself to nobody, identify yourself with nothing. No identities and no oppositions—only concrete and multiple differences” (2009, 349). Epstein denies identities, but he also claims that cultural identities are necessary to think and work transculturally to surpass them. In order to understand his idea of cultural identities, we need to understand Epstein’s view on the relationship between “culture” and “transculture.” To him, transculture is a higher level of human liberation than culture. Cultural activities, such as literature and cinema, liberate human beings from natural factors like physical conditions, but these cultural activities also create a system of symbolic meanings from which transculture liberates human beings. For instance, the symbolic meanings of being female or male, black or white, are dissolved in transculture. In this sense, transculture is the self-transformation of culture and “the transcultural model is not just a feld of knowledge but also a mode of being, located at the crossroads of cultures” (1999, 25). Epstein claims that the deconstruction of identity helps to make peace because deconstruction has a positive aspect of reconstruction. If people interact with cultural, social, or ideological differences, rather than clinging to group identity, then differences will not be hardened into oppositions. In Epstein’s opinion, categories such as “identity,” “opposition,” and “difference” are in a dialectical relationship that is similar to the relation between thesis and antithesis. Differences complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community in which differences are cherished while categories such as cultural identity might give rise to opposition or even violence. On the contrary, emphasizing differences has a moral value because being different from one another does not cause an opposition to one another. If the oppositional components of self-defnition are eliminated, then the component of identifcation will be abandoned. Epstein uses the term “culture” as a descriptive rather than a normative concept both in the singular and plural forms. To him, “Culture as an integrity of disciplinary spheres presupposes the diversity of cultures as multiple national and historical types, each having its own formative principle, irreducible to others” (17; emphasis in original). In his view, transcultural individuals do not escape or abolish cultures but, rather, abolish human slavery to cultures. Transcultural practice is a way of expanding the limits of our ethnic, professional, linguistic, and other identities to new levels of indeterminacy without

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diminishing our primary symbolic identities, for instance our symbolic identities such as being a woman, an American, or a Chinese-American woman. He argues that we need to question the very category of identity as a cultural and ethical value because “violence occurs between groups with frmly established identities” (2007, 347). Along this line of thinking, he urges us to move from the diversity of cultures to the even greater diversity of individuals, transcending their rigid cultural identities: “Culture relativizes natural identities, whereas transculture demystifes cultural identities. This process has no limit. From a transcultural perspective, multiculturalism is right in asserting the natural origins and physical essences of existing cultures, whereas deconstruction is equally right in demystifying these origins and essences” (1999, 85). In this way, the global society can be viewed as a diversity of free individuals rather than that of fxed groups and cultures. Cultures are thus enriched by transcultural experiences, in which the cultural ground of their origin is recognized but is not one to which they cling. Cultural identities become more fexible and fuid because of transculture, though they continue to be part of one’s identity. Through transculture, one gains some control over the identity one acquires by virtue of one’s cultural identity. From “Difference” to “Interference” Epstein emphasizes the importance of interference, which refers to “not only a necessary, mutual, and multidirectional process, but also a wavy and fuzzy one (as the original scientifc use of this term suggests) that transposes the borders of interacting culture, mentalities, and disciplines in multiple directions” (1999, 11). Interference lies at the foundation of the transcultural project and originated from but is not limited to principles such as opposition, identity, and difference. Through interference, differences complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong, not because we are similar but because we are different. Different cultures should not be satisfed with merely tolerating one another, but rather they should be creatively involved with one another. Transcultural transcendence occurs through the interference of one culture with another while self-deconstructing and self-transforming one’s cultural identity. For instance, a white male should interfere with individuals with other identities, such as a woman, a black, a disabled person. “Every culture is intrinsically insuffcient and needs interaction with other cultures to compensate for its defciencies: rational culture needs sensual elements, male culture needs female elements, and vice versa” (2009, 334). That is, the interference of cultures is a normative state of “suffciency” and “completeness,” because “interference” ought to occur between cultures though sometimes it does not. “Culture” is a descriptive term, whereas “interference” between or among cultures is a normative state.

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In this sense, cultures are insuffcient or incomplete if they are not open to or interfering with each other. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, assumes cultures are suffcient in the sense that there are clear boundaries between cultures, presupposing cultures are fnished entities that are not open for mutual involvement. According to Epstein, the process of interference among various cultures or various kinds of cultural activity would increasingly complement their progressive differentiation. This means that the process of “differentiation” and that of “interference” are both contributing to “transculture,” which is in a fuid and evolving state that is different from the comparatively static state of multiculturalism and difference. For instance, it is crucial for one’s development to explore positions that differ from one’s own and try to think in ways that other people might think as a way to enrich each other’s differing positions if only two cultures are involved. In this process of interferencethrough-difference, one can start self-differentiation. Epstein claims that interference is quite unlike difference. According to him, difference is “a self-justifed and self-contained principle of contemporary cultural reformation” (1999, 8). However, he does not say that difference should be viewed as a multiplicity of self-contained and disconnected cultural worlds, each assuming tolerantly indifferent positions toward the other. “Interference” has the same Greek and Latin root as the word “difference” but while “differ” means to carry apart, ‘interfere’ means to bear or bring between. . . . Interference produces not unifcation but rather more diversifcation within existing diversity; differences no longer isolate cultures from each other but rather open between them perspectives of both self-differentiation and mutual involvement. (9)

The root of the word “interference” is the combination of Latin elements inter- “between” + ferire- “to strike.” Interference is defned as “the mutual effect on meeting of two wave trains (as of light or sound) that constitutes alternating areas of increased and decreased amplitude (as light and dark lines or louder and softer sound)” in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2003, 652). The effect of interference in natural science can be manifested by natural patterns such as the butterfy’s markings, the rainbow colors of a flm of oil on water, or iridescence on the surface of soap bubbles. In constructive interference, two or more light or sound waves interact in such a way that the amplitudes of their frequency reinforce each other and form a wave that has an amplitude equal to the sum of the individual amplitudes of the original waves. In the deconstructive interference, two intersecting waves neutralize and then cancel each other out. Interference produces more diversifcation within existing diversity in such a way that differences make it possible for both self-differentiation and mutual involvement to coexist.

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A constant self-differentiation and mutual involvement make transcultural interference a never-ending process. As Epstein states, “As difference has the potential of maturation, it grows into interference, the ‘wavy’ and ‘fuzzy’ intersections and overlappings of two or more cultural entities, mentalities, principles, intuitions” (99). Within the multicultural framework, then, differences are accepted and valued, but they are often promoted for their own sakes and kept distinct. This can result in a kind of cultural leveling in which differences may in fact be transformed into their exact opposites, thus leading to a relativistic and cynical “indifference” among cultures. As a result, multiculturalism erects new walls among cultures, contrary to its original benign intentions, rather than making ruins of the old ones. “Identity” Because I described people as being Chinese or American earlier, it will help to clarify the issue of identity by talking about cultural identity. Epstein’s denial of identity is problematic: he has a reservation about the multiculturalist “politics of identity” and he does not endorse “solidifed” identities (2009, 337). Yet, Epstein is inconsistent with his view on identity. Sometimes he claims that our overdependence on cultural identity is the barrier to freedom; other times he admits that human beings cannot escape their cultural identity. For instance, saying “I am Chinese” is a form of partial identifcation. If one claims that “being Chinese” is her identity, she appears to claim that “being Chinese” is an exhaustive quality of hers. In fact, she might have other qualities to identify with other than “being Chinese.” So the best strategy, according to Epstein, is to identify oneself with nothing because “the question is not who I am but who I might become and how I am different from myself” (1999, 94). At one point, he argues that there should be no identities and “only concrete and multiple differences” (2009, 349). He is saying that what exists is anarchic difference and nothing else, but it remains a question as to how it is possible that one simultaneously can transcend and still attach oneself to a cultural identity. At times, he talks about identity in its positive sense; for instance, he claims that interference is “an attempt at self-differentiation without losing one’s own identity” (1999, 11). Epstein has reservations on identities, but he does seem to take identities as a starting point but not as defnitive. His view could be adapted to endorse women’s identity, although he advocates for a society of androgynism, in which people are not judged or discriminated against based on their gender. Therefore, his view of transculture has the potential of being transformed into one of aiding a feminist transculturalism. In the feminist adaption of the transcultural perspective, some faws of Epstein’s version of transculture can hopefully be amended; for instance, feminists can generate a transcultural

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view without denial of identity. As Epstein argues, clinging to certain identities does lead to opposition and violence. Some racial or national conficts are, as Epstein argues, due to the self-righteousness of their values and identities. However, women’s identity is not meant to impose self-suffciency on being women, but rather engagement with both feminist men and women in this world. In this sense, Epstein’s idea of transculture offers feminism a useful ethical and moral framework to work with. Epstein uses the term “multiculturalism” in the sense that “the U.S. multicultural model that posits aggregates of discrete subcultures (based on racial, ethnic, sexual, or other differences), each of which seeks to constitute and maintain its cultural specifcity in the face of a homogenizing dominant culture” (1999, 2–3). Accordingly, transculturalism is different from multiculturalism. “From the multicultural perspective, each culture is perfect in its own way, as a self-enclosed and self-suffcient entity; from the transcultural perspective, each culture has some basic incompleteness that opens it for encounters with other cultures” (97). The potential richness of cultural experiences will be lost if all existing cultures are treated as self-suffcient and perfect in their own ways, Epstein argues, because a culture cannot embrace difference effectively unless it recognizes its own incompleteness. Epstein does not specify who are the agencies of cultures, so it appears that cultures themselves are the agencies rather than individuals or groups located within cultures. Cultures and identities associated with them are incomplete in the sense of being open to revisions or new understandings, and incorporating features that might be identifed with other cultures. Transculture is both a norm and a state of being: the realization of incompleteness opens a culture for encounters with other cultures, thus transitioning from difference to interference. Epstein goes on to develop the contrast between transculturalism and multiculturalism. He argues that although fundamental differences remain between the two ideas, transculturalism and multiculturalism have a common desire to dislodge a vision of cultures as unitary and monolithic. Multiculturalism praises “pride” in any single culture (and especially of cultural minorities), while transculturalism “embraces the moral value of humility that makes one culture open to other cultures” (2009, 334). Multiculturalism is a pluralism that is based on the ethical impulses of pride (in relation to one’s identity) and tolerance (in relation to other cultures), which emphasizes the virtue of “faithfulness” to one’s own native soil and natural roots. Multiculturalism also thinks in terms of racial or gender identities and “presentation”; for instance, individuals express themselves as representatives of male, white, or black. In contrast to the multicultural framework, the transcultural approach asserts the openness of any culture and thus its need for radical openness to and dialogue with others, because “what is at stake now is not whether different cultures

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can tolerate one another but whether they can be creatively involved with one another” (1999, 97). Epstein rightly argues that transculturalism is more favorable than multiculturalism to speak of women’s capacities and possibilities. I argued in chapter 7 that feminism needs an alternative to multiculturalism. Here I propose that transculturalism is a proper alternative, although we need to adapt Epstein’s idea of transculturalism to a feminist usage. Epstein’s statement that each culture is insuffcient or incomplete could easily be misunderstood in a society that promotes multiculturalism as claiming that some cultures are insuffcient or incomplete rather than all cultures are insuffcient and incomplete for women’s capacities and possibilities. There is an unspeakable satisfaction in having a multicultural and diversifed environment in the United States, and there is also the fear that by pointing out cultures as insuffcient or incomplete one is judgmental about other cultures. However, if we strive to be self-refective and critical, we will not be afraid to say that our culture or other cultures are in need of constructive critiques. If we are eager to engage in diversity, we should not be afraid of giving constructive suggestions. Epstein’s critique of multiculturalism rightly hits the stagnant contentment of Americans who are satisfed with a position such as “I tolerate cultural differences, and I am for diversity.” This superfcial diversity needs to be challenged in a constructive way and Epstein’s conception of transculturalism is inspiring for feminism. The transcultural perspective has the potential to transform the social structure of power relations into a less oppressive form if we understand the relationship between interference and power, and use that understanding as a motivation to challenge oppressive power relations. For instance, second-wave feminists and third-wave feminists, western feminists and Third-World feminists should all engage with each other in their racial, class, cultural, or sexual orientation differences in order to grow and be liberated collectively. The lack of this kind of genuine engagement could be demonstrated by the fact that there is increasing isolation among different “branches” of feminism in the United States due to a failure to recognize and appreciate the range of possibilities. Epstein’s conception of interference is extremely useful for feminism. Constructive interference as a kind of activity or practice is central to transcultural experiences. The metaphoric meaning of interference implies the ethical aspect of cross-cultural interference and collaboration. Interference can mean the disturbing effect of new pressure on the performance of previously learned behavior with which it is inconsistent. Difference, friction, and confict are aspects of interference, which is a faithful refection of the reality of cultural exchanges. Transculture therefore does not simply mean the coexistence of different cultures, but rather the interference of all the differences. An example of transcultural practice can be demonstrated by Chinese

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immigrants in the United States. The frst wave of Chinese immigrants were drawn by the economic boom associated with the 1849 California “Gold Rush” and they worked as laborers in services such as laundry and restaurants. Unlike older generations of immigrants, current Chinese immigrants are more likely to be professionals with advanced degrees or persons with skills in certain felds that can beneft the national economy, cultural or educational interests, or welfare of the United States. When reporting on the status of Chinese immigrants in the United States, Kristen McCabe (2012) notes that Chinese-born adults were more likely than the native born to have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education. Almost one-quarter of employed Chinese-born men worked in information technology and other sciences and engineering occupations in 2010. Chinese-born women, according to McCabe’s report, were more likely than Chinese-born men and immigrant men and women overall to work in management, business, and fnance professions in 2010. Compared to Chinese immigrants a century and a half ago, new Chinese immigrants have more bargaining power due to (1) self-esteem stemming from an increasingly powerful home country, (2) self-confdence that they have something unique to contribute to the host country, and (3) fexibility of going back and forth between the United States and China. In this sense, transcultural experiences expand immigrants’ vision and grant them more freedom for individual development, which is true to comparable experiences of immigrants from various countries in previous generations. Although only a small percentage of new immigrants would intentionally forgo their cultural identity and become entirely international cosmopolitans, descendants of immigrants in the United States transform their cultural identities into transcultural experiences. For instance, a Chinese American may identify herself as a Chinese, an American, both Chinese and American, or neither Chinese nor American. We can take Chinese young professionals participating in cultural exchanges between the United States and China as an example of interfering with each other in a positive way to demonstrate what interference means, what a transcultural experience is, and in what circumstances one might have it. At a token level, this kind of cultural interaction encourages a deeper understanding of cultural differences compared with the mutual ignorance and misunderstanding that previously existed between the two nations. The American culture is transformed into a transculture through the interference of the American and Chinese cultures, among others. The transculture is more complete in Epstein’s sense than the sum of the American culture and the Chinese culture because the transcultural experiences bring more richness to the original American culture. Asian Americans including Chinese Americans are arguably the United States’ “model minority,” which could be

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a stereotype but means they are in general well-educated and prosperous, yet they face discrimination nevertheless. For instance, the anthology “Strangers” of the Academy: Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education (Li and Beckett 2006) addresses the lived experiences of institutional discrimination of Asian immigrant and Asian American women scholars in the academy of North America. The contributing authors reveal that the discrimination and challenges that these women face are multi-layered: gender, race, ethnicity, class, or immigrant status. They are in constant negotiation of their gendered, cultural, and professional identities. Asian women faculty members who cross borders gain unique perspectives due to their transnational experiences, which are distinctive from perspectives that are already available in the North American academy, even though they encounter institutional obstacles such as being underrepresented as tenure-track faculty and as upper level administrators. However, their transcultural experiences contribute to the richness of higher education in North America. Transcultural experiences, as such have been practiced in the American culture by immigrants and visitors over generations, makes the American culture richer than the sum of all the immigrant cultures and the indigenous cultures. The interference is an ongoing process, which the transcultural experiences of the Chinese young professionals are part of. This kind of interference and transcultural experiences enriches not only the American culture but also the Chinese culture because these people travel back and forth between cultures. People who travel, do business, live temporarily or permanently in different cultures all experience and contribute to transculture, so they make the world culture more complete through the growth and evolvement in the development of culture. On the contrary, if we think and practice from a multicultural perspective, according to which the majority culture protects minority differential group rights, there would be less interference in the preservation of cultures and less engagement in cultures. In other words, cultural development is in a more engaging and active mode from a transcultural perspective than it is from a multicultural one. For instance, as a critical theory, feminism can initiate the challenge by adopting a framework other than multiculturalism because (1) with more interaction among nations, we need a framework that differs from multiculturalism to examine cross-border issues; (2) even within the border, we need transculturalism because cultural interactions are increased to such an extent that there is more internal dynamism than ever before; and (3) multiculturalism is a fact in the United States and women identify with multiple identifcations, so transculturalism would not start with a blank slate but at a thoroughly multicultural mindset. We need a richer conception than what “interaction” provides to address transcultural communications. In this aspect, transculturalism has a specifc advantage over multiculturalism.

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THE TRANSCULTURAL TREND IN FEMINISM In the previous section, I presented Epstein’s notion of transculturalism, in particular his view on group identity and his concept of interference. I argued that Epstein’s concept of interference is useful for feminism and his postmodern denial of group identity should be corrected. In this section, I will draw on María Lugones’s work to demonstrate how to approach women’s solidarity by defending identity politics while incorporating a transcultural perspective. I show that the transcultural perspective and the feminist goal are compatible, thus demonstrating that the transcultural perspective is a promising alternative to the multicultural approach in feminist discourse. In fact, the transcultural perspective is already present in feminist theories, such as Lugones’s, and offers a great promise to end divisions within feminism. I also show that feminists such as Lugones have not fully distinguished the transcultural perspective from the multicultural approach. The purpose of this section is to show that transculturalism as a framework is benefcial for feminism by the presence of its elements in some important feminist theorists’ thinking. At the same time, we see the value of being more explicit about issues such as transculture, transcultural experiences, and interference when we learn that someone like Lugones does not go far enough in the transcultural direction. Solidarity and the Logic of Impurity The strategy of transculture has been implicit in the rhetoric of some feminists (for instance, see Anzaldúa 1987 and Lugones 2003). Transcultural themes occasionally lurk in the background of feminist scholarship and Lugones’s notion of interaction and collaboration is an example and indication of the values of the transcultural perspective in feminism. Lugones argues that oppressions are intermeshed rather than interlocked, because “interlocking” implies that the oppressed are categorically separated from each other and categorically lumped together while intermeshed indicates the inseparability of various oppressions. Accordingly, resistance to oppressions should be a struggle to connect with each other: “The interlocking of oppressions is a central feature of the process of social fragmentation, since fragmentation requires not just shards or fragments of the social, but that each fragment be unifed, fxed, atomistic, hard-edged, internally homogeneous, bounded, repellent of other equally bounded and homogeneous shards” (2003, 231 n1). According to Lugones, the conception of interlocking follows the logic of the presentation, that is, the logic of purity and the logic of fragmentation, as an instrument of social control. She asserts that feminists should reject the logic of fragmentation and embrace “a nonfragmented multiplicity that requires an understanding of oppressions as interlocked” (141).

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Although Lugones was aware that “interwoven or intermeshed or enmeshed may provide better images,” she was not “ready to give up the term [interlocking] because it is used by other women of color theorists who write in a liberatory vein about enmeshed oppression. . . . At the time of this writing, I had not drawn the distinction between intermeshed oppressions and the interlocking of oppressions” (146 n1; emphasis in original). Fragmentation occurs when oppressions are viewed as interlocked rather than intermeshed because social subjects are divided into groups or communities of the same interests. Fragmentation occurs when every group member identifes with the group value, so there is no difference, contestation, or confict among group members but only between groups. Therefore, the intermeshing of oppressions of some group members is not revealed in this fragmented group picture of groups. Lugones distinguishes between the logic of impurity and the logic of purity. The logic of impurity is a logic of curdling, which results in multiplicity; the logic of purity is a logic of splitting, which results in fragmentation. She uses a metaphor of mayonnaise as an oil-in-water emulsion to describe something or someone in the middle of either/or, impure and mestizo: “Mayonnaise is an oil-in-water emulsion. As all emulsions, it is unstable. . . . it is instead, a matter of different degrees of coalescence. The same with mayonnaise; when it separates, you are left with yolky oil and oily yolk” (122). According to her, curdling is an art of resistance, in which one is separate, curdled, and resisting by “looking at oneself in someone else’s mirror and back in one’s own, of self-aware experimentation” (145). According to her, the fundamental assumption of purity is that there is unity underlying multiplicity, which is split-separation. Different from split-separation, curdle-separation is a form of solidarity that does not stem from communities consisting of the same qualities. She specifes the difference between the logic of impurity and the logic of purity: “According to the logic of curdling, the social world is complex and heterogeneous and each person is multiple, nonfragmented, embodied. . . . According to the logic of purity, social world is both unifed and fragmented, homogeneous, hierarchically ordered. Each person is either fragmented, composite, or abstract and unifed—not exclusive alternatives” (127; emphasis in original). Lugones prefers the logic of impurity, which is the logic of curdle-separation and of heterogeneity. If we follow this logic, the world will not be perceived as consisting of separated fragments, but rather of curdled elements. In other words, heterogeneity does not simply mean the coexistence of various elements that are clearly separated from each other, but rather the intermeshing and interfering of elements. Lugones thus uncovers the connection between impurity and resistance and takes mestizaje as an example for this connection. The literal meaning of mestizaje is the

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general process of mixing ancestries and Lugones uses the word to mean non-fragmented multiplicity. To overcome social fragmentation, we need to identify with each other as being oppressed as well as being capable of overcoming and resisting oppression. The identifcation does not require sameness and independence; rather, social subjects involved in resistance to oppression should be multiplicitous and non-fragmented. We should not erase our complexity simply for the sake of the group, such as the group of women or the group of Latinos, when we move from one group to another because the self is multifaceted and nonfragmented. Lugones continues to argue that the group identity is based on differences among group members in terms of race, gender, culture, class, and other differences that affect and constitute the identity of the group’s members. She makes a note that her emphasis on differences is entirely different from the postmodern agenda of promoting difference. Postmodern endorsement of difference “goes against a politics of identity and toward minimizing the political signifcance of groups” (142), while her discussion of difference emphasizes the importance of the impact that multiple oppressions have on the identity of the group’s members. Interaction, “World”-Traveling, and “I→We” Lugones emphasizes the importance of interaction. She criticizes ethnocentrism, which she defnes as the belief that one’s culture and cultural ways are superior to others. She also sees ethnocentrism as an arrogant indifference to other cultures that devalues them either through under-appreciating and stereotyping or through accepting such stereotypes. What is missing in the feminist work that deals with the “problem of difference” is the interactive step. Typically, it is not women of color who tell white women that “we” are all alike; rather, it is white women who tell women of color so. When women of color challenge white women on what they mean by “we,” they actually call out “an interactive demand, a demand for an answer” (70). Unfortunately, white women hear that demand as an attack on the activity of their theorizing rather than on white racism. It is this misinterpretation that generates the “problem of difference.” That is, the challenge for interaction from women of color to white women is one that white women unintentionally dismiss by labeling the challenge as “difference.” Why is there a lack of deeper interaction between white feminists and women of color, and why do some white feminists merely emphasize their theorization rather than interacting with actual women of color? Lugones explains that racism plays two tricks on white women theorists. The frst is that white women do not notice women of color, so they do not think that

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the difference between them is important, which leads to their generalization that all women are the same. The second trick is that white women conceive this lack of noticing women of color as a theoretical problem—the “problem of difference.” Lugones argues that what lies at the root of ethnocentrism is racism. According to her, racism is partly due to one’s lack of recognition of “the structure and mechanism of the racial state” (44). She asserts that by noticing the race issue, we see “the possibility and complexity of a pluralistic feminism” (77). Therefore, theorizing is not the solution to the “problem of difference”; rather, the solution lies with white women interacting with women of color, because by doing so, women of color act as mirrors in which white women see themselves in a way that no other mirrors can reveal. As a way to build a pluralistic feminism, Lugones suggests we should cultivate a consciousness called “world”-traveling as a way of identifying with others and resisting oppression. “World”-traveling is an active subjectivity, which presupposes collective intentionality. Lugones does not identify “world” with culture because she regards “world” as less determined than culture. As she explains, “My use of the word ‘world’ understands meaning and communication to be both less coded and less determined by cultural codes. And it understands the existing codes as less ossifed and, as the result of ongoing transculturalism, interworld infuencing and interworld relations of control and resistance to control” (25–26). “World,” for Lugones, is not the same as the physical world in the sense that “world” is not as solidifed as the physical world. Through traveling to the “world” of the other, one can identify with another person and discover the need of interdependence with or on each other. By traveling to others’ “worlds,” we gain knowledge of their “worlds,” thus getting to know people that inhabit other “worlds.” According to Lugones, traveling across “worlds” should be partly constitutive of cross-cultural and cross-racial loving, which results in a new meaning of coalition. The “playful” thought experiment of “world”-traveling is a way to identify with others because it generates deep understanding and makes one feel at ease. Playfulness is the loving attitude toward others and an openness to uncertainty while traveling; when we are “playful,” we are not self-important, nor stabilized in any particular “world,” but rather being creative and open to further self-construction and new possibilities. By traveling to others’ “worlds,” we can understand what it is to be like others and see ourselves through the eyes of others. The fexibility of “world”-traveling is necessary for outsiders because it is partly constitutive of cross-cultural and cross-racial loving. As she states, “I recommend to women of color in the United States that we learn to love each other by learning to travel to each other’s ‘worlds’” (78). This kind of love means that we should stop acting like arrogant perceivers. If we perceive someone arrogantly, we fail to identify with them, and thus

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fail to love them. This kind of love also means that we should quit being servants because love is not the same as unconditional servitude. Lugones thus proposes an “I→we” model, which indicates that women inhabit multiple liberatory trajectories. Women engage in interactive multiple sense-making by encountering each other “at the intersections of local and translocal histories of meaning fashioned in the resisting←→oppressing relation” (228). The emancipatory sense-making thus occurs in a complex intersubjective context with a transitional intentionality. Lugones’s attitude toward multiculturalism is that she advocates a polycentric multiculturalism, which is to break boundaries and produce heterogeneity. She mainly endorses multiculturalism: “A polycentric multiculturalist perception that emphasizes the production of space perceives against the grain of social fragmentation and reduction of heterogeneous subjects and communities into bounded, isolated, simple, because homogeneous, units” (200). The critique of social fragmentation and the purpose of “world”traveling is to sustain this polycentric multiculturalism. Lugones’s sense of polycentric multiculturalism is somewhat different than the one that Epstein and I criticize, but it is clear that Lugones still thinks and argues within the multicultural framework. “World”-Traveling and Transculture There are similarities in Lugones’s account of “world”-traveling and Epstein’s account of transcultural experiences. In particular, Lugones uses the term “intermeshing,” which is similar to Epstein’s “interference” though Lugones never uses the term “interference.” There are at least three other similarities between Lugones and Epstein. First, Epstein argues that transculture seeks to move beyond the hegemony of any single culture by recognizing the existence of a multiplicity of distinct cultures, which is similar to Lugones’s account of mestizaje. Lugones quite rightly points out that oppressions are intermeshed. The conception of “intermeshed” reveals the fact that social categories are not unifed, self-contained, and internally homogeneous entities; rather, they are as inseparable as an oil-water emulsion. Because oppressions are intermeshed, people need to connect with each other to resist oppressions. Second, both Lugones and Epstein argue against the self-representation of certain cultures or certain groups. Lugones criticizes the privilege of white women who take themselves as representative of all women. Epstein criticizes western cultures that assume themselves to be representative of cultures. Lugones argues that fragmentation happens when social subjects are divided into groups or communities of the same interests, while Epstein points out that it could be detrimental if one clings to the pride of being the

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representative of one’s culture. Lugones’s critique of the logic of fragmentation is similar to Epstein’s critique of the multicultural view of cultures being separate entities. Lastly, Lugones’s conception of curdle-separation is similar to Epstein’s conception of interference. Lugones’s idea of curdle-separation implies that something new is being generated in the process of curdling just as something new is being generated in the process of interference. In Epstein, difference can be self-differentiated into interference in transculture, which is an endless process. In Lugones, people’s identities can be multiplied into heterogeneous identities just like oil and egg yolk can be emulsifed into mayonnaise. Individuals in transculture are “either/or” and “both/and” just like mestizaje in its curdled state, both separated, curdled, and resisting at the same time. Both Lugones and Epstein depict the necessity and urge for interaction and interconnection, whether the purpose of doing so is to rid society of cultural rigidness or gender oppression. However, Lugones has a quite different view on identity from Epstein’s. The distinctive difference between Lugones and Epstein is that Lugones emphasizes the importance of group identity while Epstein rejects identity. Epstein views identity as the barrier to full human potential because one can be anything if one does not identify with something. According to him, denial of identity can also avoid the danger of opposition, which leads to conficts and violence. That is to say, identity is not incompatible with transculture. On the contrary, Lugones emphasizes that identity is very important for reminding feminists of the purpose of being mestizaje: women want to be mestizaje not simply for its own sake, but to be connected with other feminists to eliminate intermeshed oppressions, which includes gender oppression. For instance, transcultural Chinese women may or may not identify themselves with either Chinese or American, but they carry identities, which could be transcultural beings, cosmopolitan beings, or Chinese aliens living in the United States. Differences among women mean class and racism to Lugones, but she does not talk about them separately from culture. By defning ethnocentrism as the belief that some cultures are superior to others, she mainly regards racial and class differences as cultural differences. Thus, Lugones considers culture to be characterized as the stratifcation of race and class in the United States. She discusses race and class as other forms of difference and confict, in which the “problem of difference” is situated. In a sense, Epstein and Lugones share similar views about the transcultural perspective. For instance, Epstein’s notion of transculture is similar to Lugones’s idea of “world”-traveling. Epstein’s concept of interference is embodied in Lugones’s argument about interaction and interdependence. We can fnd Epstein’s idea of the potential of self-transformation in Lugones who notices the resistance imbedded in

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“world”-traveling. The desire and importance for interaction among women addressed by Lugones echoes a realization of incompleteness that Epstein points out. Lugones’s account of the need for interaction and “world”-traveling offers feminists a way to explain the intermeshedness of oppressions, which can direct feminism back to solidarity. According to her, knowing other women is a way of loving them, which is intelligible in the sense that women should stop perceiving other women with arrogant attitudes because arrogance is a destructive attitude. Lugones rightly believes that changes needed to improve women’s situations cannot be made without solidarity among women of different cultures. She implies that women can learn how to generalize the consciousness of playful “world”-traveling into a more political solidarity once they fgure out personal friendship, but it remains unclear how women can transit from this personal friendship to a political solidarity. Although certain issues are left unaddressed in Lugones’s account, it is important to note that we cannot lose sight of the impact of women’s friendship on women’s solidarity and women’s personal friendship as a useful component of women’s solidarity. For instance, Sandra Bartky (2002) emphasizes the function of sympathy in forging women’s solidarity from the perspective of phenomenology. According to her, genuine collective fellow-feeling is crucial for the development of feminist political solidarity because fellowfeeling experience can promote the kind of solidarity that encourages attentiveness to difference. However, an endorsement of political fellow-feeling to form a common goal is different from deconstructing gender in feminist discourse. In other words, a strategic practice of fellow-feeling could be a useful prerequisite of solidarity, but we should emphasize that solidarity is a political practice. This ambiguity regarding personal friendship and political solidarity is a possible explanation of why both the multicultural approach and the transcultural perspective are found in Lugones. She oscillates between multiculturalism and transculturalism from time to time: her arguments sometimes lean toward multiculturalism, which shows how prevalent multiculturalism is and how necessary transculturalism is. When Lugones confrms the existence of “world” and thus encourages women to travel to each other’s “world,” she implies that this place is to some extent self-contained though she claims that “worlds” are open to surprises. Yet, she leans toward transculturalism when she defnes “world” as the result of ongoing transculturation though she does not use terms such as “transculture” or “interference.” The oscillation indicates that difference and interference are inherently connected because only when one acknowledges difference can one start to interfere with others. The oscillation also indicates that feminism is in need of transculture, but she has not explicitly specifed it as the appropriate direction for feminism.

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This lack of recognition not only explains why the problem of the division of feminism has not been fully recognized and dealt with in feminism but also demonstrates the necessity and signifcance of an explicit endorsement of the transcultural perspective. THE ADVANTAGES AND THE LIMITATIONS OF THE TRANSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE In the previous sections, I presented Epstein’s account of transculture and interference and Lugones’s account of interaction and “world”-traveling. I argued that there are similarities between Epstein’s transculture and Lugones’s “world”-traveling, but Lugones’s emphasis on group identity can helpfully amend Epstein’s version of transculturalism. In this section, I will further explore how feminists can transform the transcultural perspective by summarizing and weighing the advantages of the feminist transcultural perspective with its limitations. To better serve feminism, we need to apply the transcultural perspective to a feminist cause. For instance, Epstein’s term “transcendence” should be interpreted in the political sense. In the context of feminism, transcending cultures or borders does not mean we lapse into nothingness, but rather that we set a refective distance between women and oppressive cultures. A refective distance is generated when one observes and refects on the culture she is originally from and when one has a better ability to analyze the structure of power relations in that culture. The refective distance helps women understand gender oppression more thoroughly and have a starting point to generate resistance to the oppression. Western feminists and Third-World feminists desire interaction among women, which is exactly what the transcultural project brings about. The feminist transcultural perspective has at least four advantages compared to Epstein’s version of transculturalism since his version denies group identity including women’s identity. First, a feminist transcultural perspective aims to understand, challenge, and transform the oppressive social structures by setting a refective distance between the oppressed groups from the culture in which they are located. By setting a refective distance, I do not mean detaching the oppressed groups from their cultures, but rather examining the bigger picture of their situations. This distance provides the macroscopic perspective that is crucial for understanding the structure of oppression because the marginalized are refectively distant from their respective cultures via their transcultural experiences. These transcultural experiences suggest the evolution of a critical consciousness that defects the claims of a singular culture in different ways. Refective distance makes it possible for the oppressed groups

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to step back and look at the systemic and structural oppression. From time to time, when individual women encounter certain kinds of injustice, they tend to think of those as isolated incidences. The refective distance might allow a woman to start to view her mistreatment as a result of membership within a certain group. For example, an underrepresented woman faculty is sometimes mistreated not as an individual, but because she is a member of an underrepresented group and certain assumptions or misconceptions are associated with that group. If oppression is systemic and structural, then emancipation should be systemic and structural because to make emancipation possible feminism should explore the relationship between agency and structures of oppression and fnd out how women’s agency can challenge or subvert gender norms. This refective distance that comes about through interference is quite different from the distance earlier proposed by Okin, who claims that western women have an epistemic advantage of understanding the oppression of Third-World women due to the former’s distance from the latter’s oppression. Rather than a global expansion and reconfguration of a dominant race, gender, or culture, a transcultural perspective provides women across cultural differences with a theoretical tool and a practical method to understand gender oppression on an equal basis. Women gain distinctive agency due to both their social locations and the distance from those locations, and thus possess unique voices to critically observe and explain the social structures of power relations. Second, from a feminist transcultural perspective, transcendence from the specifc culture does not confict with the situatedness of women and intermeshedness of women’s oppressions. Being conscious of, or sensitive to, cultural differences means both the recognition of differences and their transcendence by distantly refecting on the communicative needs of each culture. However, it is not completely distant but, rather, transcendent with reciprocal recognition of and identifcation with others. When a person refects on the culture within which she is situated, that refection is aided by the experience of different cultural perspectives or practices. This refection is an attitude of resistance; transcendence from a culture is different from avoidance of or pure criticism of that culture. A transcultural perspective encourages a decentered cultural and political relationship to cultures, which can foster a sensibility to constructive interference rather than deconstructive interference and this kind of sensibility is crucial for initiation and generation of resistance. Transcultural experiences deepen self-refection and mutual recognition, and are able to promote new imaginations about power and about the self. Therefore, the transcultural perspective helps ease the tension between the dominant culture and the marginalized culture created by increasing cultural exchanges because one culture needs another to engage in cultural dialogues and interlocutors have equal agency.

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Third, a feminist transcultural perspective suggests that feminism must reconcile the competing interests of having a multiplicity of identities and of constructing a unity based on certain principles of collaboration. Even though each identity might imply distinctive and competing interests, women who have transcultural experiences would be more likely to understand, sympathize, and incorporate the interests of women that are different from them. Over time, those different interests may even become part of their identities and as a result, their decisions and actions might be infuenced by them. The tension and confict that results from differences among women can be resolved through transcultural processes and practices, which can in turn inform a new politics of difference in feminism. That is, recognition of and refection on the shortcoming of each version of feminism or each culture highlights differences among women and encourages interaction between them. A transcultural perspective offers an ethical perspective within which one might work with, and sustain collaboration across, different identities. Feminism is a collective movement rather than the emancipation of individuals, so an account of collaboration should include various resistant practices, a conception of power, and connectedness. What needs to be noted is that although the feminist struggle is considered a collective one, the idea of collaboration among all women does not necessarily mean that a movement should always consist of every woman. Instead, there may be different kinds and aspects of collaboration, in which subsets of women can be brought together by a category of “women.” Lastly, the transcultural perspective is necessary for the feminist political movement for practical reasons: transculture, by providing a model of engagement and interaction that builds on differences, holds great promise for feminism to fnd a way to deal more productively with differences among women other than treating feminism as the sum of various kinds of feminisms, such as African American feminism, women of color feminism, or Asian feminism. Differences among women are concrete and contextual rather than an abstract summary of being simply different in reference to the dominant group, so feminism should treat oppression as multiplicative, intermeshed, and concrete rather than abstract. The transcultural perspective does not simply emphasize that cultures are different, but rather stresses the signifcance of interaction and interdependency of cultures. For example, the transcultural practice in which women engage in the interference of different cultures can alleviate the myopia of viewing women’s experiences only through the lens of the western culture. The current versions of global feminism and international feminism, despite their merits, unfortunately looks at women in other cultures through this lens to a certain extent; as a result, they unintentionally use their (western) values as the point of reference. The transcultural perspective, however, would encourage women, especially those in

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the dominant cultures or those with privileges, to stop taking undue pride of their cultures or social positions. At the same time, it encourages women in the less dominant cultures to refect on their own culture, be humble with other cultures and distinguish cultural exchanges with good intentions from cultural neo-imperialism. The category of women, which embraces similarities and differences among women, reminds women in various cultures that they share a collective mission. Employing the transcultural perspective thus makes it possible for women to understand each other and share a political solidarity in order to eliminate gender oppression. The transcultural experience may be illustrated through an example of a dissident cross-cultural project. A few years ago, I participated in a writing project with a group of feminist scholars that turned into an anthology Dissident Friendships: Feminism, Imperialism, and Transnational Solidarity (Chowdhury and Philipose 2016). The contributing authors are located in different social and cultural backgrounds, but we try to forge friendships across national, gender, racial, or political boundaries. It is called “dissident friendships” because we are connected across divisive structures of power, but at the same time we are transformed by the affective connections. Despite the complexity and potential drawbacks due to our differences, the idea of dissident cross-cultural friendships shows the possibility of transcultural feminist solidarity and praxis. One could question whether this kind of transcultural feminist solidarity will get trumped by other kinds of alliances one might forge with one’s family, community, or nation in the pursuit of social justice. Yet, our ongoing conversations and interactions after the publication of the book are encouraging and fruitful. For instance, we had a roundtable discussion on the theme of dissident cross-cultural friendships and solidarity at the National Women’s Studies Association Annual conference in Baltimore, where we engaged feminist students, scholars, and activists in a conversation of difference, friendship, and solidarity to open doors for further discussion about feminist solidarity. However, the transcultural perspective has its own limitations that might be detrimental to feminism. I will point out two here: one is that various forms of deconstructive interference such as colonialism, cultural imperialism, and transnational exploitation can take place in the name of transculturalism. Epstein only focuses on constructive interference without talking much about deconstructive interference. As a matter of fact, transculturalism faces challenges with the rapid development of global economic capitalism, which is widening the gap between developed countries and less-developed countries, thus further marginalizing women, ethnic or indigenous minorities, and the working-class in Third-World nations. With increased mobility through global economic expansion and immigration, neo-colonization emerges. While globalization increases the connection between nations to a degree, we are caught

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in a larger struggle where transnational exploitation and cultural imperialism operate in less explicit ways but on a larger scale. A transcultural perspective calls for support from local and global economies and politics, but transcultural feminists should be aware of and more cautious about political agendas that can occur as a result of cross-border information fltering and reframing. For instance, more and more Latino and Filipino women come to the United States to provide domestic work and “free” some women from domestic work. This kind of transcultural experience (in Epstein’s sense) improves housework providers’ economic ability but also harms their own well-being and their families, thus creating a social vulnerability based on a new internationally gendered system. There is a dangerous tendency by people located in western culture to reassure themselves that their values are, and should be, the norm of the world. The western world tends to take credit for the advancement and development of other countries in transcultural exchanges. The other limitation is the increasing tokenism in feminism that is formulated in transcultural experiences. Tokenism is the practice of making a symbolic effort to recruit a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality in circumstances such as workplaces and committees. Tokenism might happen in the transcultural process in Epstein’s sense because “interference” could possibly only be engaged by representatives from underrepresented groups. For example, on a U.S. campus, the fact that a women of color faculty member can sit on an academic diversity committee to show that the university is a diversifed environment does not necessarily mean all women of color are represented on campus. The inclusion of a woman of color faculty as a token representative sends a misleading message that interests of women of color on campus are recognized. The division of feminism and the lack of engaged interaction among women are partly disguised by the self-representation of certain Third-World feminist fgures, who provide knowledge about ThirdWorld cultures as if it is the knowledge of these cultures without examining whether they only offer authentic depictions of their cultures from their personal perspectives. This tokenism exempts both western feminists and ThirdWorld feminists from active engagement in cross-cultural activities and thus creates problems for both sides. On the one hand, western feminists assume that acknowledgement and inclusion of these token Third-World feminists resolves the issue of inclusion of Third-World women, therefore, further engagement is unnecessary. On the other hand, Third-Word feminists assume that Third-World issues are “our issues” and that white women are not in the position to talk about “our issues.” This tokenism and self-representation may unintentionally push western feminism and Third-World feminism further apart from each other.

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One may object that women’s oppression, in particular that in Third-World cultures (questionably assumed to be more oppressive), would not be solved by transculturalism. For instance, issues such as the protection of minority cultures that concerns Kymlicka cannot be improved through transculturalism. This objection leads us to ask two questions about transculturalism: Is it possible that transculturalism can ease the tension between a majority culture and minority cultures? And if we become transculturalists, what will change and what could be changed? I would argue that the transcultural perspective does not defend the value of a particular culture simply because the culture is in the minority or majority. In other words, being minority or majority does not assign a moral value to a culture. This does not mean that values of a particular culture in most cases, the minority culture, are not worthy of respect and being given serious consideration. Rather, values of the whole cultural world are adapted and revised as a result of transcultural communications, through which each culture recognizes advantages and disadvantages of its value systems and is more open to further communication. This is not an easy mission to undertake, especially when we are caught up with the satisfaction of being multicultural, diversifed, and tolerant. In this sense, the advocate of the transcultural perspective would provoke uncomfortable engagement and communication patterns, but this kind of uneasy confrontation is exactly the starting point of genuine dialogues and interaction. There is a growing body of feminist work on transnational feminism in recent years. Some may ask whether I intend to create something new by proposing transcultural feminism because transcultural feminism sounds like transnational feminism. That is, what is the relationship between transcultural feminism and transnational feminism? I would respond that transcultural feminism and transnational feminism share similar mandates but they are not the same. For instance, they both challenge limitations of global feminism and international feminism and they both promote feminist solidarities across differences, but transcultural feminism focuses on cultures and the interference of cultures because “culture,” in my understanding, is not mapped onto nation-states; rather, culture is a more fuid, fexible, and fuzzy notion than nation-state. Transcultural experiences may include transnational experiences, but they are not limited to national border-crossing experiences because one does not necessarily need to travel across national borders to have transcultural experiences. In other words, transnational feminism intends to blur the boundaries between the local and the global, and between the west and the non-west, while transcultural feminism not only tries to intermesh divides between the local and the global, but also divides within the local, for instance those in feminism that are related to feminist “difference critique” in the United States.

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Transcultural feminism and transnational feminism may have come from similar pathways of thinking because they both point to dissatisfaction of feminist discourse on cultural differences. Transnational feminism points to limitations of global feminism and international feminism, while transcultural feminism focuses on whether different feminist critiques of “difference” can work together to intermesh divides in feminist discourse. Transcultural feminism grows out of the frustration with limitations of the institutionalization of multiculturalism, which is popular in U.S. academia to address cultural differences among women, but transcultural feminism also joins a conversation with transnational feminism in refecting on the limitations of international feminism and global feminism. I hope a transcultural approach can help us see better the structure of gender oppression from a cultural perspective, both microscopically and macroscopically, across different cultures within a nation-state, across national borders, as well as in “third spaces” when cultures are interfered with one another. CONCLUSION The aim of this chapter is to offer some suggestions for an approach that shifts from multiculturalism to transculturalism for a more satisfactory interpretation of “difference” among women across cultures. I have argued that a feminist transcultural perspective, which emphasizes “interference” and “intermeshing” of cultures, is an effective approach regarding the discussion of gender differences and culture differences for the following reasons: (1) A transcultural perspective creates a useful space in which women can distantly refect on the various living experiences of women; therefore, the transcultural perspective holds the promise of opening genuine dialogues among women who are from different backgrounds; (2) the transcultural perspective helps ease the tension between the dominant culture and the marginalized culture by emphasizing the need of one culture and another culture to engage in cultural dialogues; (3) the transcultural perspective offers an ethical perspective within which women might sustain intermeshed identities while working toward collaboration across their cultural identities; and (4) the employment of a transcultural perspective makes it possible for women to understand gender oppression as a collective phenomenon across cultures and share a political solidarity in order to eliminate gender oppression. I utilized Lugones’s work to demonstrate that elements of transculturalism are present in feminist philosophy, but I also pointed to her oscillation between the multicultural approach and the transcultural perspective. Bringing together the advantages and the limitations of the transcultural perspective, I concluded that the transcultural perspective is promising for forging women’s solidarity

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globally because of the ways it helps feminists challenge gender oppression and transform oppressive social structures. I mean to provide the basis for a concept about accommodating cultural differences in this chapter. The critique of essentialism argues that the concept of women excludes other women, but what is shown in the feminist transcultural perspective is that the category of women does not exclude other women. If we pursue a feminist transcultural perspective, then we can have women connecting with women while having a concept of women, which means that we endorse both a group identity of women and the transcultural perspective. When a transcultural perspective is utilized, we should keep inequality and class in mind because these two kinds of differences run through the discussion of cultural differences and often they are expressions of cultural differences. There may be certain conditions, for example, some degree of economic equality or shared participation in a social movement, required for the transcultural process to have the desired effects. In any case, we need to acknowledge the needed preconditions for embodying the transcultural process. Transcultural themes, such as “world”-traveling, have been an implied background of feminist scholarship and they hold the promise for achieving women’s solidarity if more fully exploited. In the next and fnal part of the book, I will use transcultural experiences that take place in Chinese-American encounters to further illustrate what transcultural feminism entails for feminist solidarity. I will engage with Chinese feminist experiences to help develop a constructive response to my criticism of the “western” academic sources in the frst two parts. I will look at the theme of feminist solidarity via transculture with the intention to move the feminist discussion of “difference” from division to collaboration.

Part III

TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY, CHINESE FEMINIST EXPERIENCES, AND TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY

Chapter 9

Transcultural Feminist Solidarity

The discussion of solidarity runs roughly parallel to the discussion of women’s identity: a concept of solidarity denies women’s group identity, affrms women’s group identity, or uses it strategically. The discussion of solidarity also runs roughly parallel to the discussion of cultural differences among women, in particular, the divide between U.S. women of color anti-racist feminisms and Third-World transnational feminism. I will discuss women’s solidarity from two aspects in this chapter: one is the theme of identity politics and the other is the theme of cultural differences and transculturalism. I propose that an approach that I am calling “transcultural feminist solidarity” is helpful for addressing the issue of women’s solidarity in the context of cultural differences and globalization. I will specify what this approach is through assessing various feminist approaches to women’s solidarity. SOLIDARITY AND FEMINISM Solidarity means individuals acting together with one another with a bond, goal, or strategy that differs from the pursuit of self-interest, a bond, goal, or strategy related to shared or similar life conditions, that is, certain patterns of oppression. Solidarity can be expressed in various terms, such as cooperation, shared identifcation, and shared interests; therefore, I defne solidarity as collective resistance and empowerment. Both identity and a feeling of interdependence constitute the basis for solidarity with others. The goal of solidarity is to realize certain personal or collective interests that are not possible without establishing a relationship to others. Solidarity increases individual strength in confrontation with an adversary. Accordingly, I defne feminist solidarity as (1) creating a self-consciously constructed space where 169

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the resistance to gender oppression is established by forming collaboration around women’s group identity and around resistance itself while (2) recognizing the different forms that gender oppression takes. In this sense, the issue of women’s group identity and the resistance to gender oppression are connected. Not all feminists regard solidarity as a necessary component of the feminist movement. For instance, some if not all postmodernist feminists think that advocating for solidarity among all women is not possible, or at least not fruitful (although some of them advocate solidarity among certain groups of women). However, the issue of women’s solidarity is important for feminism for two reasons. The frst is that solidarity raises awareness that women experience oppression as women and the issue of women’s solidarity is in fact an issue of women’s collective consciousness raising and empowerment. Feminist solidarity is thus not a goal or end as much as it is a strategy or means through which women can act collectively to achieve the goal of ending gender oppression. Women’s oppression cannot be eliminated by women individually; rather, the elimination of women’s oppression requires collective and political action. For instance, inasmuch as postmodernist feminists criticize multiculturalism, they do so primarily by stressing the limitations of identity politics. They assume that identity politics is built upon a fxed identity and propose a form of political practice that is built upon overlapping alliances, which are formed over common interests instead of identity politics (for instance, see Amy Allen 1999). In other words, they propose coalition politics in which individuals work together upon shared agreements to reach a common goal. As Cressida Heyes observes, postmodern feminists reach “the conclusion that ‘coalitional politics’ is a more appropriate form of organizing than conventional ‘identity politics’” (2000, 60). The second reason for its importance is that women’s solidarity suggests that there could be stronger connections and more collaboration among women; however, this idea is not illuminated in the positions that address differences among women. Women’s solidarity suggests a point where social changes regarding gender inequality can lead. The “difference critique” points feminist scholarship in the direction of multiculturalism, among others. In the context of the “difference critique” and multiculturalism, feminism seems to be drifting away from its initial goal as a collective activity for the elimination of gender oppression because it focuses on the discussion of differences (although the discussion of differences might be leading to a discussion of eliminating gender oppression). Women’s solidarity is particularly important for the issues in question of this book—the increasing divide and fssures of feminism in the past three or four decades partly due to debates over differences among women—but the divide has less to do with differences than the way some feminists theorize differences among women.

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Acknowledging differences is a necessary step for eliminating women’s oppression, but feminists should gain collective power to achieve the goal of the feminist movement while acknowledging differences among women. As Marilyn Frye rightly points out, “The idea that articulating and elaborating differences among women was a route to viable female identity and solidarity was not an easy idea to grasp; indeed, it has had to be invented” (1996, 1006). Gaining collective power is the key to overcoming women’s oppression because resisting women’s oppression is impossible to achieve through individual efforts and struggles. Feminists have not reached the consensus that differences among women can lead to feminist solidarity in part because of the pervasive misconception that solidarity must be built upon commonality and sameness of identity rather than a shared common goal even in the midst of other differences in identities. Some feminists have attempted to discuss women’s collaboration despite their differences, but not many of them have translated their discussions into a useful account of solidarity, which remains a problematic concept in feminism. A number of feminists, such as Robin Morgan (1984), Jodi Dean (1996), Amy Allen (1999), Charlotte Bunch (2001), Sandra Bartky (2002), María Lugones (2003), Chandra T. Mohanty (2003), and Elora Chowdhury (2009), have developed a variety of approaches to women’s solidarity. These attempts are related to, but are not the same as, actual political solidarity. For instance, Robin Morgan’s concept of “global sisterhood” is frequently seen as a founding element of global feminism (although later global feminism diverges from Morgan’s notion of “global sisterhood”). Assuming a universal patriarchy and a common experience of oppression of women around the globe, Morgan, as a representative of early secondwave feminism, believed that women could build a unifed front against patriarchy by disregarding divisions of class, race, sexuality, and national origin between women. In the introduction to Sisterhood is Global, an anthology she edits, Morgan argues that what characterizes women across cultures and histories is a common condition and worldview, which is what women share and thus is referred to as the suffering inficted by a universal “patriarchal mentality” (1984, 1). In Morgan’s opinion, women are not different from each other because women have an essential bond due to the fact that they are victims of male supremacy, a common condition “experienced by all human beings who are born female” (4). Morgan’s intent is to conduct further dialogues between women from different social locations. To her, solidarity “as a real political force requires that women transcend the patriarchal barriers of class and race, and furthermore transcend even the solutions the Big Brothers propose to problems they themselves created” (18; emphasis in original). The concept of solidarity is crucial to the feminist movement because the concept of solidarity is necessary for thinking through how women may

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overcome patriarchy collectively. For example, the fruits of such analysis reveal the possibility of being able to contextualize potential solidarity and locate processes by which it can be achieved. Morgan’s idea of “global sisterhood” presents a widely recognized but heavily criticized notion of solidarity. In the next two sections, I will present and assess two feminist critiques of the notion of solidarity based on commonality: one critique is from the perspective of feminist strategic coalition-building and the other is from the perspective of building global networks across cultures. I will focus on the aspect of women’s group identity in the discussion of feminist solidarity and that of cultural differences by addressing and assessing a notion of global feminism that differs from Morgan’s “global sisterhood.” FEMINIST POLITICAL COALITION Amy Allen proposes an alternative to a universal concept of women’s solidarity in constructing a concept of feminist solidarity. She suggests utilizing women’s group identity strategically and attempts to fnd a middle way between two positions—having a women’s group identity and not having a women’s group identity—or “a dialectic of identity and nonidentity” (1999b, 105). Her middle way asserts that women acting in concert need not commit us to a sisterhood that relies on a fxed identity of women. Allen assumes that such an identity suppresses differences within women, arguing that Morgan’s sisterhood model of solidarity relies on problematic essentialist notions of women or women’s common experience, which refects “an exclusionary and repressive conception of women’s shared essence or experience of oppression” (1999a, 109). According to Allen, these problematic notions have the theoretical effect of restricting women’s experiences of oppression to such an extent that they appear to marginalize or even exclude various groups because of “an exclusionary unity that is presumed in advance” (110). Accordingly, this shortcoming of the sisterhood model of solidarity might lead one to think that in criticizing identity politics one must also criticize the idea of solidarity, at least of the idea of solidarity relying on “an exclusionary and repressive” identity. Her conception of solidarity, however, “offers feminists a way of understanding the requirements for forging relations of solidarity between unique, distinct women (and men) of different races, classes, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, who are, as a result of their differences, differently empowered” (110). Mediated Conception of Group Identity Corresponding to the idea of the middle way, Allen adopts “a mediated conception of group identity” that stands in a dialectical relationship between

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identity and nonidentity (1999a, 99). She argues that the opposition between identity and nonidentity is false because neither option is defensible. On the one hand, she asserts that an identity politics that relies on the category of women has the merit of talking about common experiences and shared goals that contribute to the feminist movement, but the category of women that is posited by some feminists is “fxed, pregiven, and perhaps even ‘natural’” (100). On the other hand, she acknowledges that a fragmented nonidentity makes it impossible to discuss solidarity among women because it abandons all notions of solidarity among political actors. Allen observes that the feminist movement is increasingly fragmented in the debates over identity politics, so she claims that the feminist movement cannot rely on fragmented nonidentity: “We cannot be powerful if we are dispersed and fragmented, if we reject any and all forms of group identity in favor of an absolute nonidentity or difference. For once we do this, it is impossible to understand how we can talk to one another, dispute our priorities, come to pragmatic agreements, and formulate provisional but nonetheless shared goals” (114). Interestingly, Allen does not entirely reject the concept of women’s group identity since it is crucial for the feminist movement. She draws on Hannah Arendt’s term “plurality” to explain this dialectical relationship between identity and nonidentity, and between sameness or commonality and difference. According to Arendt, “Plurality means that ‘we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live’” (Arendt 1958, 8; Allen 1999a, 105). In other words, plurality is an unchangeable aspect of the human condition, which means that humans are both set apart and bound together through action. Allen claims that it is antipolitical to reject all identity categories, “especially when those identities are under attack,” because by doing so “it renders all resistance to persecution and domination impossible” (1999a, 108). However, Allen’s approach to group identity is strategic because a group is compelled to defend itself in terms of identity only when its identity is under attack. In her words, “The category of women is neither incontrovertible fact nor pure fction; it is a political fact; as fact it is undeniable, and to attempt to deny it is to blind oneself to political realities, but as political it is changeable. One changes it by resisting, but one can resist only in terms of the political fact of an identity under attack” (112). A political fact is that a group of people can be attacked on the basis of a shared group identity; for instance, Jews are attacked simply because they are Jews. Despite her recognition of the usefulness of shared group identity when it is under attack, Allen claims that identity politics is passé for the discussion of feminist solidarity, which “must move beyond the terms of the identity politics debate and formulate non-repressive, non-exclusionary conceptions of group identity . . . reformulate solidarity as the result of concerted action, rather than as a pre-given, fxed and, hence, repressive identity” (106). In this

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way, feminists can bind the feminist movement together and link it to related social struggles against racism and heterosexism, for example, without the exclusion and marginalization of those who do not ft into fxed identity categories. Allen thus proposes a concept of solidarity after identity politics (without rejecting identity altogether). As such, the feminist concept of solidarity grows out of the dialectical interplay between identity and nonidentity and rests on “a mediated conception of group identity.” She believes this concept of solidarity should replace the sisterhood model of solidarity that rests on “an exclusionary and repressive conception of women’s shared essence.” Such a conception of solidarity is “something that is achieved through a shared commitment, a promise, to act in concert, not an exclusionary unity that is presumed in advance” (113). In other words, solidarity is the power that arises out of reciprocal commitments to act in concert. Feminist men and women are bound together as political actors to fght against a system of domination by shared promises and commitments, which are open to contestation, reinterpretation, and revision. Allen rightly points out that feminists need some basis to bind together to make a common cause. Her account of using “a mediated conception of group identity” occurs only when the group identity is under attack (for instance, when Jews are persecuted because they are Jews). By this suggestion, Allen may be saying that identities are changeable but existing identities are limited and limiting in some ways. Additionally, her explanation of “the dialectical interplay of identity and nonidentity” helps us understand why some feminist scholars oppose the concept of “woman” as a political category because such a concept, when it is a result of overgeneralization, may marginalize some women, for instance, those whose oppression is at the intersection of gender and race. Considering historical constructions of group identities helps to understand “the dialectical interplay of identity and nonidentity,” which in turn assists to sort out limitations of “an exclusionary and repressive identity.” Yet, it needs to be noted that an identity does not have to be exclusive and repressive: a useful way of categorizing women without suppressing differences among them is to regard the categorization as the practice of differences such as the ability of grasping both the variability and the dynamics of women. Allen attempts to draw a distinction between a philosophical conception of women (such as her idea of “a mediated conception of group identity”) and a women’s identity. A philosophical conception of women is not necessarily a women’s identity, although one can link the former to the latter. It is theoretically possible that a philosophical conception of women can tell us why there is no such a thing as a women’s identity, but this does not necessarily mean that a women’s identity is not needed for practicing feminist solidarity. Identifcation plays a role in solidarity, but it is not clear what kind of

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identifcation is necessary for solidarity. I agree with Allen that there is a distinction between a philosophical conception of women and women’s group identity, but by contrast, I argue that a women’s identity, rather than a philosophical conception of women, is necessary for feminist solidarity. Allen suggests that one does not need to have a unifed conception of women, or even a unifed identity of women to have solidarity among women, meaning there could be solidarity among women without women’s shared group identity. One reason that we separate the idea of women’s shared group identity (such as what I claim) from a philosophical concept of women (such as what Allen claims) is that the identity that women share and the ways in which women identify with each other do not in any way homogenize them. Having a shared women’s identity means that our lives are in some general sense shaped through our gender reality; the way that we live our gender reality is that we are oppressed as women. In other words, it is because we are women that we are oppressed. Yet, we do not have to be oppressed in the same way to be oppressed as women because there can be differences within shared gender oppression. That is, emphasizing oppression as women assumes similar social structures, which can be characterized in terms previously discussed, rather than a commonality. The issue then seems to be how identity is constituted, which is a question that all these discussions of identity need to address. This dialectic relationship between differences of women’s oppression and a shared women’s identity fts with the idea that solidarity may be possible among women who are located in very different social and political circumstances. A particular woman may feel solidarity with women whose oppression differs from hers, because although gender oppression has different local meanings for her and other women, solidarity is rooted in the fact that they are both oppressed as women. Maybe for some feminists (Allen, for instance) differences undermine the possibility of a women’s group identity, so having a philosophical conception of women is suffcient for feminist solidarity. However, in the discussion of women’s solidarity, a women’s group identity is a more useful concept than a philosophical conception of women. We can generalize about women no matter how different they are because they all are susceptible to oppression as women. In practice, women all experience being treated as women in societies across borders, whether it is in the form of inequality or some other oppressive forms. As “acting in concert or shared agreement,” Allen’s concept of solidarity leads to the understanding that feminist solidarity can simply be understood through reconstructing the communicative underpinnings of feminist coalitional practices or a politically constructed mutual recognition. If this kind of “coalition politics” is considered as a more appropriate form of organizing than identity politics, it would help us understand why there is seemingly unjust subordination within the feminist movement. For example, more and

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more Third-World immigrant women are employed as domestic laborers in the global North, freeing their employers, women included, to work outside the home. If we adopt Allen’s concept of “solidarity,” then this redistribution of domestic labor would be considered as emerging from a shared agreement since women in the global North do not force women in the global South into the international domestic work market. We can even regard this arrangement as some sort of solidarity in the sense of “acting in concert or shared agreement” because women in the global South would be empowered at least fnancially through seeking employment in the global North. Women in the global South and North have some common interests and common goals, such as focusing on bettering themselves, but these interests and goals are rather immediate, which mask the hidden conficts of self-interest. This kind of coalition should be scrutinized because exploitation exists alongside economic empowerment. For example, some Third-World women go abroad as domestic laborers. From the perspective of globalization, this kind of immigrant work is a free exchange of labor; but from the perspective of antiglobalization, the nature of exploitation is displayed in the laborers’ struggles. The problem here is not that the global North women and the global South women share these interests qua women. Their shared interests qua women are opposing gender oppression, such as sexual violence and sexual discrimination. In the abovementioned example, the global North women and the global South women assume different roles as employers and employees, despite their shared interests as women. The example shows that shared interests can change from situation to situation and individuals may forge alliances depending on specifc shared interests, which shows the complex interplay of social powers. The idea of “women’s group identity” can be ambiguous because the notion of “group” often suggests that members of the group act together or are capable of acting together. In the context of forging women’s solidarity, “women’s group identity” obviously does not have this implication because what is built into the idea of “women’s group identity” is not greater than an identity that all women share. Therefore, it is possible to have an identity to share with other people without existing as group in any practical sense. Allen asserts that identity politics is inadequate and that solidarity does not require identity politics, but the question remains whether the concept of solidarity that Allen envisions would actually advance the feminist movement due to her ambiguity of women’s group identity. Allen’s concept of solidarity presumes that the mainstream feminist movement marginalizes or excludes certain groups of women, although the feminist movement started to focus on differences among women in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It is undeniable that the concept of women being used in the feminist literature has been, in fact, sometimes too narrow. However, Allen’s argument attacks the wrong target because what caused the marginalization

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and exclusion is not the category of women that assumingly excludes certain groups of women, but rather the assumption that the category of women cannot embrace differences among women. The reason is that claiming a category of women is not the same as claiming “women are the same.” An alternative method that she suggests for feminist theories is one that will minimize the emphasis on the membership in a social group and will stress the possibilities for alliances founded on nonidentical connections such as “acting in concert.” The alternative generates a situation where feminists aim to speak and make political demands in the name of women, and at the same time speak of women without there being a unifed category of women. This seems to be the very idea behind a coalitional approach; that is, groups form a coalition because of shared interests—often a common opponent or enemy—without there being a concept that embraces them all. However, this alternative does not explain the role that social groups play in the structure of male domination; neither does it explain what role women as a social group play in the elimination of gender oppression. Since she regards group identity only as a political fact, Allen seems to overlook that women’s group membership is the basis on which gender oppression occurs. In fact, identity politics helps women understand the structure of male domination and female oppression, because it provides a viewpoint for looking at women in terms of their membership in women. A number of feminists who claim that male domination is a power also embrace the idea of women’s group identity and believe that women are oppressed as a group (for instance, see Schwartzman 2006). Some may object that Allen’s concept of solidarity is useful for strategic coalitions and alliances because it is attentive to differences and generates some sort of sympathetic feeling with fellow allies. For instance, Allen distinguishes between “power understood as the ability to act in concert (what I shall call power-with) and the more particular term solidarity” (1999b, 103; emphasis in original). I would respond that as far as sympathy, love, and feeling-with are important components of feminist solidarity, they are not suffcient for the elimination of gender oppression because they fail to challenge the deeply rooted patriarchal social structure. For example, Lugones (1999) talks about love and friendship among women and Sandra Bartky (2002) addresses the relationship between sympathy and solidarity. Gender oppression is experienced by members of the social group women, which makes it crucial to construct a category of women as a signifcant part of feminist solidarity. POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM OF GLOBAL FEMINISM Like Allen, Charlotte Bunch addresses the relationship between diversity and commonality and tries to fnd a common basis for women to be organized.

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Bunch proposes a global perspective on feminist diversity through which women can learn from each other. She argues that a global perspective on feminist ethics requires a global vision of feminism—a feminism that is inclusive and seeks to refect a wide diversity of women’s experiences and views. She suggests that feminists should not only acknowledge and respect differences but also struggle against social powers that divide women along the lines of difference: “When diversity is understood as richness of possibility, it is possible to move beyond tolerance toward genuine engagement around difference. . . . Feminist appreciation of diversity must move beyond tolerance to valuing diversity not by condescendingly allowing others to live but by learning from them” (1992, 181). Further, a global perspective is one that regards domestic life and the international sphere as interconnected. Accordingly, feminists need to go beyond nation-state boundaries to strengthen solidarity. Although Bunch acknowledges the importance of solidarity, she nevertheless argues for a kind of global networking that should go beyond solidarity to “a more integrated understanding of the connection between what’s happening in one country or another” (2001, 134). She thus advocates women’s global networking, by which she means that women need to understand the connections between local issues as well as those between local issues and international issues. Despite the differences among the forms of women’s oppression, she argues that feminists should and can fnd a common basis for women’s global networking. What she fnds compelling is “a commonality in the stories that they told about the discrimination and violence that they faced as women that brought them together in spite of their differences” (130), which justifes her belief that one of the universalities of the feminist struggle is the commonality of women’s oppression. Bunch explains that this commonality can be shown in various forms of gender-based violence, such as battery, rape, female genital mutilation, female infanticide, and traffcking, which are also human rights violations. Bunch is actively involved in network-building effects such as the Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights, a loose worldwide coalition of groups and individuals formed in 1993. The driving force of this campaign is a commitment to building linkages among women across multiple boundaries locally and globally. Bunch asserts that women’s networking develops a model that affrms the universality of human rights, which specifcally includes women’s rights, while respecting the diversity of particular experiences. She claims that feminist struggles are based on the commonality of women’s oppression and that human rights are universal. As she states, “The universality of human rights means that human rights should apply to every single person equally, for everyone is equal in simply being human. . . . It is important to note that the concept of universality in human rights does not mean that everyone is or should be the same,

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but rather that all are equal in their rights by virtue of their humanities” (140; emphasis in original). Some feminists not only dispute the commonality of women’s oppression but also criticize the political agenda of global feminism. For instance, Elora Chowdhury launches a critique of global feminism, which, she argues, may be critical of the notion of global sisterhood, but remains attached to earlier western liberal feminist notions of democracy. She questions the role that global feminism plays when it addresses “women’s issues elsewhere” in the U.S. academy and in global feminist politics, claiming that global feminism (unintentionally) aids hegemonic maneuvers of the U.S. state. Two aspects to Chowdhury’s criticism of global feminism merit attention. One is the challenge to U.S. white feminist assumptions that “women elsewhere” are victimized by their own cultures or countries. The second criticism questions unexamined consequences of global feminist actions such as the advocacy of (a western notion of) human rights in other countries. Both criticisms point to the necessity of braiding together U.S. women of color anti-racist feminisms and Third-World transnational feminism to resist the hegemony of western white feminism. Assuming that women are victimized by their own cultures or countries may obscure the actual oppression of women in these cultures and countries, if one defnes human rights in ways that presuppose western liberal notions of rights, that is, notions that presuppose liberal democracies. The challenge is whether one can speak of human rights in a vocabulary that transcends the origin of the concept. Chowdhury argues that using categories such as “women of color” and “Third-World women” hinders feminist alliances because the former is typically used to refer to women of national minorities within the United States, while the latter refers to “women elsewhere.” Global feminism customarily focuses on addressing “women’s issues elsewhere” (read: issues of ThirdWorld women). Chowdhury argues that although the theory of intersectionality is applied to analyze women’s experiences in the United States, it has not yet been utilized to analyze women beyond borders, which leads to the result that “women in the USA become a singular individual with freedom to choose in opposition to her victimized singular third world counterpart” (2009, 60). Although she recognizes the importance of alliances between U.S. women of color and Third-World women, Chowdhury does not intend to integrate these two categories into one category because doing so “smudges over the necessity of analyses around nation as well as race” (57). She claims that struggles experienced by women of color and Third-World women are ignored (by white women) because they are divisive. She thus suggests connecting “the struggles of US anti-racist and third world feminists—at times viewed as divisive—in order to envision a collective response to the hegemony of white feminism” (58). In this statement, she acknowledges not only

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the intersections and the divergences of but also the connection between, U.S. women of color anti-racist feminism and Third-World transnational feminism when she suggests a collective/common response. Chowdhury asserts that global feminism posits itself as a benevolent savior of women in other cultures by assuming that the United States is a free country where human rights are respected, while women “elsewhere” are abused by and within their own cultures. This opposition between “free us” and “oppressed them” has the consequence of reinforcing the western liberal notion of democracy and leaving unexamined its role in the hegemonic imposition of a U.S. empire through governmental military invasion of other countries: “Global feminism aids the US government’s political strategy of positioning America as the site of authoritative enunciations of freedom and rights whose representatives can judge the immoral practice of other nation states. Using the logic of global feminism, female U.S. government representatives support US foreign policy strategies and interventions in the name of women’s rights activism” (61). By doing so, Chowdhury claims, global feminism reproduces “the West as its predetermined default frame of reference” (51). For instance, global feminism uses a universal human rights paradigm to posit itself as the savior of women in non-western societies. She thus claims that the advocacy of women’s human rights by global feminism perpetuates a framework of commonality of women’s oppression. Global feminism fattens the experiences of Third-World women into “wounded experiences” by ignoring the historical contexts of these experiences; meanwhile, the agenda of global feminism and its political implications remain unexamined. Chowdhury’s alternative to the problematic notion of global feminism is intertwining U.S. women of color and transnational feminisms. She claims that bridging these branches of feminism deepens our understanding of globalization and global feminism, which she believes is similar to Chandra T. Mohanty’s idea of “international feminist solidarity.” Mohanty claims that the common context of struggles against exploitation can potentially create “transnational feminist solidarity” among Third-World women and women of color (2003, 144), and she promotes an anticapitalist transnational feminist solidarity to fght against capitalism and globalization. She argues that globalization is a site for recolonization of peoples in the Two-Thirds World, but their exploitation in globalization in turn gives them epistemic privilege and the potential to form a particular form of solidarity that is anticapitalist and antiglobalist. Mohanty uses both Third World/South and Two-Thirds World to refer to women who are the social minority of the globe. One-Third World and Two-Thirds World are categories that incorporate social power relations and are based on a quality of life gradation. According to her, marginalized women have epistemic privilege. Discursive and other practices of

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social justice that include their marginalized social locations and experiences will reveal how social power works and becomes a more inclusive conversation. Furthermore, because these women are marginalized and exploited by capitalism’s effects, they have the potential ability to analyze and act against capitalism. Both Chowdhury and Mohanty argue that the purpose of transnational feminism is to resist (hegemonic) white and western feminism. However, it should be noted that although Mohanty criticizes both “essentialist” identity politics and postmodernist skepticism about identity, she is ambiguous about women’s identity: she disassociates herself from postmodernism and claims that the hegemonic postmodernist discourse “emphasizes only the mutability and constructedness of identities and social structures” (2003, 225); at the same time, she draws on Jodi Dean’s notion of “refective solidarity,” which is based on an interactive, communicative, and in-process understanding of the “we.” Regarding Mohanty’s account of feminist solidarity, Chowdhury comments that, “drawing connections between the critique of white feminism by women of color and of ‘western feminism’ by third world feminists working within paradigms of decolonization, Mohanty called for the building of a noncolonizing feminist solidarity across borders” (Chowdhury 2009, 73 n1). Chowdhury’s and Mohanty’s approaches to women’s solidarity are similar to what I would call “transcultural feminist solidarity,” which utilizes the transcultural approach. In this regard their views resemble Lugones’s theory of “world”-traveling, which I cited earlier to present the transcultural approach. As this discussion makes evident, the concept of transcultural feminist solidarity is already present in some feminists’ accounts of solidarity. For instance, Chowdhury points out the limitations of feminist understandings of other cultures and develops an argument that resembles my discussion of the problematic notion of culture in multicultural feminism. She also points to limitations of the theory of intersectionality when it comes to transnational issues. There is a distinction between a discussion of the complexity of “our issues” such as the intersection of race and gender and a simplifed “their issues” such as the lack of human rights. This shows that some approaches of “difference critique” in feminist discourse are unable to capture the complexity of transnational issues. Feminist theorists such as Chowdhury, Mohanty, and Lugones demonstrate that feminists can develop a women’s collaboration grounded in differences, rather than working toward solidarity that is founded on sameness. The plausibility of Chowdhury’s, Mohanty’s, and Lugones’s accounts of women’s solidarity is partly due to, I argue, their employment of an idea that I am calling the transcultural perspective. For instance, although Mohanty’s concept of solidarity is articulated within the context of multiculturalism, it nevertheless contains elements of transcultural feminist solidarity. Mohanty rightly points out that capitalism and globalization are the sources

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of some Third-World women’s oppression. Mohanty’s understanding of solidarity fts the agenda of the transcultural approach. In fact, she addresses women’s solidarity by employing a transcultural approach, although she has not explicitly expressed it or distinguished it from multiculturalism. Chowdhury and Mohanty suggest that solidarity between U.S. women of color anti-racist feminisms and Third-World transnational feminism is possible if the target of their criticism or resistance is white feminism and western feminism. I argue that we should resist this kind of dichotomy. After all, it remains a question whether there is such a stark distinction between white western women, women of color, and Third-World women when it comes to gender oppression. With a transcultural consciousness and interference, women may be able to interact with other women in a larger scale across culture/race/ethnicity/class lines. Transcultural experiences help women understand the importance of interference and think about the basis for women acting collectively. Emergent feminist transcultural solidarity involves a learning practice that is specifc to a transcultural commitment to interference, which breaks the momentum of simply focusing on differences. IMAGINING TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY From the previous discussions about the various feminist approaches to solidarity, the main issues about women’s solidarity can be summarized as: (1) the question of the relation of a philosophical conception of women to feminist solidarity, which differs from the question of the relation of a women’s identity to feminist solidarity; and (2) how a concept of feminist solidarity should confront cultural differences in an increasingly transnational condition. I addressed the issues of women’s identity and the issue of cultural differences in the frst two parts of this book, where I argued that a women’s identity that embraces differences, dynamics, and possibilities among women is necessary, that a transcultural perspective should be cultivated to further the feminist cause, and that the resistance to gender oppression should be collective. If we have an adequate idea of women’s identity and an adequate idea of culture, then what would be the conditions for solidarity? How would we forge solidarity, and how would it be expressed or recognized if the transcultural approach is materialized? In what follows, I will offer a normative ideal of solidarity to argue that transcultural feminist solidarity is related to an adequate idea of women’s identity in the context of cultural differences. I speculate that, as a normative idea of feminist solidarity, transcultural feminist solidarity would at least include the following two aspects.

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From the standpoint of identity politics, transcultural feminist solidarity emphasizes women’s group identity, which includes identifcation as women because women are subject to oppression as women. This form of solidarity helps ease the tension between the commonality of conditions and differences among the members from a gender standpoint. The relationship between commonality and difference plays an important role in the discussion of women’s solidarity, which is a practical as well as a theoretical idea. A normative idea of feminist solidarity recognizes the diversity of individual women but also focuses on building the common cause for solidarity. As noted in part I, a category of women can accommodate differences among women rather than reduce differences to attributes or an essence that women share. Transcultural feminism understands these differences as themselves necessary transcultural conditions for women’s solidarity. This stands in contrast to the universalist understanding that views differences as a primary threat to solidarity. The “difference critique” has launched debates about how relations between white women and women of color have often been constructed to reinforce differences in social and institutional status that are founded on race, class, ethnicity, and culture. In this context, transcultural feminist solidarity should also address class and structural inequality because there is a tension between the commonality of conditions and differences among members from the standpoints of race, ethnicity, and class. Solidarity in the feminist movement does not isolate itself from other social movements because within the transcultural understanding “women” is a category that acknowledges and embraces racial, sexual orientation, religious, and class differences, among others. In this regard, feminist solidarity depends on other kinds of solidarity without the need to reach for, or rely on, a difference-denying commonality among women to attain women’s solidarity. From the standpoint of cultural differences, transcultural feminist solidarity promotes the creation of a self-consciously constructed space of transcultural interference where women’s resistance to male domination is established by consciously forming a coalition in the name of women. Solidarity brings together U.S. women of color feminisms and Third-World transnational feminism. In fact, the divide between these two is one of the reasons for promoting transcultural feminist solidarity. A normative idea of feminist solidarity should provide the fexibility that enables individuals to loosen themselves from certain cultural backgrounds and sample other cultures without pretending to be deeply enmeshed with any particular cultural background. Transculturalism could provide such fexibility because a preliminary summary of this perspective represents a serious attempt to overcome shortcomings of various feminist approaches to solidarity such as “global sisterhood,” political coalition-building, and global feminism.

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Transculture, as I have defned it, seeks to move beyond the hegemony of any single dominant culture by recognizing the existence of a multiplicity of distinct cultures, which presupposes an existing interaction between cultures. At its fullest, transcultural thinking aims to broaden one’s framework of identifcation so that one may imaginatively inhabit a range of cultural identities that are themselves shifting and mutable. Transculture means the freedom of every person to live on the border of one’s “inborn” culture or beyond it. Transcultural feminist theorizations center around differences among women of different cultures as well as appropriate analysis of transnational capitalism in order to formulate theories and practices, and to understand themselves as generated by a novel transcultural condition. The transcultural approach has the potential to transform the social structure of power relations into a less oppressive form if we understand the relationship between interference and power, and if we use that understanding as a motivation to challenge oppressive power relations. For instance, feminists, whether they are secondwave feminists or third-wave feminists, western feminists or Third-World feminists, can all step beyond their racial, class, cultural, sexual orientation, and other differences, and engage with each other in order to grow and be liberated collectively. OBSTACLES TO TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST SOLIDARITY In this section, I will address obstacles to transcultural feminist solidarity and propose some intermediate ways toward achieving transcultural feminist solidarity. By pointing out these obstacles, I show that a new solidarity can emerge from the idea of transculture and that the transcultural approach fosters a high potential for solidarity. For instance, the individual foci of women’s lives, such as family ties, individual interests, and religious commitments, are so different that it is diffcult for women to act together. As I have demonstrated, discussions of differences and other factors have led to divisions between U.S. women of color feminism and Third-World feminism. It is even more challenging for women to forge solidarity across class, racial, ethnic, and national lines. In particular, class difference remains a potential obstacle to achieving transcultural solidarity. The class issue is not a conceptual issue; rather, it is a practical issue. The class issue raises the need for adequate understanding of social conditions that block solidarity. However, it is exactly these obstacles that make it important for women to forge solidarity to resist male oppression, because women need mutual understanding, common activities, and political initiatives to transform the patriarchal framework. Therefore, transculturalism must be combined with social movements, that

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is, the combination of theoretical transculturalism and activist work to lead to solidarity. There are also limitations that can be speculated about with regard to transcultural feminist solidarity. One limitation has to do with the power of terms such as transculturalism, which can be suspected to lose its power in politics. For instance, it remains questionable how it would be received by people or communities who are more concerned with race or class issues. In this sense, “coalition politics” that Amy Allen proposes is crucial for understanding that solidarity in various forms. What needs to be acknowledged is that as a valuable term, “transculturalism” works better in some contexts but not in others. I use terms such as “transculturalism” mainly in a context of transnational interactions and globalization, but I suggest that it can also be utilized in a local context within national borders. I fully acknowledge that it might lose its power in certain power relations. The reason that I promote this term is that it is appropriate for describing and analyzing transcultural experiences that more and more people are experiencing. In addition, the stability of solidarity fostered by the conception and practice of transculture requires support from the society, so the society has to be transformed by the transcultural approach as well. People who beneft from the patriarchy are unlikely to share the same goal as feminists; thus, transcultural feminist solidarity still faces severe challenges. Because of the mobility brought by immigration and migration, connections among women across national borders are strengthened, but they also confront new barriers. For instance, in the case of international immigration, it is more likely for new female immigrants to seek alliance with ethnic groups than with domestic American women, due to cultural and language barriers to the communication between immigrant women and local women. However, the oppressive social structures of gender inequalities might appear to be more salient once immigrant women settle in. The transformation process is more like an evolution, which does not exclude alliance with feminist men. If women want to establish an international female solidarity, then they need to formulate collective power, feminist women and men together, to transform patriarchal systems. In this sense, political solidarity may not be the only point of reference. For instance, we should place a political notion of solidarity in the context of other concepts of solidarity that are relevant to challenging gender oppression. We can consider other kinds of group bonds that involve a kind of social mutuality and cooperation that defes the individualist model. It is plausible to think of a notion of “intermediate solidarity” as a transitional stage in between women’s personal friendship and international women’s solidarity. For example, unions such as clubs, communities, cultural organizations, neighborhood associations, and support groups are all necessary to forge certain scales of women’s solidarity locally, but these groups should be formulated under the guidance of feminist political solidarity. Eventually,

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women need another movement like the consciousness-raising movement to forge solidarity across borders while emphasizing the importance of cultural differences. By showing challenges to transcultural feminist solidarity, I argue that the transcultural approach intends to promote the interaction of feminisms, even for women from different cultural backgrounds and racial/ class locations. These interactions would beneft from incorporating the transcultural approach and as a result would contribute to women’s solidarity in general. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have argued that the concept of solidarity is crucial for the feminist movement from two aspects: (1) solidarity reminds us that the feminist movement is a collective movement and participants should be empowered collectively, which has to do with the necessity of a women’s group identity; and (2) solidarity is particularly necessary when feminist discourse focuses on differences among women to such an extent that it creates a divide in feminism. I have made my argument about the frst aspect by assessing Allen’s concept of solidarity since she is not fully committed to women’s group identity. Women are not oppressed as individuals, but rather as members of the social group women; and men beneft from groupbased male supremacy. Women’s oppression cannot be reduced to economic inequalities, class exploitations, racial discriminations, cultural imperialism, or other social injustices because these social forces are interdependent and intertwined, thus resulting in the complexity of gender oppression. Only through acting collectively and forging transcultural solidarity will women solve these structural and systemic problems. I have made my argument about the second aspect by criticizing Bunch’s notion of global feminism. The divide within feminism is partly due to the pervasiveness of multiculturalism in feminism. According to multiculturalism, culture is a self-enclosed and self-suffcient entity; thus, there are differences between “our culture” and “their cultures” and we (western feminists) should “help them.” This salvation attitude lacks meaningful engagement and does not foster solidarity because its superfcial acknowledgment of differences does not address the interaction of differences. These feminist approaches to solidarity have their advantages, but the shortcomings are obvious. We need an alternative concept of solidarity to guide the feminist movement to realize the goal of eliminating women’s subordination. Allen, Bunch, Chowdhury, and Mohanty all agree that feminists should bridge the divide in feminism, regardless of their differing opinions about identity politics and cultural differences. Thus, we need a specifc

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account of women’s political solidarity across cultures to address feminist concerns about differences among women. The alternative perspective, which I name transcultural feminist solidarity, endorses women’s group identity and addresses structural inequality, global injustice, and cultural differences. Transcultural feminist solidarity goes beyond the metaphor of “bridging” cultures because “bridging” is insuffcient to comprehend multiple dimensions of transcultural interference. Practices or initiatives that draw from the transcultural approach (or at least act in a way that is consistent with such an approach) can foster solidarity. Feminist endeavors in cultural differences, moreover, do not pay suffcient attention to Chinese feminist experiences. Therefore, in the next three chapters I will address Chinese feminist experiences. By using the example of Chinese feminism, I intend to show how the transcultural approach can help us understand the relationship between U.S. feminism and Chinese feminism and help to forge friendship and solidarity between Chinese and U.S. women. I also intend to show that genuine dialogues between Chinese and American feminists would beneft from following the transcultural approach and as a result would contribute to women’s solidarity in general.

Chapter 10

Looking to the East Chinese Confucian Philosophy and Feminism

Chinese philosophy responds to feminist challenges in different ways. Some efforts attempt to prove the compatibility of Chinese philosophy and feminism primarily by reinterpreting Chinese canonical texts as responses to contemporary feminist challenges. Others question the conceptualization of Chinese traditions and culture as unitary and unchanging, showing that there are in fact diverse Chinese philosophical traditions. In this chapter, I present the philosophical efforts made by a number of philosophers who work primarily in the area of Chinese and comparative philosophy, and I relate these philosophical efforts to Chinese feminism. Through identifying themes that are relevant to feminist concerns, these comparative discussions demonstrate that Chinese canonical texts are not consistent in their teachings on gender issues. Various philosophers engaged in comparative studies criticize the ethnocentric perception of Chinese traditions and culture as altogether oppressive in terms of gender issues. They agree that, despite their historical failure to confront gender relations, Chinese philosophy and culture can contribute to the contemporary feminist discourse in China and hopefully “land” elsewhere. In part, they do this by locating the treatment of gender in historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. In what follows, I will provide a brief overview of these philosophical efforts, making the relevance of Chinese Confucian philosophy to feminism explicit metaphysically, methodologically, epistemologically, and politically. As part of this overview, I would like to note the possible confation of Confucianism and Chinese intellectual tradition/thought/philosophy. When comparative philosophers write about Chinese philosophy, many of them focus on Confucianism. I choose Confucianism in my discussion because it is the most discussed in the Chinese philosophy literature regarding feminism. Neither I nor most Chinese philosophers identify Confucianism with Chinese 189

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philosophy for at least two reasons. One is that it is arguable whether Confucianism represents the most prominent emblem of Chinese high culture; and the other, the issue of whether Confucianism is the underpinning of the social structure of Chinese society, including the gender system, is a complicated one. Confucianism may contribute to women’s subordination, but it may not be the direct cause of gender oppression. Confucianism goes through different periods of development in China’s long history and its treatment of women varies from period to period. Therefore, we need to specify different Confucianisms for different periods of Chinese history to avoid a rigid understanding. For instance, gender issues are treated differently in Confucianism in early China and in neo-Confucianism. Consequently, even if we agree that Confucianism is a series of orthodox teachings, which is used as a tool to maintain a patriarchal social system that is oppressive to women, it may not have been the only element that had led to a patriarchal Chinese gender system. Due to the limit of space and lack of expertise, I will not present the history of Confucianism in detail, but I am fully aware that the intellectual tradition of Confucianism is so complex that it would be an ambitious endeavor to present a fair overview of the tradition. For the convenience of discussion in this chapter, therefore, I adopt Li Chenyang’s summary of Confucianism: “The philosophic-religious tradition that originated in Confucius and was further developed and sustained by scholars and supporters of later times in (mainly) China’s history” (2000a, 188). A HYBRID CONFUCIAN FEMINISM Among the scholarly efforts made by comparative philosophers, Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee’s work on a hybrid version of “Confucian feminism” (2006) stands out because she is one of the few philosophers who address the topic of Confucianism and women extensively in a monograph. Rosenlee claims that Confucianism is also a feminist theory or a feminist alternative (146). Rosenlee criticizes western feminist discourse for taking the western conceptual framework of gender as a paradigm case; as a result, the condition of Chinese women is comprehended and their possible liberation is theorized within this framework. She points outs that “the lack of attention to the element of ‘culture’ in feminist writings constitutes an obstacle to a genuine understanding of the gender system in an alien culture, where gender is encoded in the context of a whole different set of background assumptions” (2). She challenges such a neocolonial assumption by questioning a false dichotomy of “the West where people are autonomous, moral subjects and the rest of the world where people are victimized objects to be rescued, liberated or made conscious of their ‘sexist,’ ‘traditional’ society”

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(146). She brings to our attention that even with structural limitations, women in non-western cultures have their own agency and they actively participate in social and cultural practices to realize cultural ideals. However, she also acknowledges the discrepancy between Chinese philosophical ideas and the social reality of Chinese women across Chinese history. For example, the Confucian idea of relational personhood contrasts greatly with the historical reality of Chinese women’s lives. According to Rosenlee, the Chinese gender system is formed within the hierarchical structure of the kinship system. The foundation of the kinship system, which makes the male the bearer of a patrilineage, foregrounds the virtues of flial piety, continuity of the family name, and ancestor worship. Furthermore, nei-wai (inner-outer) and yin-yang are considered as theoretically non-oppressional and complementary binaries, which suggest a fuid view of sexual difference between the male and the female; however, this perceived fuidity contrasts greatly with the rigidity of gender roles in Chinese society. Yet, Rosenlee claims that it is unjustifable to discard Confucianism altogether; instead, she develops a Confucian feminism that affrms the Confucian tradition while taking account of feminist concerns. Rosenlee develops “Confucian feminism” to seek reconciliation between feminism and Confucianism by proposing a hybrid ethical theory, where Confucianism is not just a convenient scapegoat for the oppression of Chinese women. She reconceptualizes Confucianism as “a dynamic working of different voices and indeterminate meanings in orthodox teachings that afford the Chinese people suffcient conceptual tools to engage in internal critiques of the social abuse of women without resorting to a total rejection of their Confucian root” (160). However, “Confucian feminism” is gender-neutral because “the end result of creating the hybrid identity of Confucian feminism is a qualifed inequality among the unequal based on ability and moral authority instead of gender per se” (158). To Rosenlee, the basic assumptions of the hybrid feminist Confucianism presuppose a relational self, centralize the virtue of ren as one’s achieved personhood, and affrm the complementary nei-wai and yin-yang relations as the basic structure of human relations. The feminist Confucianism “affrms a relational self situated in a web of relations” (12) and the web of relations are “constitutive of one’s substantial self” (154) because a person as a person is always a “person-in-relations” (12, 155). One’s personhood is realized through one’s social relations and roles: “A person becomes a ‘person’ only through embodying specifc social virtues that can only be actualized in specifc social relations and roles, starting with familial relations and roles” (154). All in all, the key to self-cultivation or self-actualization lies in “one’s qualitative achievement in building, sustaining, and enlarging a harmonious network of human relations” (43). Relatedly, personhood or Confucian ren is gender-neutral because “in principle

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the ideal personhood acquired through one’s mastery of human relations is open to both sexes” (43). In Rosenlee’s defnition, ren is “the highest attainment of one’s moral cultivation,” which can only “be achieved and developed in human relationships” (39). The yin-yang binary is frst and foremost an astronomical concept that is cyclic and complementary, and is not specifcally linked to human relations nor gender. The nei-wai binary is a spatial boundary as well as a ritual and cultural boundary. According to Rosenlee, to be ren is also to be “a person who embodies specifc social excellence appropriate to specifc social relations” (156). In Confucianism, the self is not an isolated, autonomous individual; rather, a person is always a person situated within a social context. Thus, the Confucian concept of ren is also a concept of person, and the concept of person is an ethical category rather than an ontological category. In other words, there is no discussion of identity outside of the discussion of virtue ethics. As Rosenlee notes, “The category of person that is interchangeable with the virtue of ren, which can only be actualized in personal relationships, is a virtuous achievement rather than a given” and “a virtuous person possessing ren is a person-in-relation-with-others” (42). Gender issues in Chinese culture and philosophy are different from those in western feminism because there is “the cultural gap between the western conception of gender as a kinship-neutral term and the Chinese conception of gender as coextensive with familial, kinship roles” (47). Gender in Chinese culture then is constructed relationally rather than in essentialist terms, and a woman is a woman only because of her familial roles as a daughter, a wife, and a mother. According to Rosenlee, the western conception of gender differs from the Chinese understanding, in that the former disregards familial roles; as a result, western scholars form an “essentialist assumption of the category of woman,” which is “defned by a set of qualities or attributes prior to any familial relation” (47). In Rosenlee’s understanding, “there are no distinct qualities of ‘woman’ as such” as conceived in the west because there is no “conceptual distinction between woman and her familial roles” (47). Rosenlee’s conceptualization of a hybrid “Confucian feminism” contributes to feminist discourse, but leaves room for improvement. With regard to contributions, Rosenlee challenges cultural neo-imperialism that makes western theories and knowledge appear to be superior, and her critique of ethnocentrism rightly reveals the tendency of cultural neo-imperialism that is visible in a general concept of global feminism. Chinese culture’s heterogeneity, complexity, and richness are usually not taken into account in western feminist discussions of Chinese women’s conditions. Indeed, Chinese women are moral agents as much as western women are, and they are not victims of Chinese culture who wait to be rescued by “liberated” western women. However, I wonder whether Rosenlee makes a similar mistake when she

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criticizes western feminism as perceiving Chinese culture as homogeneous. For instance, her perception that there are the “autonomous West” and the victimized “rest of the world” is not accurate. She claims that the category of women is a set of qualities or attributes in western feminism, but this claim is exactly the target of the feminist “difference critique.” Third-wave feminism does not regard the category of women as such, and postmodern feminism does not even acknowledge a category of women. Similar to Chinese philosophy and culture, western feminism is heterogeneous and goes through phases. In addition, Rosenlee overgeneralizes when she says that the western conception of gender disregards familial roles. Some feminist care ethicists such as Eva Kittay (1999) and Sara Ruddick (1989) emphasize human interconnectedness and the relational self. Therefore, Rosenlee’s judgment that there is “conceptual distinction between women and her familial role” in western culture is not factual. There is danger of premature generalization, so it is fair to say that neither Chinese culture nor western feminism should be considered as static and homogeneous and that we should avoid unjustifed overgeneralization when we compare traditions, cultures, or approaches. Second, she refutes the western feminist interpretation of the Chinese yinyang binary as a dualistic oppositional counterpart of femininity and masculinity because “gender does not underwrite the yin-yang binary, the yang is not exclusively male, neither is the yin female” (65). According to Rosenlee, the yin-yang binary is not gender-specifc because “one can be yin and yang at the same time depending on one’s social roles and places in relation with others” (65). In her understanding, the yin-yang cosmology suggests a more open and fuid conception of gender differences, so a person can be yin and yang at the same time depending on what relations he or she is in. For example, “The father who is yang in relation to the son is also yin in relation to the ruler as a subject. The son who is a yin in the father-son relation is also yang in the husband-wife relation” (65). Thus, the yin-yang binary is merely a placeholder for registering hierarchy instead of indicating gender traits. However, I would like to point out that the word “binary” in the yin-yang binary or the nei-wai binary that Rosenlee uses may be a distorted translation. By using these terms in her argument, Rosenlee falls into the “Western dualistic paradigm” that she criticizes. As a matter of fact, the nonbinary interpretations of these terms in Chinese thought offer some of the greatest potential for “interference” in transcultural feminism. I think that the yin-yang “binary” is not as complementary or reciprocal as Rosenlee claims it to be because even if we do not register gender to yin-yang, and even if we agree that it is nonoppositional, it still represents hierarchy. In addition, Rosenlee’s argument of nei-wai also appears to be inconsistent. Similar to yin-yang, nei-wai is relational and their boundaries change with context, Rosenlee again or similarly claims that the nei-wai distinction

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is a functional distinction that defnes the normative gender division of labor. For instance, on the one hand, she claims that the nei-wai “binary” functions as a complementary and nonoppositional concept, so the nei-wai “binary” transcends the assumed rigidity of private/public division. On the other hand, Rosenlee associates nei with the female albeit unintentionally. For instance, at one point, she claims that “women will no longer be confned to the limited realm of nei” if the gender-based division of labor is eradicated (159), which presumably assigns the female to the realm of nei. However, if she is saying that engendered public/private spheres can be criticized by the fuid polar dynamism intrinsic to essentially Daoist polarities—not binaries—that were incorporated into Confucianism, then her argument becomes more powerful. As Paul R. Goldin points out, if one regards the realm of nei as “limited” with respect to wai, one cannot claim that nei-wai constitutes a nonoppositional binary (2009). The point that Goldin makes is that some philosophers unintentionally associate nei and yin with the female though they understand them as gender-neutral: “It is still necessary to concede that the Chinese tradition itself, and not merely those misguided Western feminists, gradually hypostasized those terms and diminished both the scope and the prestige of yin and nei as they came to be associated with the female sex” (373). Yin-yang and nei-wai are misconstrued by associating yin and nei with the female gender, and Rosenlee, too, is infuenced by this association though she is aware of the differing implications of these terms in the process of genderization. In this sense, she needs to take a frmer stance on the complementary nature of yin-yang and nei-wai, by refusing to continue to translate and express them as binaries. Last but not least, Rosenlee suggests that there is no distinctive difference along the gender line; therefore, it is not surprising that her proposal of a hybrid Confucian feminism does not advocate for a category of women. Her claim that “the hybrid identity of Confucian feminism is a qualifed inequality based on ability and moral authority” needs to be further clarifed. For example, it is not immediately clear what she means by “a qualifed inequality,” how it can be achieved through “ability and moral authority.” The need for such clarity is important because who possesses such authority, and the extent of said authority, is infuenced by the social structure of power relations. One might imagine that a “qualifed inequality” is linked to the assumption that the male has more “ability and moral authority” than the female, but this link would lead to patriarchy that produces and reproduces gender oppression. “A harmonious network of human relations” is an ideal state to strive for, but unfortunately the social reality in which we are located often reveals it to be a Utopian goal. If we agree that to be a human is to become a virtuous being, we should ask whether these virtues are a priori so that we know to discuss them only within the metaphysical realm. When social and political

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dimensions are brought in, it becomes impossible to talk about virtues and morality only metaphysically. “Confucian feminism” has yet to answer the question why there is a discrepancy between the Chinese philosophical idea of ren and the social reality of Chinese women’s oppression. Moreover, it remains a question whether to be a virtuous being in the Confucian sense is a goal of people’s everyday life. With the danger of overgeneralization, it is fair to say that very few Chinese aim to achieve that goal and that it has become less and less popular in contemporary Chinese society. A related question is whether feminism shares a similar goal: if feminism does not share Confucianism’s goal of ren, then the hypothesis on which the hybrid “Confucian feminism” is built becomes groundless. Nevertheless, Rosenlee’s vision of feminist Confucianism offers a Confucian perspective from which to look at gender relations. By bringing feminism into the discussion of Chinese philosophy, she challenges feminist discourse that takes the west as the point of reference. Despite her aversion to the category of women, her discussion of relational personhood is potentially helpful to understand this category. After all, Chinese women are oppressed not as individuals, but rather as members of the group women. The concept of relational personhood might help further explain how members of the group are connected to each other and how we can explain that a category of women is indeed possible despite differences among women. THE SAGE AND THE SECOND SEX Similar to Rosenlee, Roger T. Ames (2010) reinterprets Confucianism, emphasizing the Confucian relational and situational notion of personal conduct as well as the collateral and constitutive nature of relationality. He proposes the embeddedness and growth of “human becomings” and suggests that one should recognize the wholeness of human experience and the fact that each person is “constituted by an interdependent web of relations” (71). According to him, Chinese correlative thinking is a unique way of thinking about women’s experiences in contrast to western thinking of personhood as autonomous and individual. In addition, one needs to specify different Confucianisms for different periods of Chinese history to avoid the stereotype of a “changeless China.” Ames and his collaborator David L. Hall warn us not to lump Chinese philosophical ideas into “Confucianism,” or romanticize Daoism as friendlier to women than other Chinese philosophical traditions (2000). The authors reveal a picture of gender roles and relationships much more complicated than that of the stereotyped women in China. In particular, they claim that an explanation of the classical Chinese model of self requires a signifcantly different vocabulary. Accordingly, they argue that Chinese

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sexism is culturally specifc or it is sexism with Chinese characteristics; for instance, they distinguish Chinese correlative sexism from western dualistic sexism. According to them, the Chinese correlative thinking leads to “a qualitative hierarchy” that has “a function of nongendered personal achievement rather than biological sex or cultural gender” (91). One advantage for feminists using Chinese correlative thinking is that it allows the realized person to draw upon both male and female characteristics to become integrated and whole. What is more, there is no self or discrete individual behind human conduct because “each of us is irreducibly social as the sum of the roles we live—not play—in our relationships and transactions with others” (Ames 2010, 96; emphasis in original). In this sense, an alternative understanding of “self” is to look at it as “human becoming’ instead of “human being” because “self” is in the process of an evolving confguration of relationships. Hall and Ames’ article on sexism with Chinese characteristics is included in an anthology, The Sage and the Second Sex, edited by Li Chenyang (2000b). The edited volume intends to reconcile Confucianism and feminism by exploring the relationship between Confucianism and sexism, or between the sage and the second sex. Li also includes his article on a comparative study of Confucian ethics and feminist care ethics, originally published in Hypatia (1994), in the anthology. The focus of his article is the commonality between Confucian ethics and feminist care ethics. According to him, the theoretical commonality between the two can be found in the fact that both kinds of ethics understand the self as being socially constructed and connected with other individuals. He claims that the philosophical commonality makes it possible for the two to become allies in pursuing their ideals of personhood. Li argues that if the goal of the Confucian project of selfcultivation is to produce a virtuous person that refects ren, then the ethical theory of ren is consistent with feminist care ethics on the theoretical level. In other words, despite the fact that it is connected with gender oppression historically and socially, Confucianism, as an ethical theory of self-cultivation and proper relations, can be transformed to “accommodate” gender equality. However, it is unclear whether he intends to pursue gender equality or simply to conceptualize its possibility. In this sense, the philosophical convergence of Confucianism and feminism does not only arise from political necessity but is also based on a philosophical affnity. Yet, Li makes it clear that, similar to Joel Kupperman’s account (2000), his argument does not endorse a “gendered virtue theory” due to the fact that ethical virtues are not gendered (Li 2000a, 193). After Li published the article on the compatibility of feminism and Confucianism, a debate over his argument took place in Hypatia. The key disagreement in the debate was whether Confucian jen (ren) ethics and feminist care ethics share philosophically signifcant common ground and whether

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Confucian jen (ren) ethics is a care ethics at all (see Star 2002 and Yuan 2002). For example, Yuan Lijun challenges the idea that Confucian ethics can be acceptable to contemporary feminism because Confucian virtue ethics encourage people “to make efforts in keeping supposedly harmonious orders of a patriarchal society, which was deeply gendered in all social institutions, norms and customs” (125). Through his own essays and the anthology that he edited, Li shows that the overall response to the question of whether feminism and Confucianism are “compatible” is positive, but he also observes a psychological impasse among some Confucian scholars who are hesitant to engage feminist concerns, which he calls the Confucian “gender complex” (2000a, 187). In an essay addressing the Confucian “gender complex,” he answers the following three questions regarding the relationship between Confucianism and feminist concerns: the frst is whether Confucianism has contributed to women’s oppression, the second inquiry is to what extent Confucianism has oppressed women, and the third question is what can be done about Confucianism’s oppression of women. For the frst two questions, Li acknowledges that while it is unjust to perceive Chinese women as universally victimized, Confucianism’s oppression of women was undeniably severe. In terms of the third question, Li suggests that efforts regarding women’s oppression should be made both practically and philosophically. On the practical level, people under the infuence of Confucianism must change their behavior and attitude toward women; on the philosophical level, a common ground between Confucianism and feminism should be found to explore the possibility of the theoretical convergence of Confucianism and feminism. The Sage and the Second Sex is a result of a philosophical exploration that assists Confucianism in coming to terms with feminism and in overcoming the Confucian “gender complex.” It demonstrates that gender relationships are far more complicated than what is customarily perceived by some western scholars about Chinese women in history. Several contributing authors show that in early Confucian texts women were not as oppressed as they were in later Confucianism. For instance, Lisa Raphals (2000) notes that in the Warring States and Han periods, the narratives of exemplar virtuous women in Guojin Renbiao (Table of Ancient and Modern Persons) and Lienü Zhuan (Collected Life Stories of Virtuous Women) present them as less oppressed. A recently published anthology Feminist Encounters with Confucius (Foust 2016) intends to go beyond demonstrating the compatibility of Confucianism and feminism because the contributing authors mean to “imagine how these traditions can respond to each other, and in many cases, fortify one another when joined and deployed to address contemporary philosophical problems” (11; emphasis in original). This recent volume argues that Confucian philosophy not only focuses on practical philosophy but also contributes to theoretical philosophy

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such as metaphysics and epistemology. For that purpose, the authors present a variety of methodological approaches—practical philosophy, epistemology, and care ethics—to rethink Confucianism and gender in history and in the contemporary world. The anthology demonstrates that Chinese women in different historical periods and social locations are not merely victims of Confucianism. It highlights that some individual women contribute to the society and produce knowledge in their practice of Confucianism, though not necessarily by claiming that Confucian ideas are useful to women. INTERACTION OF CONFUCIANISM AND FEMINISM Feminist Encounters with Confucius intends to further the discussions in The Sage and the Second Sex by emphasizing not only the compatibility of Confucianism and feminism but also the interaction of the two traditions. I agree with the message sent from these two anthologies that it is unfair to simply dismiss the promise of Chinese traditions on the basis that Chinese philosophy and culture are criticized from the standpoint of gender issues. It is more accurate to argue that the dynamics and differences within Chinese philosophy and culture offer materials that can be developed in fruitful discussions of gender issues. For instance, the anthology The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender (2016) presents numerous perspectives on how Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism bear on feminism and gender issues. According to Ann A. Pang-White, editor of the anthology, the book tries to bridge the felds of Chinese philosophy, religion, and history with gender issues, providing a comprehensive overview of the complexity of gender dynamics in Chinese philosophy and culture. By highlighting diverse Chinese traditions, the anthology challenges assumptions about Chinese philosophy and culture as unitary and unchanging; therefore, the treatment of gender should be located in historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. The contributing authors demonstrate that even though Chinese canonical classical texts are not consistent in their teaching on the subject of gender, they are open to competing interpretations. They also helpfully address themes that are relevant to the concerns of feminists including those of the LGBTQ+ community. Consistent with the message sent from the contributors, Pang-White, in her introduction, points to the uniqueness of Chinese philosophy by identifying four major differences between western feminism and Chinese philosophy. First, Chinese philosophy does not function with the (western) “either-or” dualistic logic. Second, Chinese philosophy evolves from the distinctive interaction between three major traditions—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Third, the notion of masculinity and femininity in Chinese

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philosophy, which is rooted in the yin-yang concept, is fuid. And fnally, the concept of self and the other in Chinese philosophy is less dichotomized (2). Pang-White claims that Chinese philosophy deals with gender issues on its own terms. Furthermore, Chinese traditions that do not typically adopt concepts of rights or equality can broaden and refne western concepts of “feminism” and “gender.” In her words, “It is essential for the future health of the feminist movement to recognize the interconnectedness of human existence, the multilayered identity of a woman through her lived experience (including her cultural identity), and the fact that any sustainable social change must come from within, beginning at the home front—the grass roots” (6). The grass roots here refer in part to reinterpreting Chinese canonical texts in their own historical, social, political, and religious contexts, rather than setting the reinterpretation against a universal (and often western) framework. Along the same line, when examining the intersection of gender and Chinese philosophy to challenge a universal western framework, Jennifer McWeeny and Ashby Butnor utilize “feminist comparative philosophy” both as methodology and practice as editors of the anthology Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue (2014). According to them, although feminist comparative philosophy originates from the feminist philosophy tradition and the comparative philosophy tradition, it is not simply the sum of the two traditions. Rather, it is “the practice of integrating feminist and non-western philosophical traditions in innovative ways, while still being mindful of the unique particularity of each, in order to envision and enact a more liberatory world” (3). They argue that concepts and practices of feminist philosophy and comparative philosophy are mutually constitutive, and that feminist comparative philosophy overcomes their respective limitations while preserving their liberatory potential. As an improvement over these two traditions, feminist comparative philosophy provides “a framework that intentionally attends to gender and culture at the same time” (7). McWeeny and Butnor further claim that feminist comparative philosophy should employ world-traveling as methodology. In this context, world-traveling means “‘traveling’ between the texts of distinct traditions and among multiple philosophical framings” (8), which requires shifting frames of reference to recognize differences and acknowledge privilege. In the newly shifted frames, feminist comparative philosophers are aware of their own subjective locations on the one hand, and make genuine contact with other philosophical perspectives on the other hand. As a liberatory praxis, feminist comparative philosophy not only provides a framework that is compatible with various cultural grounds but also actively resists oppression by “engaging different, unfamiliar perspectives in genuinely receptive ways and repatterning the embodied habits of its practitioners away from the status quo of accepting unjustifed privileges and dismissals” (14). Consequently, as methodology and practice, “feminist

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comparative philosophy” further engages the interaction of Chinese philosophy and gender issues. “GENDER COMPLEX” IN CHINESE CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY From what I presented earlier, scholarly work done on feminist comparative philosophy in multiple philosophical publications illustrates that the project of reconciling Confucianism and feminism is promising, though philosophical engagement with feminist scholarship is still scarce. I applaud these philosophical efforts of challenging a stereotyped and oversimplifed western perception of Chinese women as universally victimized by Chinese traditions. I also applaud the efforts they make to challenge the idea that Chinese culture is homogeneous and changeless. By taking into account the historical development and the social complexity of Chinese women’s conditions, they show that there are differences among Chinese women socially and historically, as well as differences between Chinese women’s experiences and women’s experiences from other cultures. By showing these differences, the philosophical efforts represent Confucian philosophy’s resistance against an unjustifed dichotomy—victimized Chinese women versus U.S. women who are less oppressed—that is underlying a form of neo-imperialism. However, despite the accomplishments that Chinese and comparative philosophers have made to converge Confucian philosophy and feminism, a few concerns remain to be addressed. The frst concerns the compatibility of Confucianism and feminism because of the apparent discrepancy between the theoretical/moral aspect of and the practical/social/political aspect of Confucianism. On the one hand, it is claimed that Confucianism is gender-neutral theoretically and morally; on the other hand, women have been oppressed socially and politically in practical life. The divergence in Confucianism between philosophical claims and social practices shows that even if we agree that Confucianism and feminism share common ethical goals, gender equality as a social and political outcome has yet to be seen in Confucian practices. There is no doubt that women possess the same intellectual virtues and moral capacity as virtuous men, but a proper social environment needs to be created for women to realize their potential. Confucianism, it would seem, is more concerned with creating a moral equality rather than a social equality. As Hall and Ames point out, “Were the female to be allowed freedom to pursue realized personhood, she could do this by seeking a harmony of the same range of human traits which the male employs as standard” (2000, 77). Thus arises

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a series of three questions: How did or does gender-neutral Confucianism deny women the possibility of engaging in the project of self-cultivation and achieving sagacity, why do women have to be “allowed” such freedom, and who exactly “allows” that to happen? Another related question is: What are we trying to achieve by talking about gender-neutral virtues, in which equality in the morality of men and women are recognized merely conceptually? Confucianism may offer an ethical vision that is compatible with feminism, but it may only represent a philosophical and conceptual similarity. In other words, a gender analysis can be carried out in Confucian philosophy without the presence of gender. Yet, we know that a socially ritualized self is confned by the constraint of traditions, so gender as an important social dimension cannot be left out of Confucian philosophy’s responses to feminism. As a result, the philosophical conclusions that these philosophers draw from their discussions, such as a non-gendered “qualifed inequality” (Rosenlee), nongendered “qualitative hierarchy” (Hall and Ames), and denial of a “gendered virtue theory” (Li), require further scrutiny. The second concern is related to the frst: these publications show that Chinese women are oppressed in different forms, but few authors point to the fact that women are oppressed as women and little is said about how Confucianism is utilized as an orthodox teaching to perpetuate patriarchy in Chinese history. Therefore, they need to include an adequate account of women’s oppression in different forms. The fact that a number of exemplary female individuals gain a certain level of agency does not mean women as a group are not oppressed. That is, a category of women or women’s identity needs to be brought into the discussion along with an in-depth analysis of the social structure of power relations in Chinese society. For instance, more often than not, it is in their familial relations and roles that women are constrained. In constructing a category of women and analyzing the social structure, we should also ask about the effects that Confucian philosophy may have had on contemporary Chinese women’s living conditions, a topic rarely discussed in scholarly publications because of their focus on reinterpreting Confucian philosophical canons. Some authors suggest that the convergence between feminism and Confucianism is possible due to the common approach of Confucian ethics and feminist care ethics and their understanding of the self as a relational one. The understanding of relational personhood is mainly found in feminist care ethics and the discussion of relational personhood could potentially shed light on the feminist discourse regarding women’s collective resistance against gender oppression. The work in Confucian philosophy discussed in this chapter does not endorse women’s identity, but if we adopt the Confucian philosophical view on relational personhood, then it might help feminists look at gender issues transculturally. Women are oppressed

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in different forms, but formulating a category of women, which proceeds from the recognition that women’s identity is largely defned in relation to men, is essential in order to look at the structure of gender subordination transculturally. Lastly, the claim for the convergence of Confucian philosophy and feminism is the result of Confucian philosophy’s response to feminism’s political challenges, which shows that Confucianism has something to contribute to feminist discourse. Since the mid-1990s, Chinese feminism has mainly relied on western feminist theories for theory building, but Confucian philosophy’s response to feminist challenges draws on traditional Chinese resources to discuss gender issues. Therefore, it is a crucial addition to the conceptual construction of a Chinese feminist discourse. This is, in fact, a move made by a small group of Chinese feminists, including Li Xiaojiang, who intend to build Chinese feminism utilizing indigenous resources, such as Chinese traditions and culture, and resources from women’s studies prior to the mid-1990s. As far as my research is concerned, more efforts regarding a philosophical convergence between Confucianism and feminism are made outside China than inside China, so we may ask this question: Is gender oppression essentially different from culture to culture? If so, what distinguishes Chinese feminism from “western” feminism? If not, how should we address women’s oppression across cultural differences? The major players in responding to these feminist challenges are philosophers living outside of China and their work is mainly focused on reinterpreting canonical texts. Chinese philosophers in China are in general silent on gender issues. One explanation of this “gender complex” in China is that it takes time for feminism as a critical and political approach to be accepted by predominantly male Chinese academia in terms of power. Another explanation is that what is defned as a relevant discourse may be limited because of the form these exchanges take. Chinese academia’s attitude toward feminism is somewhat similar to that of its U.S. counterpart in the 1970s. This eventually should lead to a question that some Chinese feminists have been pondering: Are we developing an indigenous Chinese feminism or a version of global feminism with Chinese characteristics? Bringing feminism into a dialogue with Confucianism may help answer this question by creating new space for renewed philosophy and knowledge production, and a new way to look at gender oppression using a comparative approach. However, one should be wary of the fallacy of overgeneralization in doing comparative philosophy. It is easy to overgeneralize western culture as emphasizing individuality or lack of kinship, which is the same fallacy, though without the danger of ethnocentrism, as westerners make when they overgeneralize gender issues in China as unchanging.

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RELATIONAL PERSONHOOD AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION Some may ask that whether and how the Confucian conception of correlation or relational personhood can be used to contribute to the construction of a category of women. There are two sides to this question. One is discovering the benefts of the idea of personal self to a category of women in particular. Given the fact that the relational self is intended to apply to a gender-neutral self, the concept of the relational self should not only be applied to women. Another way of asking this question is why women as a group are singled out in identity construction. The other side of the question is whether that relational self is, as some may claim, an ethical concept that is generally demonstrated in one’s family roles and social roles, or a category of women that is primarily ontological. I think the frst side of the question has to do with the necessity of revealing the social structure of power relations in initiating, constructing, and sustaining the patriarchal gender system. If the relational self in Confucian philosophy is indeed as gender-neutral as it claims to be, then what social forces twist a gender-neutral idea into an orthodox teaching that contributes to women’s subordination? In Chinese society, women often “live” supportive roles, which are secondary to the male roles. For instance, a widely cited story of Mencius’s mother who moved three times to seek a suitable learning environment for her son shows that she only “lives” a supportive role as his mother. In practice, she does not have an identity of her own beyond being his mother. She has to secure her identity, if there is an identity to speak of, through her association to male fgures. Here, how social roles are viewed as constitutive of identities is a key point for reconstructive theories. In the actual social construction of relational personhood, a woman is often not regarded as a subject who possesses an equal right to be a person. And perhaps in the context of Chinese philosophy, it is out of place to talk about identity, equality, subjectivity, or rights. Yet, this is exactly why we are using the comparative approach to look at the feminist tradition and the Chinese tradition. By drawing on both traditions, we try to develop a more plausible feminist theory to address gender issues. In this sense, foregrounding a category of women is a logical move to reveal the social forces, which construct the seemingly genderless gendered social system. To respond to the second side of the question, we need to look into what a metaphysical category entails. If we clear up the misconception of feminism as unitary and consider the plurality in feminism, we may avoid suggesting a category of women as essentialist. When proposing that the idea of relational person could be helpful for constructing a category of women, I am not suggesting that relational personhood is a kind of ontological essence that can be

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possessed or shared by women. Instead, what I am positing is that category construction does not rely on an essence, but that the idea of correlation is helpful for thinking about women’s group identity given the differences among us. A question related to the concern about the plausibility of using the Confucian philosophical idea of correlation in forging a category of women is the emphasis Confucianism places on the individual practice of virtues in the case of sages. How can an idea that promotes individual practice contribute to a collective concept of a category of women? A possible response to this question is that Confucianism is not meant to fx social injustice. Instead, as an orthodox teaching in certain periods of the Chinese history, it helps sustain the hierarchical social structures. Thus, any suggestion that Confucianism can be used to transform the social system into one that accommodates gender justice seems unrealistic. However, I am not altogether pessimistic about Confucianism, and I am proposing that the idea of correlation could potentially be helpful to look at the interrelatedness among women in the construction of gender oppression. Despite the fact that women are oppressed in different forms, our oppression is centered around an inner structure that is pertinent to gender. It remains a question whether the idea of correlation in Marilyn Frye, Eva Kittay, or Sara Ruddick is used in the same sense as it is in Rosenlee, Ames, or Li Chenyang, but I do not think there is a rigid demarcation between a metaphysical idea and an ethical idea. After all, feminist causes are political and they have normative implications. In any case, in contemporary philosophy metaphysical categories are more often constructed than “found,” and ethical and political considerations seem to be as, if not more, relevant in constructing metaphysical categories as epistemological or scientifc considerations. If we look at theory-building transculturally, it would not be an exaggeration to say that our theories interact with each other both by diverging and converging with other theories. For example, if we overgeneralize western personhood as independent and individual or independent-in-interdependence, and Chinese personhood as person-in-relation, then at least both theories can contribute to a more plausible theory on personhood by learning from each other. It may be helpful to imagine a more plausible notion of personhood as an independent person-in-relation, but this version of personhood may overemphasize rights, individuality, and independence, especially as they are conceived in western or liberal feminism. Ideas from liberal feminism provide the mass of content of so-called global feminism, but Chinese feminists have shown that a general idea of human rights may not be compatible with the social reality of China. There remain issues to be addressed. First, if forging the category of women is not necessarily an essentialist claim because a category of women does not have to be a set of attributes and properties in the Platonic sense,

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then the more fuid concept of relational personhood in Confucian philosophy is potentially helpful in formulating a category of women. Such a category comprehends differences among women, such as those refected in the fact that women are oppressed in different forms in China and in the United States, even if they are all oppressed as women. If we admit that women are oppressed as women, we can see that whether or not one claims that there are less oppressive living conditions of exemplar Chinese women does not alter the fact that Chinese women are oppressed as women, and that, therefore, it is necessary to have a category of women. Second, we need to consider feminism as a work in progress because some Chinese philosophers have a stereotyped concept of feminism as uniform. As both the “difference critique” in the United States and the development of contemporary Chinese feminism illustrate, there is a plurality and a complexity in feminism. Therefore, neither Confucian philosophy nor feminism should be regarded as unitary and unchanging. Last but not least, we should acknowledge that gender dynamics in Confucian philosophy and culture are complex and gender issues are typically discussed in an assumingly gender-neutral hierarchical system, which may contribute to the fact that we rarely see philosophical work address contemporary Chinese women’s issues. This can also help to explain the diffculty of reviving Chinese traditions. It is possible to develop a more robust feminist philosophy to address cultural differences by drawing on different theoretical traditions. One of the challenges in comparative philosophy is that scholarly works often focus on the examination of differences. However, it makes sense to ask whether once we have specifed these differences among cultural traditions and philosophies, should we then turn to their similarities and attempt to bring them into dialogue? Comparative philosophers have explored what comparative philosophy can contribute to philosophy. For instance, Li Chenyang (2001) acknowledges that there are common ideals of interdependence and mutuality in the intersection of gender and Chinese philosophy. Seeing differences can help us understand one another better, and seeing similarities can make us feel less distant from one another, and, in so doing enhance our chances for solidarity. In this sense, we should philosophize across traditions and draw resources from other philosophical traditions to expand our horizons and to see things from different perspectives. Robert C. Neville (2001) discusses the role of comparative philosophy in serving today’s global philosophic public in arguing that philosophers need to move through comparative philosophy to integrative philosophy in order to make philosophy in today’s globalized world. Eliot Deutsch (2001) agrees that a central role of comparative philosophy is to enhance our philosophical creativity; developing feminist comparative philosophy can bring different philosophical traditions in dialogue to enhance philosophical creativity. To accomplish this goal, one of the tasks is

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to demonstrate, as the philosophical efforts I discussed in this chapter highlight, that Chinese philosophy is relevant to feminism, that it has signifcance in contemporary society, and that we should advance if not create Chinese feminist philosophy. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I addressed the philosophical aspect of feminism that is relevant to Chinese culture. Among Chinese syncretic traditions of thought, I focused on Confucianism because it is the most discussed in the Chinese philosophy literature regarding feminism, although Confucianism and Chinese intellectual traditions/thought/philosophy are sometimes confated. It remains a question whether and how Confucianism contributes to feminism, which, in turn, requires us to determine the extent that it contributes to gender oppression in its justifcation of political and ethical systems. It could be argued that Confucianism is not the oppressor because oppression is a social issue so the social system is the real cause of gender oppression. One aspect that I draw upon from Chinese Confucian philosophy is that its idea of relational personhood could be potentially useful for addressing the issue of relational identity in feminism. Some comparative philosophers argue for the compatibility of Confucianism and feminism, especially in the area of care ethics. Others use cases of exemplary individual Chinese women who have high morality to show Chinese women are not altogether oppressed in history. Meanwhile, Chinese and comparative philosophers have reservations about the category of women or a specifc women’s identity partly because they advocate for a fuid, relational, and gender-neutral personhood. This chapter brought Chinese philosophy, in particular Confucian philosophy, into dialogue with contemporary (western) feminist philosophy, in the interest of constructing a category of women that is consistent with recognizing differences among women. I argued that Chinese Confucian philosophical ideas, such as relational personhood, shed light on feminist understandings of women’s identity among differences. I also argued that Confucian philosophy’s responses to feminist challenges are timely and well received because theory interchanges are unavoidable in the context of transculturalism. Chinese philosophy in general does not accept a category of women, partly because of its misunderstanding of a category as essentialist, partly because it advocates for a fuid identity or no identity at all, and partly because women are considered secondary and therefore do not deserve to be taken seriously. According to Confucian thinking, it does not matter whether one is male or female as long as one is virtuous, but this logic

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overlooks the power of identity politics and how the dimension of gender plays out in society. Feminism is a political cause, so we cannot talk about the category of women or gender issues in general, only theoretically and philosophically. Although it remains a question to what extent Confucianism has vitality in contemporary feminism, it is undeniable that it still plays an important role in Chinese women’s daily life by being the context of a thinking mechanism that often sets social expectations for women. For example, the kinship system still has a direct impact on Chinese women’s take on reproduction such as favoring male offspring or discrimination against women at the workplace. It is hasty to draw the conclusion that one might not be able to establish a local feminism originating from Chinese traditions, but this could explain why some feminist scholars turn to the west for theory building. Nonetheless, this chapter shows that several comparative philosophers have made attempts to respond to feminist challenges, which might help to explicate the idea of “interference” and to confrm that a transcultural approach should be utilized to look at gender issues historically.

Chapter 11

Looking to the West A Brief History of Theory Development in Contemporary Chinese Feminism

In this chapter, I will identify the main issues in contemporary Chinese feminism that are related to women’s identity and solidarity as part of transcultural feminism as I envision it. In particular, I will present a brief history of theory development since the 1980s in contemporary Chinese feminism in a global context. I begin with presenting the so-called “gender turn” in Chinese feminism in the 1990s, which is thought to indicate the “theory import” of feminist theories from the west, centered around the analytical category of “gender.” The “gender turn” took place concurrently with the reform era (1978– ), when China “imported” theories and ideas along with material goods. This “gender turn” resulted in a paradigm shift from “women” to “gender” in Chinese feminist discourse. The adoption of “gender” through cross-border exchanges demonstrates that despite the fact that Chinese women endure gender oppression in different forms, they are concerned about seeking terms to address “women’s problems,” and this, in turn, shows the necessity of constructing a women’s group identity. The major forces contributing to contemporary Chinese feminism include the following: feminist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the AllChina Women’s Federation, Chinese scholars in women’s studies, overseas feminist scholars who are related to Chinese Society for Women’s Studies, international funding agencies, and a concept of “global/international feminism,” as well as scholars and activists, both local and international, and institutional and private. The knowledge production of contemporary Chinese feminism is the result of the interplay and negotiation of these forces. The AllChina Women’s Federation is an organization that has units in every Chinese national and local government level with a dual identity of being a seemingly contradictory governmental NGO. In hosting the NGO Forum on Women at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW, or UN 209

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Beijing Conference) in 1995, the state-run All-China Women’s Federation claimed the status of an NGO partly to “connect tracks” with the international feminist movement, and thus it has the dual identity of being a governmental institution as well as a nongovernment organization (see Wesoky 2002). “Connecting tracks” means integrating China into the world community with the expectation that it will either “catch up” or emerge into the global system. Chinese Society for Women’s Studies was established by a group of diasporic Chinese scholars in the late 1980s in the United States. I present Chinese feminist scholars’ efforts to search for an identity for Chinese feminism: Is it a branch of a universal global/international feminism, a form of feminism with Chinese characteristics, or an local Chinese feminism stemming from its traditions, culture, and resources with a global twist? To answer these questions, I explore the dynamics in the interplay between global feminism and “local” feminism in contemporary China, trying to show that feminism is neither a singular form, nor comprised of a multiplicity of feminisms. Although global feminism and international feminism are different schools of thought, in the Chinese context, they both mean something that is not originated in China, which is why I use the term “global/international feminism.” SEEKING TERMS TO ADDRESS “WOMEN’S PROBLEMS” Chinese women, as part of the liberated proletariat, started to have opportunities to pursue education and work goals massively since the 1950s, but it is important to acknowledge the background and transformation of women’s roles and opportunities in China. Chinese intellectuals and activists made various attempts to solve “women’s problems” in the twentieth century. Although my focus in this chapter is on the theory development of contemporary Chinese feminism instead of history, I start this section with a brief summary of women’s movements in the twentieth century, fully aware that my summary does not do justice to its rich and complex history. I will summarize and cite selective major facts about twentieth-century Chinese women’s experiences, for example, those in relation to major conficts and changes, before the start of the reform and opening up in 1978. Then I will present how “gender” as an analytical category, along with other western feminist theories, was introduced to China, followed by a brief overview of two Chinese feminists who started addressing women’s problems theoretically prior to the “gender turn.” The two feminists are He-Yin Zhen (in Liu, Karl, and Ko 2013) from the early 1900s, who contributed to the birth of Chinese feminism, and Li Xiaojiang from the late 1990s, who was one of the leading members of the Chinese “women’s studies movement” in the 1980s.

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Feminism and the State One cannot avoid talking about the signifcance of the socialist revolution and its subsequent development regarding conditions and roles of women when one addresses Chinese feminism. To a certain extent, contemporary Chinese feminism was originally constructed to serve the macro political goals of the political revolution in the frst half of the twentieth century. The condition of Chinese feminism affects the possibilities and constraints facing woman intellectuals as well as feminist activists. I will present some general observations regarding feminist scholarship on women. Feminist historian Wang Zheng (2017) traces the development of feminism in China. The phrase nüquan zhuyi (the ism of women’s rights or power), as a Chinese rendition of “feminism,” gained popularity along with the birth of the New Culture Movement in 1915. Cultural radicals in the New Culture Movement aimed to transform the dominant Confucian culture that was defned as “feudalism” to modernize China, and nüquan zhuyi was considered as a powerful vehicle to fght “feudalism.” Cultural radicals expanded social and intellectual infuence after May 4, 1919, when students started a nationwide patriotic movement. Women’s liberation, which centered around “equality in all spheres of life and achieving an independent personhood,” was part of the goal of the May Fourth Movement (4). Some individuals, both men and women, who participated in the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement, formed the Communist Party in 1921, openly endorsing “equality between men and women.” According to Wang, both feminists in and outside the Chinese Communist Party regard themselves as heirs of May Fourth feminism, but the former are generally referred to as “socialist feminists” because they believed that “women’s ‘thorough’ emancipation could only be achieved in a socialist country that would abolish private property and eliminate all social hierarchies. Feminism, nationalism, and socialism were blended coherently in their vision of an independent socialist nation in which women would enjoy full equality and human dignity” (6). Wang uses the term “state feminism” to refer to a “paradoxical image of a state patriarch championing women’s liberation” conceptually (7), when “equality between men and women” was endorsed ideologically but the state power was primarily possessed politically by men. The operation of the All-China Women’s Federation, for example, demonstrates the conceptual chasm and political inconsistency. The All-China Women’s Federation is a state-run mass organization that does not have executive power, which refects the distribution of power between the organization and the state. Marriage Law in China provides women legal protection. Among the accomplishments of the All-China Women’s Federation was “the promulgation and enforcement of the Marriage Law into a powerful mass campaign promoting

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women’s equal rights and personal freedom,” but it does not prevent institutional marginalization of the All-China Women’s Federation in the state (14). Wang points out a dilemma embodied in the organization in that the institutionalized women-work (work related to women’s movement and liberation), once a “prominent progressive stance superior to those political parties or forces that totally exclude or ignore women,” was “turned into a marginalized enclave of feminists within the political system” (17). Looking at feminism as China went through massive social, economic, cultural, and political changes and transformation, Wang also realizes that “the work and ideas of socialist state feminists, who were once the driving force in engendering the social and cultural transformation of a patriarchal society, were being erased amidst China’s departure from socialism” (21). The Birth of Chinese Feminism Chinese feminism was shaped by its foremothers, and He-Yin Zhen (ca. 1840–1920) is one of the preeminent Chinese feminist theorists who contributed to its birth. At the turn of the twentieth century, some male intellectuals were infuenced by a western idea of modernity, so they began to write about “women’s problems,” intending to break away from the Confucian heritage and transform China into a modern civilization. Scholarly writings that fourished in the New Culture Movement of the 1920s and 1930s tried to imagine a new path for China beyond Confucianism. He-Yin Zhen is one of the educated women who elaborated on women’s issues among the male scholars as she was familiar with both the classical heritage of canonical texts and ideas of modernization. Her work was recently made available to the English-speaking world in a book entitled The Birth of Chinese Feminism (Liu, Karl, and Ko 2013). At the center of He-Yin’s feminist critique of gendered bodies, labor, and social production of her time are the categories of nannü (man and woman; male/female) and shengji (livelihood). Nannü, a locally grown concept, has long been understood as a historical category for analyzing sex/gender relationships in China. To He-Yin, nannü is not only a category of gendered social relations but also one through which the world is reconceptualized as a gendered venue of social activities. According to the editors of The Birth of Chinese Feminism, the category of nannü is a material and metaphysical mechanism of marking that evolves over time across boundaries of culture, race, or class in the organization of social and political power, while the category of shengji provides an all-encompassing gendered lens, through which a radical critique of capitalism and modernity is made. Therefore, nannü and shengji are more comprehensive concepts than sex/ gender and class. In He-Yin’s view, equality can only be realized in a radically reconfgured social and cultural sphere, in which nannü equality is no

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longer hierarchically subordinated to any other form of equality but is the social and material basis for all equality. As a result, nü (woman) is a transhistorical global category of unequal social relations that is constituted through intellectual and social practices. Since “woman” is the product of historical social relations, it is “a political ontology, or an endlessly reproduced principle of politicized and social practice in and through time” (Liu, Karl, and Ko 2013, 10; emphasis in original). Subsequent to the establishment of the socialist China, nannü is still used as a category to refer to “women’s problems.” The state version of gender equality is represented by the slogan “equality between men and women” (equality between nannü), which centers a desexed approach and uses “class” as an analytical category. What was dominant in the pre-1980 discourse on Chinese women was a model of “from oppression to liberation,” in which Chinese women were liberated with the liberation of the nationstate. As the slogan claims, women can do what men can do, but “men” is the standard of reference in this desexed approach. Indeed, gender policies in China are unique, and women gained certain rights immediately. Even though the socialist revolution did not fully change the patriarchal structure, slogans such as “women holding up half the sky,” which promoted an idea that women are as tough and capable as men (“iron girls”), became the role model for women. Li Xiaojiang (2000) summarizes what distinguishes Chinese women’s experiences from women’s experiences in other countries. According to her, socialist China provides a successful example of liberating women from at least two crucial perspectives. One is that Chinese women were transformed from “persons in family” into “persons in society” in a short time, which was a result of the socialist revolution rather than a feminist movement, though there might have been a feminist component to the socialist revolution. The other is that Chinese women have gained equal rights since the Mao Era (1949–1976), which refects the socialist “equality” principle rather than a feminist one. Under this kind of uniquely Chinese social condition, Li argues, the liberation of women as a group is determined by social development and state policy; therefore, it is not connected with the feminist movement. Furthermore, individual Chinese women’s development is dependent on their levels of education and on whether one has the feminist consciousness (see Li 2000, 60–61). Chinese Women’s Studies Movement Partly as a response to the desexed approach of regarding women as no different from men, some Chinese women scholars initiated a “Chinese women’s studies movement” to establish a discipline of women’s studies during economic reforms in the early 1980s. “Women’s studies” is generally

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understood as “an academic study of women,” so any study that takes women as its research subject can be lumped into the discipline. The movement questions the masculinization of women in the slogan “equality between men and women” and starts a process of gender differentiation. “Feminization of women” is used as a counter discourse to “men and women are the same”; thus, a discourse of femininity coincides with the development of women’s studies as a discipline. Through the women’s studies movement in academia, Chinese women scholars try to differentiate “women” from “class” and to advocate for the idea of women as sexed beings. Li Xiaojiang played a prominent role in this movement by promoting scholarship on women. She laid out her Marxist feminist framework in “The Progress of Humanity and Women’s Liberation” (2013a [1983]), the frst theoretical article on women to appear in a mainstream journal in China and one that accidentally initiated the women’s studies movement of the 1980s. Scholars who responded positively to the article became the core of the discipline of women’s studies in China. In the late 1980s, Li published several books on women’s studies that were centered around sexual and gender differences. In Eve’s Exploration (1988), Li provided a theoretical basis for women’s studies in China by separating women from class. She expressed her philosophical understanding of gender in Sex Gap (1989), where she asked philosophical questions such as “what is a woman” and “what is a Chinese woman.” She claimed that a woman cannot be a person without recognizing her sexual and gender differences, by which she meant the ingrained gender differences that are historically and socially constituted and maintained by the male value system. To her, “equality between men and women” does not challenge the male value system because the male is still its center, which implies that a woman needs to be like a man to be a person. Li used the phrase “sexed person” to argue that a female sex precedes class. According to her, “women” and “class” belong to different categories: women belong to a human ontological category and class belongs to a social historical category (see 1988, 31). Li claims that the biological sexual difference is unavoidable and the historical formation of sexual differences cannot be changed, but she also advocates for a “harmonious” relationship between men and women in China (see 2000). Li’s statement on Chinese feminism is criticized as essentialism by some overseas scholars because although it focuses on gender instead of class, it nevertheless emphasizes the biological aspect of gender such as natural differences, sexed persons, and harmonious sexual relationships. For instance, Wang Zheng states, “rather than criticizing socialist women’s liberation for its failure in changing patriarchal culture and institutions, Li blames it for its disregard of women’s unique femaleness and for its ‘distortion of the original features of the two sexes’” (1997, 138). In a different article, Wang

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acknowledges that “this essentialized female sex, often explained in biological terms, helped to dislodge Maoist class analysis and enable the emergence of ‘woman’ as a legitimate subject of research” (Hershatter and Wang 2008, 1415–16). In addition, Eve’s Exploration is considered as representing Li’s “new theorizing about women in essentialist terms” (Chow, Zhang, and Wang 2004, 178). Li Xiaojiang responds to the accusation of essentialism directly and actually accepts the label “essentialist feminism.” “My position was clearly essentialist,” she acknowledges, “many years ago, some foreign scholars criticized my essentialism. I did not fght back because I did not think there was anything wrong with essentialism” (2013b, 179). Yet, Li is aware of the fact that there could be misinterpretation of the term “essentialism,” so she only accepts the label within the feminist framework. She makes it clear that her position on the sex gap has not changed since the publication of Sex Gap: “I believe that as long as biological sexual differences continue to exist, as long as such differences cause social and personal discrimination, essentialist feminism will have a universal foundation and epistemological value. Essentialist feminism is above politics, above races, nations, classes, and ages” (1989, 180). She distinguishes her idea from Simone de Beauvoir’s account of women as they have different views on nature and history. Whereas de Beauvoir claims that “one is not born a woman, but becomes one,” Li claims that one is born female. As she states, “It is not wholly because of male imposition that women are the second sex; rather, this secondary status is a necessary period in the evolution of human history” (180). Li’s research on sexual differences occurred in conjunction with the newly formed market economy and the commodifcation of women’s sexuality in the early 1990s. Scholars such as Tani Barlow characterize Li’s works as a form of “market feminism” (Barlow 2004, 254). Despite the controversies, Li nevertheless contributed to a shift in feminist discourse from a class analysis to an analysis on women in the 1980s, which was quickly marginalized by another shift from women to gender. The early 1990s witnessed a paradigm shift from the women’s perspective to a gender perspective in Chinese feminism and some feminist scholars call it the “gender turn” (Hershatter and Wang 2008, 1416). Joan W. Scott’s article “Gender: A Useful Category of History Analysis” (1986), which engages gender and explores power relations, was translated into Chinese (see in Li, Lin and, Tan 1997), widely circulated and cited. With increasing communication between Chinese feminist scholars and global/international feminism, as well as increasing infuence of the international women’s movement and organizations in China, “gender” was adopted as a useful category of analysis and a critical perspective in analyzing Chinese women’s conditions. The state slogan “equality between men and women” was replaced by a new concept of “gender equality,” but “their aim is not simply to replace an obsolete concept with a new concept

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that has more analytical power because they demand a notion of citizenship that acknowledges women’s agency and autonomy” (Wang and Zhang 2010, 48). Although the term “gender” was used in Chinese feminist discourse prior to the “gender turn,” it was not used in the same sense. THE “GENDER TURN”: LOOKING TO THE WEST FOR ANALYTICAL TOOLS Three key events punctuate the “gender turn” in China. The frst event is the 1992 conference “Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State” at Harvard University. According to Wang Zheng, the conference marks “the frst formal dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars on research on women in China” (1997, 139). For the frst time, women’s studies scholars from China met with overseas Chinese feminists, who were members of the Chinese Society for Women’s Studies. Wang Zheng is a Chinese diaspora scholar who plays a dual role of participant and observer in disseminating western feminism in China and whose work I cite extensively in this chapter. According to Gail Hershatter and Wang (2008), the conference is not one without fssures and the central disagreement is over the concept of “gender.” At the conference, the implication of the feminist concept of “gender” is lost in translation, partly because the translation of “gender” is equivalent to “sex” in Chinese. In the introduction to one of the resulting conference volumes, the editors claim that in proposing we “‘engender China,’ we make the claim that research on women and gender . . . revises the most basic categories through which we strive to apprehend Chinese social relations, institutions, and cultural productions” (Gilmartin, Hershatter, White 1994, 1–2). Although it remains a question who has the agency of “engendering” China, the Harvard conference nevertheless marks the beginning of the introduction of western feminist theories centered around “gender” and called by some Chinese scholars “theory import” because they are from foreign countries. The second event is the Tianjin seminar, which was the direct result of the Harvard conference. The Chinese Society for Women’s Studies and the Center for Women’s Studies in Tianjin Normal University held a joint summer seminar at Tianjin Normal University in 1993 with a theme “Chinese Women and Development—Status, Health, Employment.” According to Wang Zheng, “Women researchers in China later regarded the Tianjin seminar as the beginning of ‘large scale landing of Western feminism in China’ that introduced to Chinese researchers the key feminist concept—gender” (1997, 141). The third event is the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) that was organized by the United Nations (FWCW) and the NGO Forum, which left a lasting mark on contemporary Chinese feminism:

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“It was in the process of preparing for the Fourth UN Conference on Women in 1995 that women scholars in China experienced a signifcant ‘gender turn,’ shifting from the 1980s emphasis on essentialized sex to an enthusiastic exploration of ‘gender analysis’” (Hershatter and Wang 2008, 1416). The UN Beijing Conference provided a conceptual framework for Chinese feminists, which then was legitimized and mainstreamed into the Chinese feminist discourse. The conference also provided an opportunity for Chinese feminist activists to legitimize NGOs in China. In addition, “The ideas and agendas of the international women’s movement embedded in the FWCW documents have shaped the offcial Chinese gender rhetoric and policy” (Chow, Zhang, and Wang 2004, 180). It was reported that Chinese women’s reactions to the conference were overwhelmingly positive and “many of them showed strong interest in learning about global women’s issues and how these issues might relate to their current situations as China transforms socially and economically” (Chow 1996, 191). In the years following the 1995 UN Beijing Conference, many international and local Chinese feminists started using “gender training” to educate government and institutional leaders and offcials about gender issues. Chinese feminists thus have turned “gender training” into “an innovative form of activism in their engagement with the existing political system and social institutions” (Wang and Zhang 2010, 51). Chinese academia, however, is slow to embrace “gender” as a useful category of analysis in the women’s and gender studies curriculum development and discipline building. Although some were reluctant to accept “gender,” Chinese feminist scholars never developed a consensus that “gender” was not useful and that “sexes” should be used instead; nor did they decide to push back against the U.S. academic use of it. Of all the efforts toward building up the discipline of women’s studies in China at that time, the most prominent one is the multiyear Developing China’s Women/Gender Studies project that started in 2000. Du Fangqin, a feminist historian at Tianjin Normal University, and Wang Zheng, who is from University of Michigan led this project (see Chow, Zhang, and Wang 2004, 167). China’s “‘Gender’ Trouble” Chinese feminists’ responses to the introduction of “gender” into China are not unanimous. According to Nicola Spakowski (2011), two kinds of attitudes have emerged in response to the “theory import” from the West that is centered around “gender.” One is represented by Wang Zheng and Chinese feminists who seek a more powerful analytical tool. The other is represented by Li Xiaojiang, who is cautious about the “import” of western theories and hopes for an indigenous Chinese feminism. In the western context, “indigenous”

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is usually meant to acknowledge the priority of the population inhabiting a land, and curtail if not deny rights to the land of those invaders who have “colonized” the lands of indigenous peoples. However, in the Chinese context, “indigenous” usually means something is generated domestically in the culture. Corresponding to the two kinds of attitude, the term “gender” is translated as shehui xingbie (social gender) and xingbie (gender/sex) respectively. Shehui xingbie is favored by feminist scholars who confrm the translatability and transferability of western concepts into China, and Du Fangqin is central among them. This group of scholars consider “gender” as more critical than an essentialist notion of “sex” or the notion of “equality between men and women.” After all, “It is an analytical weapon that women can use to fght the myriad manifestations of patriarchy in Chinese society, which provides them with a new perspective and which fnally refects the integration of Chinese women’s studies into international feminism” (Spakowski 2011, 35). Li Xiaojiang, on the other hand, rejects the idea of translatability and transferability and insists on using xingbie as an indigenous category. Spakowski further examines various Chinese feminist responses to introducing “gender” to China. One of these responses focuses on the “‘gender’ trouble” that comes with the “import” of the key analytical category “gender” from western feminist theories. She distinguishes an attitude of acceptance based on universalist assumptions from an attitude of rejection on the grounds of a particularist outlook. According to her, some Chinese scholars fnd the process of “importing” western feminist theories troublesome because of their “universalist and interventionist overtones and the cutting off of indigenous creativity, traditions, and resources” (46). Although some Chinese feminist scholars, Du Fangqin for example, claim that the “import” of western theories and the introduction of “gender” as the basic category of analysis is a logical step, others such as Li Xiaojiang think otherwise. Spakowski claims that shehui xingbie is supported by a universalist rhetoric and xingbie is represented as a truly indigenous concept. Li insists on using xingbie as an indigenous category, which “refects the particularity of Chinese feminism” (35). According to Spakowski, “The concept of particularity makes Li Xiaojiang and others much more critical of the import of Western feminist theory” (37). Scholars favoring the introduction of “gender” try to defne women’s experiences and women’s liberation in China as a particular case, which they claim signifes standardizing and universalizing theory on a global scale. As a result, “gender” is accepted as a universally valid category, and Chinese feminism is seen as the local variant of a global feminist venture. Spakowski thus concludes that feminism in China is complex and pluralist, so it does not ft international feminism’s formula of “differences within commonality.” Meanwhile, Min Dongchao researches the travels of gender theories and practices to China using a model of “dialogue” (2007). She utilizes the

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concept of theory traveling to examine how the term “feminism” is translated and circulated and how it acquires legitimacy in China between the 1980s and the 1990s. Min regards translation as a process in which “translators” in different languages and cultures engage in dialogue and negotiation. According to her, three groups of translators play a major role in shaping the dialogue on feminism, which include the offcial state-operated All-China Women’s Federation, Chinese women’s studies scholars and activists in China, and members of the Chinese Society for Women’s Studies. Min goes beyond the language and technical aspect of translation, addressing the power relationship between “traveling theory” and “cultural translation.” According to her, Chinese women’s studies scholars and activists are eager to learn from western feminism, so they often do not question and challenge the dominance of western knowledge. She warns about the pitfalls of this attitude: “We have to be aware that contemporary transnational feminist fows of ideas and interactions, however, are not always analytically sophisticated in helping us chart this world of overlapping identities and scattered hegemonies” (2007, 191). Considering the fact that some ideas and theories get “travelled” and others do not, Min brings our attention to the power relationship behind the global fow of feminist ideas, practices, and activism. Anti-Domestic Violence Network At least three forces are visible in Chinese feminism after the UN Beijing Conference. These include the rise of feminist NGOs, the state-run All-China Women’s Federation, and the international feminist movement. These three forces are intertwined with each other, which illustrates the complex and institutional relationship between the rise of feminist NGOs in China and the transformation of the state-run All-China Women’s Federation in the context of global feminism. In this section, I will address the dynamics in the interplay between these forces by looking at an anti-domestic violence NGO project in China. “Anti-Domestic Violence Network,” the frst women’s NGO in China, was a large multiagency project that was organized exclusively around the issue of domestic violence. It was originally launched as “Domestic Violence in China—Research, Intervention and Prevention” project under China Law Society in Beijing in 2000, and it was disbanded in 2014 due to funding and management issues. In 2003, it was institutionalized as the “Anti-Domestic Violence Network” along with its “Stop Domestic Violence” website that provided information on cases and advocacy. The Anti-Domestic Violence Network project was an outcome of China hosting the 1995 UN Conference, and it was partially funded by Swedish and Canadian international development grants and other international funding agencies. The Anti-Domestic

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Violence Network and All-China Women’s Federation worked together to voice the need for a legislative approach to domestic violence. As a result of the collaborative work, language regarding the idea of anti-domestic violence was included in the Marriage Law. Chinese women’s NGOs collaborate with the state that is represented by All-China Women’s Federation on many gender issues. The formation of Chinese women’s NGOs is one of the mechanisms for China to “connect tracks with the world” in many aspects of society. Against speculations from the west regarding the identity of the All-China Women’s Federation, the relationship between Chinese feminist NGOs and All-China Women’s Federation is a collaborative one. The increasing endorsement of policy on domestic violence and acceptance of the work of organizations like the AntiDomestic Violence Network is an example of how the two organizations work together (Hester 2012, 288–89). “Alongside the Women’s federation, the Network is arguing that existing legislation (including the Marriage Law 2001) does not go far enough in protecting women from male violence, nor does it fulfll women’s rights and interests” (288). Chen Mingxia, a researcher of the state-funded Law Institute of the China Academy of Social Science, was the coordinator of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network. According to an interview done in Wang and Zhang (2010), Chen frst started to realize the limitation of “protecting women’s rights” through “gender training.” Chen characterizes the relationship between the Anti-Domestic Violence Network and the All-China Women’s Federation as one without clear boundaries. Despite the international suspicion about the Women’s Federation’s ambiguous status as both an offcial governmental institution and a mass nongovernmental organization, Chen states that they “have really good relations with local Women’s Federations.” She thus rejects the idea that “there exists, or should exist, a rigid divide between NGOs and governmental organizations, a notion that came to China, together with the concept of the NGO, via transnational feminist encounters” (Wang and Zhang 2010, 61). Chinese feminist NGOs make a conscious decision to collaborate with the All-China Women’s Federation, and this “has led to a distinctive mode of Chinese feminism” (62); as Chen claims, this collaboration has enriched the content of the international feminist movement. The Anti-Domestic Violence Network project is not only an example that demonstrates the relationship between Chinese women’s NGO and the All-China Women’s Federation but also one that highlights the dynamic relationship between global/international feminism and local feminisms. For example, Zhang Lu (2009) uses the case of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network project to demonstrate how the politics of global feminism constitute a new context for women’s movement politics around the world in the area of gender violence. According to Zhang, the politics of global feminism created the transnational women’s human rights movement in recent decades. She

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also thinks that the Anti-Domestic Violence Network provides a contextualized study of the global spread of the feminist anti-violence against women movement done from a local perspective. Zhang reviews relations between international donor agencies and Chinese women’s NGOs, arguing that in the feld of transnational feminism, the global-local should be given more attention as an interactive nexus rather than two separate and independent entities. In particular, Zhang looks into the role of the Ford Foundation in the mobilization of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network: “This relationship, largely an outcome of the Foundation’s economic patronage of Chinese NGOs, also yields extraeconomic results, the most important of which is the Foundation’s signifcant ability to shape the political interests and agenda of the local activists through its funding activities” (2009, 79). Zhang also points out that international donors’ economic support for Chinese women activists refects and reinforces an ethnocentric worldview. To illustrate this point, Zhang uses an example of what is called “international pedagogical trips”: Chinese women’s NGOs, activists, or scholars are sent to Western countries to learn about the “advanced” model of domestic violence legislation, interventions, and outreach services. Implicit in the design of such exposure tours, I would argue, is the ethnocentric perception of China’s lack of DV [Domestic Violence] awareness, policy, and interventional agencies as a sign of otherness and backwardness. The almost excessive eagerness of the developed nations to teach Chinese women NGOs and activists about their domestic violence management skills, channeled through funding initiatives, implies domestic violence policy as a symbolic difference that distinguishes the “advanced” model of development from the “backward” model. To address this area of difference essentially becomes a way to establish that difference as well, especially since this perception of China’s “lack” sometimes also exists side by side with many Western nations’ sense of “achievement.” (80)

However, Zhang acknowledges that although the international donors play a defnite role in infuencing the formation of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network project, they do not impose an agenda. Therefore, the donor-recipient relation is a dialectical process and “a consensus-building process through which local activists have gradually come to a collective decision of taking action against the issue of domestic violence” (84). CHINESE FEMINISM ENCOUNTERS GLOBAL/ INTERNATIONAL FEMINISM Feminists display differing attitudes toward the infuence of global/international feminism on Chinese feminism. For example, Wang Zheng is positive

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about global feminism, but Tani Barlow (2001, 2000) and Nicola Spakowski (2011) have reservations. According to Wang Zheng (1997), at least three forces from abroad infuence feminism in China: western scholars, Chinese women scholars in diaspora, and international organizations or private western foundations. Theoretically, “The transnational feminist concept of gender is crucial in assisting Chinese feminists to establish a new subject position of an autonomous citizen” (Wang and Zhang 2010, 48). Financially, feminist NGOs in China have been primarily relying on international donors’ fnancial support. International funding agencies, such as the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, Oxfam, and the Lingnan Foundation, actively support both academic and activist feminism work in China (see Hershatter and Wang 2008, 1418). Among western foundations, the Ford Foundation played the most prominent role in the frst half of the 1990s. The Ford Foundation funded both the Harvard conference and the Tianjin seminar and enabled increasing intellectual exchanges and communications between women scholars in China and the west. With the aid of international funding agencies, the Chinese Society for Women’s Studies organized several publication projects to support research and curriculum development in women’s and gender studies in China, among which was the discipline-building project led by Du Fangqin and Wang Zheng. Li Xiaojiang also obtained funds from the Ford Foundation to host national conferences and organize publications of scholarly works and the All-China Women’s Federation received funds from international funding agencies as well. Wang Zheng summarizes, “Many Chinese women scholars and activists have been able to engage in the projects that would be unlikely to be funded by either their home institutions or the government” (1997, 141). However, Barlow is conscious about the negative impact of international feminism on Chinese feminism. To begin with, she questions the production of “international feminism,” which in her opinion “draws on case studies of women who suffer in order to demonstrate women ‘experience in common some forms of discrimination’” (2001, 1287). She worries that this would lead to a universal international feminism because “this style of international feminism returns the gaze of U.S.-based feminists back onto the putative West again, from whence all universals arise” (1287). Against the construction of a universal international feminism, she claims that Chinese feminism is not a particular case of a universal feminism but that “the contemporary Chinese women’s movement is autonomous by default and only in relation to the state” (1287). She criticizes that the “oddly unnuanced and unspecifc ‘international feminism’” is meant to supplement theories and practices of “globalization” (1290). She thus suggests deconstructing powerful political language like “international feminism” that backs a chauvinist state-advanced feminist discourse of internationalism.

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Barlow also criticizes U.S. parochialism when she imagines a better way to construct international feminism. According to her, the current version of “international feminism” expands “the neoliberal geopolitical notions that seek a Great Power relation between the United States and the rest of the world,” and it is “an ideological package—a well-fnanced, resurgent, neoliberal, United States-focused effort to establish common ground for feminism” (2000, 1009 n1). In this version of “international feminism,” women elsewhere are to advance human rights for which the United States defnes and sets the standards; therefore, “United States-fnanced international feminism is likely to form a future neoliberal orthodox” (1102). She uses Charlotte Bunch’s work (1995) to show how the common ground of “international feminism” has been formulated to advance a universal project. In Barlow’s understanding, Bunch uses the case of violence against women’s body and related reproductive issues to make a universality allegation that women are universally oppressed. “These internationalized and fexible market-sensitive or donor-agency feminisms” rest on the kind of internationalism that is “an ideological complement of the international state system” (Barlow 2000, 1103). By claiming to be “international,” this version of feminism obscures questions about social relations of production, in particular, the conditions of their production, and this makes international feminism “uncomfortably ideological” (1103). For example, when one is engaged in talking about “international feminism in a global frame,” one seldom questions where this idea comes from or what assumptions are shaping it. Barlow is particularly critical of the seemingly cosmopolitan and supranational framework that international feminism claims to set up. She asserts that the international feminism initiative is a series of totalizing theories that are consistent with drives to restructure global capital, which makes it impossible for it to represent the interests of women in the world. Its claim of working for “the interests of all women in the world” makes international feminism appear to lie beyond specifc nations, including U.S. parochial concerns. The pretension and disguise of this claim makes international feminism appear to be a generous cosmopolitan feminism.” In Barlow’s writing, “that is how international feminism presents itself as supranational and in an opportune position to represent all women equally by disregarding (somehow) the superfcial differences of skin tone, social standing, and customary practice while, always respectfully, taking into account local specifcities” (1103; emphasis in original). Along with Barlow’s line of critique, Spakowski explores what Chinese feminism is in light of the “theory import” from the west, and she calls the dilemma that Chinese feminism faces in the context of global feminism “China’s ‘gender’ trouble” because the “theory import” was centered around the analytical category of “gender” (2011, 31). To her, a Chinese feminist “identity” is part of “a new conceptual grid of global-local interrelations”

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(32). That is, it is an issue regarding the relationship between local feminism and global feminism: “Scholars in China obviously insist on using the ‘local’ as their frame of reference, a space for identity formation, and a site of theory production despite its problematic implications, and even where they are aware of its complexities and transnational dimension” (47–48). Spakowski points out that Chinese scholars might have different defnitions of “the local,” which could mean the contextuality and historicity of Chinese feminism, the irreducibility to a single defnition of a “Chinese feminism,” or Chinese feminism’s complex interaction with international feminism. She summarizes three reasons for Chinese feminists to insist on “the local”: the specifc (local) nature of certain problems that call for specifc (local) solutions, the necessity to engage with local discursive contexts that also have bearing on feminist theory production, and the empowering effect of a long transition of commitment to women’s issues and Chinese (feminist) history as a legacy and resources (see 47). As a result, “Theory imports that fail to address the complex experience of Chinese history seem to be disempowering rather than empowering” (48). To Spakowski, the “theory import” is not a natural global fow of culture and theories; rather, she views it “primarily as the product of human action and as part of a deliberate process of standardizing and universalizing theory on a global scale” (32). This process “unites ‘international’ (i.e., western) feminism in its efforts to integrate local feminism as kinds of ‘local branches’ and certain groups of ‘local’ feminists in their efforts to become part of an international network,” in which the west owns both material and discursive power (32). CONCLUSION In this chapter, I presented the conditions and theory development of Chinese feminism from a historical perspective. Chinese feminism, in a general sense, encourages efforts to challenge gender conditions or gender roles regardless of its relation to feminist theories developed in the west. Contemporary Chinese feminism is largely a response to real social conficts over gender issues such as violence to women, family planning, resources available to women, among many others. However, Chinese feminism is also a matter of intellectual exploration or theoretical contentions. I looked to Chinese feminist experiences as affected by various historical factors, processes, and events, but my focus is post-1980 feminism. Economic reform was a turning point in China because it was part of the legacy of the political revolutions, the increased opening to the west, the continuing and evolving sense of the Chinese nation and people in relation to the state, and the turn to a market economy as well as engagement with the larger world. Chinese feminists may be interested in conditions or conficts affecting women in societies near China, or among

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different religious and ethnic groups in China, but most studies in China are done in an empirical sense and exhibit a lack of consciousness of gender oppression in a collective sense. Many Chinese women struggle with gender oppression as individuals on a daily basis regarding family planning, living arrangements related to family style, or working environments that discriminate based on gender and age. Some accept these as natural because “I am a woman,” so the collective consciousness raising that “we are women,” though there has been a ficker of the “Me Too” movement in the past several years, is yet to happen. I also addressed a number of intellectual and activist issues and how they are affected by existing power relations. For example, Li Xiaojiang’s response to “gender” shows that by resisting translating “gender” as “social gender,” she acknowledges that there is a social dimension in the Chinese term for “gender.” However, her emphasis on the biological nature of women also unintentionally undercuts the historical character of women’s oppression and how to think about oppression more systematically. The debates over “gender” and global/international feminism demonstrate that historical differences of women in different societies are structural, instead of abstract or individual. Through the lens of Chinese feminist experiences, we can see that Chinese women indeed experience gender oppression in different forms, and the solution to their situations could potentially be different. Yet we also see that women are in a similar situation, though they live in different ways in different cultures. By “a similar situation,” I mean that we see the themes of women’s identity, of cultural differences, and of transcultural feminist solidarity as salient in the discussion of contemporary Chinese feminism. A brief history of theory development in contemporary Chinese feminism demonstrates that feminist responses to social conditions and institutions generate both creativity and restraints. Social conditions of Chinese women are not necessarily in the form of social movements, and these conditions could be very different from those of other cultures. Chinese scholars converse with western terms, but they also have autonomous refections on gender issues. From nannü to “desexed women,” and from “women with femininity” to “gender,” Chinese feminists have been seeking the right term(s) to talk about “women’s problems.” The dilemma over the local and the global regarding “importing” western feminist theories refects their confusion in dealing with cultural differences. The overwhelming scale of western feminist theories “landing” in China, the amount of international capital backing it, and the extent that Chinese feminists are willing to accept them along with contentions and conficts refects a need and necessity of transforming to a framework that is different from multiculturalism. All these point to the necessity of transcultural feminist solidarity, but it has yet to be spelled out in explicit language that goes beyond collaborative work accomplished by western and Chinese feminist scholars and activists.

Chapter 12

Commentary on Debates and Prospects in Contemporary Chinese Feminist Thinking

Although one may be able to talk about “Chinese culture” in a general and vague sense, she may be perplexed when she delves into the concept of “Chinese culture.” Similarly, it is challenging to defne “Chinese feminism” given the fact that a myriad of forces is at play. Contemporary Chinese feminism has developed in conjunction with practically oriented NGO movements and with state and non-state connections to a greater extent than has U.S. feminism. The development of Chinese feminist thinking is rooted in a historical context as it looks both to the Chinese philosophical tradition and to the west. Chinese scholars turned to the west at least twice for theory building: once when male intellectuals turned to the western theory on modernity to resist the Confucian culture to modernize China at the turn of the twentieth century, and the other time when feminist scholars “imported” western feminist theories. The act of turning to the west to produce knowledge of Chinese feminism is partly a consequence of “globalization.” The issue of globalization comes into practical focus in my discussion regarding the infuence of western feminist thought, the impact of international organizations (such as the United Nations and NGOs), and globally orientated and internationally based entities (such as the Ford Foundation). These forces have different agendas and even to some extent are in confict with one another. Contemporary Chinese feminism intentionally cut off ties with Chinese feminism and feminist struggles prior to the “gender turn” intellectually, culturally, and politically. This corresponds to a “cultural gap” that exists between the pre-reform Chinese culture and the contemporary Chinese culture, which may prevent one from making connections with one’s theoretical and cultural traditions. I shape my argument in this chapter around the theoretical themes of the earlier chapters, that is, the theme of women’s oppression in different forms, the need, nonetheless, for a conception of women’s identity, the theme of 227

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cultural differences among women, and the project of transcultural feminist solidarity. My discussion of Chinese feminists seeking terms to talk about “women’s problems” is linked to the idea of women’s oppression as women. My discussion of the debates over the relationship between Chinese feminism and global/international feminism is linked to the idea of feminist solidarity via transcultural activity. Despite some feminists’ reservations about “theory import” to China, western feminist theories gain visibility and dominance in contemporary Chinese feminist academic and activist work. The shift from a “women” perspective to a “gender” perspective offers a powerful analytical tool for Chinese feminists to look critically at the social structure of power relations regarding “women’s problems.” However, it would not be an exaggeration to point out that a “global/ international feminism” agenda is overpowering to such an extent that Chinese feminists’ voices are muffed, or at times it appears that they are losing the capability to speak on their own terms because of the volume of western thought. Whereas we live in an increasingly interrelated world, it is important to have a voice of one’s own, which of course does not mean one’s culture should be isolated from the rest of the world. Terms such as “indigenous” and “localization” unintentionally place western feminism as the point of reference, from which Chinese feminism is scrutinized in an assumed indigenous/foreign (western) dualism. In the idea of “localizing western theories,” western feminist theories are taken to be some sort of principles that should be applied to the Chinese situation. The dilemma that Chinese feminism faces in globalization is that it desires to engage with western feminism but also is wary of the potential for being culturally compromised. This dilemma points to multiculturalism as a problematic framework because it distinguishes a western/Chinese, or us/them dichotomy. As an alternative, I have proposed the notion of “transculturalism,” which I believe is better in conceiving of the correlations among feminisms that may occur in different cultures. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION The relationship between Chinese feminist academic and activist work and the state is one that raises speculations and discussions. For instance, Sharon Wesoky (2002) talks about the interplay between the Chinese women’s movement with the state when Chinese feminism faces globalization. She points out that both the inner and the outer factors play a role in the development of contemporary Chinese feminism. As a result, “There needs to be attention not only to the domestic, or endogenous factors usually employed to explain social movement emergence, but also to international, or exogenous reasons

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for the appearance and development of domestic-level social movements” (4). She characterizes the Chinese women’s movement as a “symbiotic” social movement, a term she borrows from biology to describe the cooperative relations between the state and the women’s movement. According to her, “symbiosis” indicates a relationship of negotiation, mutual infuence, permeation, and reciprocal beneft (240–41). Using the term “symbiotic,” she explains “the paradoxical emergence of a women’s movement that has elements of both autonomy and dependence on the Chinese state” (4). She is in general positive about the international infuence on Chinese feminism because “globalization can expand movement opportunities at all levels, by changing state views of particular social movement activities and thus diminishing the likelihood of repression, by expanding resources available to movement groups, by enhancing social networks, and by altering movement discourses” (245–46; emphasis in original). Xu Feng (2009) moves the discussion of knowledge production in Chinese feminism from the relationship between Chinese feminism and the state to the relationship between Chinese feminists in academia and Chinese women’s NGOs. She explores what constitutes legitimate knowledge by situating debates between two Chinese feminist positions about Chinese feminisms. The debates are between NGO activists who generate movement-based knowledge through “women and development” projects, and academia, which generates university-based knowledge. The debates among Chinese feminists concern the origins of women’s subordination, the origin of the Chinese women’s movement, and what constitutes legitimate knowledge. For instance, as a representative from academia, Li Xiaojiang suggests that it is important for China to produce its own knowledge about Chinese women in order to contribute to a global feminist discourse on an equal basis like French feminism does. According to Xu, Li’s approach and position is marginalized due to the rise of NGO-based feminism. The contemporary Chinese feminist movement started in academia in which Li played a signifcant role, but after the UN Beijing Conference, many Chinese feminists chose to work on “women and development” projects, which are not always focused on theories: “The choice between privileging the doing of projects or the building up of women’s studies as a discipline is arguably at the center of the tension between the two major feminist positions I have considered within China” (209). Chinese women’s NGOs, considering their work part of UN-based global/international feminist movement, focus on doing projects and writing about specifc projects rather than engaging themselves explicitly with scholars such as Li on theoretical debates. The debates coincided with the transformation of China’s economy from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Accordingly, higher education was shifted from being an affliate of politics to an affliate of economics.

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Xu claims that with the shift, incentives were built into the institutions of higher education to provide policy-relevant solutions to social problems, rather than to engage primarily in theory building. She uses the phrase “the political economy of knowledge production” to refer to how knowledge is produced. This phrase, according to Xu, means to “designate the structures, institutions and agencies that determine who pays for knowledge to be developed and judged, how that knowledge is produced, by who, in whose interests and for what specifc purposes” (197–98). Through “women and development” projects that are funded mainly by international donor agencies, Chinese feminist NGOs hope to contribute to the knowledge production of global feminism. While focusing on “women and development” projects as part of global feminism, Chinese women NGO activists still emphasize the need to indigenize UN-based global feminism. It needs to be noted that in the Chinese context, the word “indigenize” loses its original meaning that is borrowed from Latin, and it instead means applying overseas scholarship to the Chinese situation, or “glocalization.” Xu argues that the entire domestic conversation in China about “the desire to indigenize western theories refects an understandable anxiety on the part of Chinese women’s studies scholars to contribute to theory building, so that China is not merely a ‘case’ against which western-based theories are tested” (208). Xu chooses the debates as the focus of her discussion because she wants to bring to our attention that Chinese feminism is not discursively homogeneous. Ultimately, the debates concern Chinese feminism’s identity or identities. Other Chinese feminist scholars, however, claim that drawing on western feminist theories enables Chinese feminists to utilize western feminist theories because they often are assumed to be more developed or advanced. For example, in Revisiting Gender Inequality: Perspectives from the People’s Republic of China (2016), the contributing authors draw heavily on western feminist theories. This anthology of translated articles written by Chinese feminists is meant to represent recent research in Chinese feminism. The editors’ introduction claims that the anthology contributes to an “epistemology of the South,” which may “achieve a much broader understanding of the world than the western way of understanding” (Wang, Min, and Sørensen 2016, 5). However, Tamara Jacka fnds this claim problematic because “increasing the number and visibility of non-western scholars on the global stage does not necessarily challenge the western hegemony over knowledge production or contribute to an ‘epistemology of the South’” (2016, 846). It is not immediately clear why these Chinese feminists are interested in an “epistemology of the South,” or why an epistemology of the South is taken as non-western, despite the west’s invasion and “colonization” of the South (as well as parts of the east). My guess is that they want to emphasize the asymmetry of power between the North and the South. Given the fact that the

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contributing authors draw heavily on non-Chinese, mostly western, theories, they do not develop “a specifcally Chinese, ‘Southern’ or ‘non-Western’ conceptual framework or theoretical perspective”; therefore, it does not pose a postcolonial challenge to the west (846). Uniqueness of Chinese Feminism and Bentuhua Some feminist scholars acknowledge the uniqueness of Chinese feminism, but also argue that its concepts, problems, or practices cannot remain intact through the globalization process. For instance, Chow, Zhang, and Wang (2004) regard women’s studies in China as an integral part of the Chinese women’s movement rather than an outgrowth of the women’s movement as in the west. That is, the discipline of women’s studies in China has local roots rather than being totally an “import” from the west. In fact, the frst Center for Women’s Studies was established in 1987 well before the 1995 UN Beijing Conference. Chinese scholars use bentu (indigenous) to refer to studies originating in China in contrast to those coming from abroad and use bentuhua (literally, to make it indigenous) to refer to the process of critically applying overseas scholarship to the Chinese situation. Chinese feminist scholars have mixed feelings toward western feminist theories. On the one hand, theoretically they feel an urgent need to be knowledgeable about western feminist scholarship; on the other hand, regarding institutional support, they are conscious of the threat of marginalization to women’s studies in China from well-developed and well-fnanced international women’s studies programs. However, Chow, Zhang, and Wang argue that local and global should not be distinguished as two separate entities because contemporary Chinese feminism shows that in today’s globalized world, it is impossible to have local women’s studies without global infuence or global implications. Eventually, “To develop scholarship on women with ‘Chinese characteristics’ and to conduct ‘equal dialogue’ with their counterparts in the international women’s studies community are the desires commonly expressed by Chinese scholars” (175). Du Fangqin (2013) also discusses the relationship between bentu and bentuhua, focusing on how her point of view differs from Li Xiaojiang’s. Du suggests we should treat western feminism in a dialectical way. On the one hand, we should be aware of the asymmetry of theory traveling due to inequality of resource possession; on the other hand, Chinese feminists need to respond to global and transnational feminisms positively and solve their own problems in a model of “local exploration through regional comparison in a global context.” Du claims that Chinese feminist scholars not only should be aware of the indigenous knowledge production and the asymmetry of transnational communication in the context of globalization, but also

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should see the dialectical interrelation of these three factors: global feminism, regional feminism, and local feminism (2013, 52). In other words, Chinese feminist scholars should not be anxious about the “landing” of western feminism but they should adopt a strategy of “global-regional-local,” which means to locate Chinese feminism in the region of Asia and also in a global context in order to determine the direction of its development. Du points out that Chinese feminists are aware of the inequality of power in knowledge production in globalization because they do not want to be passive recipients of western feminist theories. Different from Du’s, Li Xiaojiang’s approach is to insist on bentu strategy, building women’s studies based on bentu resources. Here, bentu resources refer to the historical and cultural traditions as well as women’s studies experiences, which were independent of western feminism, before China decided to “connect tracks” with international feminism in the early 1990s. According to Du, Li transforms Marxist theory with a feminist twist and has no intention of endorsing western feminism, although Marxist theory itself arguably brings “western” thought into Chinese feminism. In Li, even if women’s experiences in different countries are similar, paths to and experiences of liberation could be different. What’s more, Li does not think Chinese women’s experiences share commonality with what contributes to western feminism. As a result, Li thinks that Chinese feminism in academia can be self-suffcient by using its own bentu resources and bentu experiences, so it does not need to seek external help (see Li 2000). According to Li, bentuhua (indigenizing) feminism means westernizing Chinese feminism and as a result infusing the western value system in China. Li further suggests that we look for solutions to Chinese women’s situation through selfconsciousness and the enlightenment of women as a collective work toward freedom. That is, Chinese scholars should insist on taking ownership of the discursive power, being indigenous subjects, and holding indigenous values in cross-cultural communication. The reason for doing this is to prevent communication from becoming a postcolonial monologue because the loss of subject and the loss of indigeneity are two sides of the same coin. Although Li acknowledges that foreign knowledge can help broaden one’s horizons, she is wary of postcolonialism and insists on local research. According to her, the approach of “fnancial aid” and “cultural communication” intends to “help the underdeveloped” under the banner of “development” instead of “pushing the Western culture” on China, but it nevertheless “suspends the indigenous subjectivity in the ‘help,’ making it lose inner motivation and the capability of self-healing. In addition, it destroys the possibility of heterogeneity as a result of the loss of subject” (63). Li emphasizes self-conscious and self-selected choices made by Chinese women and the importance of Chinese social reality to Chinese women’s issues. She characterizes the objective of the current

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women’s movement in terms of individual development as opposed to social enlightenment that people experienced in the 1980s: “At this point, no matter how many defnitions we provide at the level of theory, I think that standards for judgment must grow out of the specifcs of life itself. Doing what one ought or ought not to do is relevant not in the abstract but only in the context of reality” (Li 2001, 1278). As one of the major advocates for “importing” western feminism theories, Wang Zheng holds different views from Li Xiaojiang’s, but Wang also recognizes the uniqueness of Chinese feminism, mainly from the perspective of its contribution to global feminism. Wang (1997) claims that women’s studies in China has a very different history and content than it does in the United States. Different from U.S. feminism that emerges from a feminist movement, Chinese women’s studies constitutes a nationwide women’s movement that begins with research on women and creates a new discourse on Chinese feminism. Wang is altogether positive about Chinese turning to the west for intellectual inspiration in order to form their own resistance to the dominant discourse in China, which bears on the themes of the conditions and aims of feminist thinkers: “It has proved an effective strategy. So, conceivably, they will continue to do so regardless of the qualms of Western theorists of post-colonialism and post-structuralism” (1997, 148). In addition, Wang is assertive about the goal of Chinese feminism, which is to learn about western feminism and to merge with the global feminist movement. According to her, Chinese feminist scholars’ “interaction with feminists from outside of China has taught them that Chinese women will not lose their own cultural identity by learning from others, but, rather, they will be empowered politically and intellectually in their pursuit of gender justice” (148). TRANSCULTURAL FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY AND TRANSCULTURAL RECONSTRUCTION OF FEMINISM So far, I have laid out some general facts about the presence of the feminist scholarship in China along with some general observations about feminism in Chinese academia. There is no offcial data to show what percentage of Chinese scholars are women or feminists, so my observations are by no means comprehensive or quantitatively constituted and, therefore, might run the risk of oversimplifcation. My general observation about Chinese scholarship regarding gender issues is that most feminist scholarship takes place in the disciplines of history, sociology, social science, literature critic, and flm theory. My focus in this book is feminist philosophy, or philosophical discussions of gender issues, but up to a certain point, gender issues are discussed less frequently and systematically by Chinese philosophers in China and

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with less original and independent thinking. What is commonly available in Chinese feminist philosophy is translation, overview, or brief commentaries on western feminist theories. In-depth philosophical discussion of Chinese feminist theories, critical engagement with western feminist philosophy, or more explicit inquiry into feminist philosophy that originates from Chinese philosophy, thought, or tradition is yet to be established. Therefore, I had to focus on women’s studies or feminist thought that to a large extent takes place outside China in the English-speaking world, but this fact demonstrates in an ironic way what cultural exchanges have contributed to Chinese feminist scholarship and what can be imagined if we adopt a transcultural perspective in a broader sense. Of course, it also raises a question of whether there are relevant Chinese feminist discussions that I am not seeing because of my transcultural starting point. Attention to contemporary Chinese feminist thinking broadens or informs the two main themes of my argument—women’s group identity and transcultural feminist solidarity—and it in turn helps to reconstruct feminist discourse transculturally. The current version of Chinese feminism is populated by western feminist theories while Chinese philosophers within China are, in general, indifferent to gender issues. The comparative philosophers cited earlier are not necessarily women or feminist, but I examined the relationship between Chinese Confucian philosophy and feminism to explore what it has to offer to feminism. We currently lack a powerful and critical feminist philosophy that synthesizes existing critical forces regarding gender issues in contemporary China, and I think having that would fll the void in contemporary feminist attempts to address Chinese women’s experiences philosophically. It would help if Chinese academics began to defne and explore the relationship between feminism and feminist philosophy because those disciplines could establish standards relevant to criticism of gender oppression, though they approach gender issues differently. Feminism is not only an intellectual but also a political movement that seeks justice for women, and it commits to the elimination of gender oppression. According to feminism’s political commitment, both normative claims and descriptive claims are made: the former is regarding how women ought or ought not to be viewed or treated, and the latter is regarding how women are viewed and treated. Feminist philosophy, on the other hand, not only describes ideas and theories behind feminism but also uses feminist analysis to criticize philosophical claims. I explore philosophical issues raised by western feminism and Chinese feminism because feminist philosophy has a political commitment to philosophy. What feminism brings to philosophy are particular political claims and constructive ways of engaging philosophical claims. If there was a transcultural feminist philosophy, it should arise out of the diverse traditions within philosophy and to a certain extent it should refect and engage the diversity within feminism, the diverse

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experiences and situations of women, and the diverse forms that gender takes across the globe. In exploring the plausibility of transcultural feminist philosophy, I tied my discussion of Chinese Confucian philosophy and Chinese feminist experiences into the themes of the book. In terms of “difference,” Chinese feminism addresses different gender issues such as state feminism and feminist experiences in Chinese-American encounters, while U.S. feminisms focus on racial differences, marginalized women, and their social locations. In terms of women’s group identity, Chinese feminist experiences borrow terms from the west to talk about women in China, but there is also the “missing” women’s identity (the missing subject) in Chinese Confucian philosophy. There is a corresponding lack of analysis of women’s group identity, but the relational concept of personhood in Chinese philosophy could be potentially useful to feminist discourse for thinking about women’s group identity. Looking at gender issues in China helps me see that there is a shared condition of women globally because women are oppressed as women though it might be in different forms, so we need a category of women to discuss women’s experiences. My examination of historical Confucianism from a feminist perspective is to present philosophers’ refections on gender roles, to examine sources of sexism, and to fnd possible resources for feminist criticism. I put the discussion of the context of Chinese feminism in relation to Confucian philosophy and have come to conclude that the latter does not lend or has not lent direct resources to discuss the issues of women’s identity and solidarity via transculture. In this sense, feminist concepts and ideas in Chinese and comparative philosophy are yet to be fully developed. There are misunderstandings of Chinese culture and traditions in a multicultural context, and the question of how to change China’s historical relevance to women or gender is diffcult to answer. Even if we cannot answer the question of what a fruitful Chinese feminism does or is, however, we can at least imagine what the answers would look like. For example, we can imagine whether Chinese feminism could be cosmopolitan. The theory exchanges in the development of contemporary Chinese feminist scholarship are asymmetrical: Chinese feminist scholars “import” feminist theories from the west and a small group of overseas philosophers (Chinese or not) in comparative philosophy try to revive Chinese traditions and culture to prove (to a largely western audience) that they are vital. Demographically, Chinese feminist scholarship is to a large extent the activity of those who have the privilege to travel across national borders. Philosophers who respond to feminist challenges to Chinese Confucian philosophy are at the frontline of contact with western feminism partly because they are mostly based in the United States, which is to say that much of the interaction in contemporary

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Chinese feminist scholarship happens in Chinese-American encounters. A fear of neocolonial practices, which privilege one culture over another, or where cultures are indifferent to each other, is developed in this asymmetry. The asymmetrical interplay of Chinese feminism and global/international feminism might be a natural result of multiculturalism. By pointing out that (western) feminist discourse has not paid suffcient attention to Chinese feminist thinking, I intend to tie my discussion of Chinese feminist experiences to the idea of transcultural feminist solidarity and to the related issue of ethnocentrism. Western criticism or western misuse of “other” traditions and cultures, including Chinese traditions or culture, needs to be reexamined. The promise of transcultural feminist philosophy, which differs from feminist philosophy in a multicultural setting and is understood in the context of Chinese-American encounters, includes the following. First, there is an offering of conceptual resources for a positive reworking of both Chinese feminism and global/international feminism. Second, transcultural feminist philosophy understood in the context of Chinese-American encounters allows for the identifcation of ethnocentric assumptions in western feminism and argues that Chinese feminists should be more critical of what they are offered by western feminism. Third, the project of transcultural feminist philosophy offers helpful perspectives on practical ethical issues in China and elsewhere. Finally, the project of transcultural feminism allows for a new kind of solidarity as it values more and better collaboration, urges a positive view of, and response to, interference, and invites more transcultural feminist construction of identity and solidarity. In this sense, my discussion of Chinese feminist experiences and theoretical development can contribute to transculturalism, both when it comes to the analysis of feminism (women are oppressed as women) and to the fostering of feminist solidarity. In addition, the contradictory history of Chinese feminism and sexism offers important lessons about how sexism can both be combated and yet persist in a process of social change that lacks, for example, an independent women’s movement. China made enormous gains for women in the twentieth century, but there are also considerable failures in this regard. Similarly, the evolution of Chinese society today harbors important lessons about sexism in the contemporary world. The political dilemmas facing China bear importantly on the future of feminism as well as on sexism in the wider world as China grows in power and infuence. The “landing” of western feminism in China can be a social and cultural condition of transcultural feminism. In a multiculturalism framework, “landing” could be motivated by ethnocentrism and thus could promote neocolonial practices, but in a transculturalism framework, all the theories interfere and generate new growth. Maybe it is in this sense that we could reconstruct a better version of “international feminism” to avoid a chauvinist feminist discourse of internationalism as Tani Barlow hopes for.

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Imagining Transcultural Feminist Solidarity in Chinese-American Encounters By suggesting a transcultural reconstruction of feminism, I urge that there should be collaboration between feminists to address gender issues collectively using all the available theoretical tools and practical approaches. As I argued earlier, the theme of solidarity is important for feminism from at least two perspectives: (1) from the epistemological perspective, women have different experiences of gender oppression and do not automatically come together collectively to strengthen each other, so solidarity is an epistemological strategy for them to recognize gender oppression on a macroscopic scale; and (2) from the political perspective, solidarity is crucial for women to resist structural gender oppression. In this section, I redirect my argument back to the idea of transcultural feminist solidarity using the example of collaboration between Chinese and U.S. women in order to show the possibility and promise of the transcultural perspective. In so doing, I further elaborate on the idea of transcultural feminist solidarity, as I will explore the relationship between Chinese women and U.S. women as a way of testing whether transcultural feminist solidarity is helpful for forging mutual understanding, as well as examining the implications of previous discussions of Chinese feminist experiences on transculturalism. I look at the relationship between Chinese and U.S. women because the two countries are increasingly involved with each other. I argue that the transcultural perspective can help (American) feminists (1) understand the uniqueness and complexity of Chinese women’s situations, (2) recognize the need to enhance communication among women in China and in the United States; and (3) examine the hidden exploitation of Chinese women in the context of globalization. First, the transcultural approach helps us explore the uniqueness and complexity of Chinese women’s situations and draws our attention to the need for better communication between Chinese women and U.S. women. Chinese women have their own understandings of issues of concern to both them and western feminists. For example, facing the problem of poverty, Chinese women view reproductive rights differently from U.S. feminists (note that I fall prey to the western feminist discourse by discussing reproductive rights thanks to the great visibility of this particular topic). It is widely accepted in the United States that reproductive rights are women’s rights, so the Chinese state regulation on women’s reproductive rights is viewed as oppressive and inhuman. However, the assumption that there is a positive correlation between economic growth, population control, and the advance of women is generally accepted without much critical examination in China. While some scholars such as Susan Greenhalgh are concerned with state control over women’s bodies and subjectivities, they are also cautiously hopeful about

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creating “a feminist sphere of public discussion and debate on population” (2001, 874). Other scholars are more positive about the impact of the birthplanning policy on women’s lives. For instance, through a study of China’s rural daughters, Zhang Hong draws the following conclusion: Response to and strategies around the state population policy and new employment opportunities may vary from area to area. In some areas the pressure to comply with the birth-planning policy may have intensifed son preference and increased daughter discrimination, but in other areas the decline in fertility [as a result of birth-planning], coupled with new economic opportunities, may lead to readjustments in parent-child relations and improvement of daughters’ lives. (2007, 694)

That is, rural daughters could have improved life conditions as a result of the birth-planning policy because more resources, in particular educational resources, are allocated to them. However, it could be challenging for American feminists to suspend judgments, but rethinking the birth-planning policy from a transcultural perspective might help (western) feminists begin to understand its complexity. The transcultural perspective not only helps (American) feminists understand Chinese women’s experiences but also recognizes the need for better communication. In academic debates in the United States, marginalized women have challenged “mainstream” feminists, and this challenge has contributed to a fragmentation of feminism, for example, among women of color feminism, Third-World feminism, and various area studies of women such as Chinese feminism. The feminist “difference critique” in the United States coincided with China’s opening to the world, but the study of how western feminist theories of identity and solidarity might apply to Chinese women remains an undeveloped area of feminist scholarship. It is worth asking why Chinese women are rarely discussed by feminists in a framework of multiculturalism, and why they are discussed stereotypically on those occasions. For example, Chinese women are often depicted in western feminist scholarship as victims of human rights violations, sexual exploitation, and constraints on reproduction. Second, the transcultural approach can help (American) feminists understand and address the exploitation of Chinese women on the global market, and one purpose of this approach is to pinpoint the necessity of the collaboration of women globally to eliminate women’s exploitation. Similar to women in other developing countries, Chinese women face the dilemma of economic development versus capitalist exploitation. China has been going through new class stratifcation under the infuence of capitalization and globalization. More urban professional Chinese women hire women who migrate

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from rural areas as caregivers, and more Chinese women work in industries that are part of the global economy, either within or outside China. On the one hand, scholars such as Huang Ping worry that young Chinese factory girls in labor-intensive manufacturing industries “enjoy very little in terms of welfare and social security that urban residents take for granted” (2001, 1280). On the other hand, Li Xiaojiang argues that China’s development is different from any recognized development model so “a universalist standard of value” should be displaced with standards that result from the social reality of China (2001, 1276). According to Li, these exploited women’s life conditions are much improved compared to what was possible. After all, “These are all the self-conscious and self-selected choices of Chinese women themselves, and it is possible that they are brief and feeting” (1278). That is, being exploited is an autonomous choice of Chinese women borne out of the necessity of surviving in current social conditions because, for the time being, it offers the best option for betterment in their existing state. We can see that this survival mode is also present globally; for instance, more Third-World immigrant women are employed as domestic laborers in the global North, in some cases freeing their female employers to work outside of their home. Jiang Xinyan (2000) argues that the realization of sexual equality in China requires a certain level of economic development. Since heavy physical labor is a major component of daily life, sexual equality will not be realized to any great degree in developing countries such as China. However, Jiang’s line of argument is questionable because gender equality is not a reality in such developed countries, such as the United States, either. Therefore, neither culture nor the status of economy should be the excuse for gender inequality. The elimination of Chinese women’s exploitation requires collective consciousness raising and collaboration among women both domestically and globally, and a transcultural perspective can contribute to that. Even to this day, some western feminist literature still uses foot binding—a phenomenon that is temporally distant to contemporary Chinese women—as a symbol of Chinese women’s oppression. Jinhua Emma Teng brings it to our attention the fact that the foot binding practice holds “a particular fascination” for feminist writers in the western academy when she explores their focus on Chinese women as victims (1996, 124). Teng categorizes this phenomenon of Chinese women’s victimization as “the marginalization of ‘Third World women’ in Western feminist discourse,” and points out that “this discourse constructs Chinese women as part of a special class of universally subordinated Third World women who are even more oppressed than their Western ‘sisters.’ This phenomenon represented a means not only of understanding cultural differences but also of asserting the superiority of women’s status in the West” (125). To advance Teng’s point, I argue that the marginalization of Chinese women in (western) feminist literature (1) shows us that the

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complexity and changes of Chinese cultures (and women) needs to be examined more thoroughly by (western) feminist theories; (2) presents a challenge to treating western experience as paradigmatic (“free us” versus “oppressed them”); and (3) indicates the promise of the transcultural approach, which not only addresses the lack of Chinese women’s voices in feminist scholarship but also offers an approach to forge women’s solidarity globally. There are feminist scholars, however, who manage to forgo the image of Chinese women as victims and instead focus on describing Chinese women as courageous, sophisticated, and freedom-seeking. One example is Tani Barlow’s highlight of “the new woman” in her reading of Chinese literature. “The new woman” characters created in fction in 1920’s China vacillated between the fear of not being able to “escape the constraints of sexed subjectivity” and the desire to “establish a personal standing in society” (2004, 134) and between “progressive feminism and political anarchism’” (150). Another example is Tze-Ian D. Sang’s study on female same-sex desire in modern China. Sang’s study investigates “the conditions that enable the emergence of a distinctive lesbian identity in modern literature in Chinese” in the twenty-frst century (2003, 34). Barlow’s and Sang’s accounts of Chinese women make a signifcant contribution that features the sophistication of “other women,” and are good examples of transcultural experiences that can be acquired from the study of Chinese literature and a study of the social reality of Chinese women’s lives. Regarding what transcultural feminist solidarity promises, the Global Feminisms Project (GFP) at the University of Michigan could be an inspiring example to look at transnational research and collaboration in a more or less transcultural way. Jayati Lal et al. (2010) describe how their work of transnational feminist collaboration is undertaken. In the project, interviewees are selected and interviews are conducted across four sites: Beijing, China; Mumbai, India; Krakow, Poland; and the United States. At the University of Michigan, an overall project team is responsible for correspondence, conference organizing, and processing the interviews. Through the interviews, the feminist researchers gather signifcant details about the connections between places, events, and people, revealing the extent to which feminist movements and scholarship from different countries or regions have developed through transnational conversations and exchange. According to them, the rationale for the GFP is the productive use of a comparative historical approach in understanding global feminisms, and this approach makes it possible to avoid two analytical problems of referring to scale or scope when using the term “global”: one is the use of a single universalism and the other is radical difference. “Underlying the idea and hope for a universal feminism is the logic of humanism, encompassing all of humankind, while difference-and identity-based feminisms accrue in infnite variation” (16). As a result, such

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a universalizing narrative of global feminism allows the discursive power of western feminism to maintain its claim to universalism through ethnocentrism and cultural hegemony. An alternative but also problematic view is to see a multiplicity of feminisms, which is a conception of a multiple localized feminisms based on the perception of ahistorical differences such as those based on culture. Two problems are associated with “multiplicity of feminism,” which seems analogous to “multiculturalism”: one is that “it leads to the erroneous notion of autonomous feminisms, as if unequal historical relations of exchange between nations and regions had never existed,” and the other is that “differences are seen through a developmental logic that ranks feminism hierarchically, often maintaining the West as the center and ‘originary’ form in comparison to peripheral and later feminism” (16). Instead, Lal and her collaborators use the term “global” to “highlight the fows and exchanges—of ideologies, people, and political movements, along with objects, institutions, and practices—between different places and regions over time” (16). Using “global” in this sense, they intend to eschew “the binaries of West/non-West” and using “the plural term ‘feminisms,’” they distinguish their approach from “earlier notions of a homogeneous and universal (Western) feminism that ‘goes global’” (16). Wang Zheng and Zhang Ying work as part of the GFP project, and one conclusion they draw from analyzing their interviews with Chinese feminist scholars and activists is that Chinese feminism is unique. To be more specifc, they prove that the collaboration between Chinese feminist NGOs and the Women’s Federation is unique because it provides a new mode of feminism that they do not see in other GFP sites. Its distinctiveness lies in an approach that combines a bottom-up method with a top-down method: “The ‘bottom-up’ refers to women’s NGOs that initiate their own actions and make their activist decisions independent of the state. The ‘top-down’ refers to the state feminism embodied by the Women’s Federation that has the offcial power to place women’s issues on the agenda of different levels of administration” (2010, 62). Wang is also involved in many academic and activist activities in China, one of which is an international conference entitled “Feminism in China since The Women’s Bell.” The conference was held in 2004 in Shanghai and was jointly hosted by the Department of History at Fudan University and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. Sasha Su-Ling Welland comments that the conference organizers Wang Zheng and Chen Yan achieve their goal “to facilitate increased dialogue between China scholars in and outside of China toward the project of engendering the historiography of modern China” (2006, 943). Needless to say, events such as this conference and the GFP project have a lasting impact on Chinese and American feminists both academically and in life, and friendship demonstrated in these events shows

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Chinese and American feminists’ efforts to forge cross-border feminist solidarity transculturally. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I laid out the two themes of this book—identity and solidarity—in my commentary on debates and prospects in contemporary Chinese feminist thinking in relation to the transcultural perspective. I asked questions such as the role of the concept of “women” in the argument about Chinese feminism, to what extent we work for a Chinese debate in a global context, and what Chinese feminist experiences mean for the transcultural perspective and transcultural feminist solidarity. Contemporary Chinese feminists face a dilemma when they explore Chinese feminist experiences in a global context, and the dilemma comes down to the question: Is there a “distinctive” Chinese feminism or can it only be a branch of “global feminism?” We have yet to fnd out whether “what is Chinese feminism” is a legitimate question or a premature question, but all the different forces that work in contemporary Chinese feminism are setting the stage for a future feminism in China. Presenting Chinese feminists’ efforts to answer this question, I addressed feminist thought among Chinese intellectuals, Chinese diasporas, as well as non-Chinese especially western scholars and philosophers, along with accounts of international feminist activity (such as NGOs) and their growth and limits. Chinese feminist scholars address gender’s relations to theoretical traditions and social conditions in China, and show that these traditions and conditions have an impact on or bring constraints to feminist discussions. In summarizing outstanding feminist issues and positions, making use of exemplary thinkers, and referring to available commentaries, I suggested that Chinese intellectuals should theoretically and systematically refect on social conditions such as locating issues about institutional factors like pressures from the Chinese national society, foreign countries, and international institutions. Chinese feminism is so wide-ranging that it is challenging to provide an integrative or comprehensive overview to do justice to its complexity. Given issues of scale and the amount of attention that western feminism has given to mainland Chinese feminism compared to the rest, I focused on mainland Chinese feminism in my discussion. However, I am aware of the fact that Chinese feminism can be interpreted in different ways regarding its inclusion, for example, there is Chinese feminism carried out by feminists outside of mainland China (for instance, see Chen 2011). To eliminate gender oppression, feminism requires not only theoretical refections but also a strategy of political solidarity. Although both theoretical and practical efforts are visible in American-Chinese feminist participation

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in transnational collaborations, the concept of “transcultural feminist solidarity” is yet to be adequately articulated and used deliberately to “intermesh” divides in feminism. In addressing the relationship between transcultural feminist solidarity and Chinese feminist experiences, I focused on integrating my arguments in the “western critiques” sections in the frst two parts into my culminating argument about the value of the transculturalism method and how my Chinese-American engagement shows its dynamic potential. That is, I integrated the following four elements: what I claimed was wrong with those authors, what I said I would take from them, consequences from the move from multiculturalism to transculturalism, and Chinese feminist experiences. The problems of difference and commonality are unresolved in western academic feminism, and postcolonial feminists criticize global feminism and its potential to lead to neocolonial practices. I advance a postcolonial feminist argument and a transnational feminist argument, which advocate for an international women’s solidarity, by proposing transculturalism and transcultural feminist solidarity. The themes and aims of the book set a framework for transcultural feminist experiences and some of my thinking about problems in western feminism draws from my own transcultural fuidity. In my opinion, the transcultural conception is a helpful theoretical and normative model for resolution: both western feminism and Chinese feminism should learn from examining their own traditions and engaging with each other through transcultural practices. Transculture means further transforming postcolonial feminism to emphasize “interference,” which is benefcial because only by interference can we ultimately intermesh. In this sense, Chinese feminism in dialogue with global/international feminism might illuminate the constructive power of transcultural feminist philosophy.

Conclusion

The feminist “difference critique” in the United States has directed feminist discourse to metaphysical issues rather than to a focus on collaborations among women within and across U.S. borders. Feminist “difference critiques” are inadequate because they have neither provided ways to make valid generalizations about differences among women in talking about women’s living conditions nor offered opportunities for open discussions of divisions among feminists. My perspective on these feminist theories offers a different and perhaps broader viewpoint because I approach them as a scholar who is from another part of the world and who seeks to develop an argument that is global and cosmopolitan. In this book, I discussed a number of feminist theories that argue against the generalizations made by many (white middleclass heterosexual) feminists, who have been criticized for their essentialism. Those accused essentialist feminists suggest that we develop an idea of women that responds to the whole range of women’s experiences. Accordingly, there are issues of appropriate generalization, of what factors need to be brought to the discussion, and of how they are to be included. At the same time, anti-essentialist feminist theories have not yet themselves provided a place from which we can formulate a solution to these issues. The problems of western and Chinese feminist literature that I identifed in my project include the following points: (1) western feminists focus too much on “difference” so that theoretically, they either talk about the particularity of women’s conditions or express skepticism as to whether a women’s identity exists, and practically, the focus on difference produces divides in feminism, which do not lead to feminist solidarity; (2) Chinese feminists look to the Chinese philosophical tradition or to the west so that theoretically, they either talk about feminism without acknowledgement of a women’s group identity (Chinese theoretical traditions) or use borrowed 245

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western feminist theories, and practically, asymmetrical Chinese-American encounters are in danger of being subsumed by neocolonial practices. These points demonstrate that the existing versions of global/international feminism need to be scrutinized. The solutions that I provided include the following: theoretically, I argue for the viability of women’s group identity, and a category of women that embraces differences and dynamics among women worldwide. Then, I propose a shift in framework from multiculturalism to transculturalism. This shift to transculturalism promotes genuine feminist solidarity that can overcome ethnocentrism from both ends of ChineseAmerican encounters. When we think about women’s oppression, it is important to draw important distinctions, but we do not have all the concepts required to properly differentiate among women and their experiences. We require concepts to talk about women’s oppression, particularly those emerging directly within gender relations. Yet, women are oppressed in other ways as well, for instance through economic exploitation and racial discrimination. For example, the living conditions of Chinese women and the discussion of Chinese feminism show that they suffer gender oppression in different forms from each other as well as from the west, but they are all oppressed as women. Thus, a problem that these discussions raise is how we can take into account the differences among women’s lived conditions, including different ways women are oppressed as women, different ways they suffer various kinds of oppressions, and different ways in which these oppressions intermesh with gender oppression. My critical discussion begins with general concepts of women, the distinctions among them, and the problem of evaluating these theories and of locating their contributions and limitations. Through examination of feminist discussions of gender oppression both in the United States and in China, I see more clearly that it is necessary to formulate a concept of women’s identity because women are oppressed as women. Even if individual women in certain societies or cultures are becoming less oppressed because something is working, it does not mean women as a group are not oppressed as women. In the process of formulating women’s identity through generalizing women’s various forms of oppression, some feminists (in most cases white middle heterosexual feminists) may have unintentionally used their experience of gender oppression as the paradigm case of women’s oppression, thus leading to accusations of essentialism. This accusation is problematic because what these white feminists commit is ethnocentrism rather than essentialism. Thus, attempts at generalizing women’s experiences should be more carefully examined before given an “essentialism” label. Women are oppressed in different forms in different cultural and social settings, but this does not and should not prevent feminists from formulating a women’s group identity despite/through differences that refects

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differences and dynamics among women. The accusation of essentialism proliferates in the U.S. feminist discourse partly because it is probably less disturbing to criticize a metaphysical/conceptual issue (women’s identity/ essentialism) than an empirical/practical issue (women’s oppression/ethnocentrism) in the U.S. political context. This kind of political sensitivity leads to the divide within U.S. feminism: feminists work in different “areas” such as African American feminism, Latina feminism, Caribbean feminism, queer feminism, or Asian feminism, with little interest in creating theoretical tools to engage with each other. If we look at feminisms globally, however, the division is not as visible as it is in the United States. One of the popular international feminist discussions is global feminism or international feminism, which originated within the U.S. academia. Feminisms in “other” countries, especially Third-World countries, appear to be branches or case studies of a general form of global feminism or international feminism that is meant to advocate for gender equality for all women. This version of global feminism and international feminism is mainstreamed into United Nations’ (UN) vision and mission. For example, the United Nations Women’s homepage states that as the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, the work and priorities of UN Women is to support “UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality.” A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. More importantly, feminisms, other than U.S. feminism and French feminism, are seldom visible in global feminism and international feminism, and their voices are overpowered by a strong universal global voice. However, a universal global feminism does not look at gender issues transculturally because the theoretical backing of global feminism is a multiculturalism framework, which does not pay suffcient attention to the heterogeneity of feminisms elsewhere such as contemporary Chinese feminism. China went through the twentieth century witnessing women’s struggles, and from that process developed the local roots and resources for contemporary Chinese feminism to grow. However, an indigenous Chinese feminism was marginalized by “imported” western feminist theories along with other foreign theories and goods when China tried to emerge into the global world beginning in the early 1980s. By turning to the west for “theory building,” Chinese feminists gained powerful critical tools to examine gender issues in China, but it also leads to a question concerning Chinese feminism’s identity: What is Chinese feminism? This question becomes more important in the context of “global feminism,” which advocates for a universal concept that women’s rights are human rights. It is challenging to answer the question regarding Chinese feminism’s identity because it is impossible to construct feminism

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that is Chinese in a transcultural context. Then the question becomes to what extent Chinese feminism is a branch of a universal international feminism and to what extent it is built on its own terms. A further question is whether talking about feminism of a particular country or culture is a legitimate concern; that is, is it still meaningful to talk about an identity for Chinese feminism in a global context? To answer these questions, we need to examine how Chinese feminism interacts with global/international feminism. We should also look at a related issue—cultural differences—and multiculturalism as a popular framework under which cultural differences are usually discussed. Liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism assumes that women in developed countries are more liberated than “other women in other countries,” thus creating a false dichotomy of “liberated us”/“oppressed them.” For instance, Chinese women are often portrayed in the western literature as victims of their culture who are being forced into foot binding and female infanticide, and their agency and heterogeneity within the culture are overlooked as a result. Postcolonial feminism in the United States, on the other hand, criticizes the packaged and overly broad concept of “other cultures.” For example, Chinese culture or Indian culture is often perceived in a solidifed and stereotyped way as if it is homogeneous, whereas the U.S. culture is presented as heterogeneous and robust. The work of postcolonial feminist scholars is often packaged into “area studies.” The hidden premise of this kind of the thinking is that white U.S. feminism serves as a paradigm feminism while “other feminisms” are the application of this generic kind of feminism. In Chinese scholars’ work, Chinese women’s conditions are often depicted as a case study of applying a seemingly universal (western) feminism. Even within China, most feminist scholars draw on French feminism or U.S. feminism for a foundation of their research, as if they are truth-proved theoretical tools that can be used without criticism to address Chinese women’s conditions. Some feminists in the U.S. academy, in particular feminists from different cultural origins, looked at their own experiences and initiated postcolonial feminism by criticizing neocolonial tendencies in the U.S. academia. Postcolonial feminism challenges ethnocentrism and multiculturalism, which makes it easy to look at whether Third-World women are oppressed differently, but adhering to a multiculturalism framework prevents them from exploring feminist solidarity transculturally. The “difference critique” addresses differences among women and the category of women in three ways: the argument for women’s particularity, the theory of intersectionality, and the notion of gender skepticism. These three approaches are among feminist efforts to cure the “essentialism” in feminism. I argued that essentialism is the wrong target for feminist critiques; rather, false generalizations (and the ethnocentric attitudes involved in false generalizations) are what make some feminists assume that constructing the

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category of women is an essentialist act. I concluded that if the problem of essentialism is the danger of working with fxed ideas of what women are or can be, then we can avoid this without surrendering general ideas about the oppression of women. To speak of a general structure of relations inherent in the gender division of societies is not to say that all societies embody these relations in the same way. In this sense, a relational approach to constructing a category of women without surrendering differences among women is a good example of how gender can be categorized. I criticized the problematic concept of culture used in the liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, arguing that their concept of culture does not adequately account for the variability of cultures and possible dynamics within and among cultures. By critically assessing multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique of the concept of culture, I proposed that feminism needs both a reconstructed concept of culture and a transition of framework from multiculturalism to transculturalism. I argued that transculturalism as an alternative framework would not only help feminists better understand cultural differences but also help us foster transcultural solidarity. If we think transculturally, then the possession of a murkily outlined cultural identity would not be more confusing than having a single cultural identity. Moreover, having a single cultural identity in the transcultural model would be less and less possible due to the increase of cultural exchanges. Individuals in the transcultural setting would be more amenable to identifying transculturally owing to the physical mobility of others even if they remain located in their countries of origin. The reason I proposed transculturalism as the alternative to multiculturalism is that it is urgent for feminism to fnd the balance between the recognition of cultural difference and the pursuit of gender equality. The notion of solidarity suggests that there should be strong connections among women, but this idea is not adequately illuminated in the multicultural approach. However, transculturalism as a framework cultivates an idea that involves both the variability and the dynamics of women and cultures. The themes of women’s identity and cultural differences are prevalent in the accusation of essentialism, which should be understood as a request for adequate discussion of feminist solidarity instead of a metaphysical critique. I characterized the conditions of Chinese feminist scholarship both in China and abroad along with the context or conditions in which philosophical debates take place. While I presented historical experiences of Chinese women and within the context of Chinese feminism, I focused on conceptual debates relevant to the themes of the book—women’s group identity and cultural differences. Chinese debates are not just relevant to the concept of women and solidarity but also to the theme of multiculturalism and transculturalism. I presented the background and a brief history of Chinese feminism; I provided general

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facts about Chinese feminism and discussed main issues in Chinese feminist scholarship related to the themes of the book. The book has wrestled with two different but related themes. One is analytical and theoretical in nature: how to characterize gender oppression in a way that does not overgeneralize but still stresses the distinctiveness and pervasiveness of sexism/oppression of women. The other theme is more practical or political: how to characterize and promote solidarity among women from different conditions (a problem within societies as well as across social boundaries). Bringing in Chinese feminist experiences is useful for both themes because it points to a weakness within western feminist discourse. Apart from providing additional aspects to the issues of what women are and have experienced, a view into Chinese feminist experiences provides additional considerations for thinking about the project of solidarity. When thinking of other cultures and traditions, solidarity contributes to constructing positive programs. In this sense, experiences of solidarity that take place in collaborations between Chinese feminists and international feminists can serve as reference points. However, feminist discourse has yet to explicitly adopt transculturalism as a framework or to use transcultural feminist solidarity as a means to achieve feminist goals. I hope my project moves the discourse, however much, toward the direction of transculturalism. When we refuse to engage the off-target accusation of essentialism, the feminist discourse of the “problem of difference” can be refocused on how we can acknowledge differences among women and how to initiate collaboration. Feminist theories in the United States do not typically address Chinese women’s experiences like mine, but it would shed light on feminist discussions of difference if we would draw on Chinese women’s perspectives. I am writing as both an insider and an outsider, or an outsider-within, of the U.S. academy. I am a transcultural being who absorbs the feminist literature through the lens of a Chinese feminist scholar living in the United States. In this way, I am offering an alternative transcultural perspective, and I would like to make the relevance of my transcultural perspective explicit in writing methodologically, epistemologically, metaphysically, and politically. I am addressing issues of the feminist relation to transcultural practice by feminist thinkers but also by feminist movements. For that purpose, in this book, I addressed the relevance of my transcultural experiences and the relevance of Chinese feminist ideas in avoiding metaphysical problems and in thinking through the idea of transcultural feminist solidarity as tied to feminist intellectual and political practice. My transcultural experiences as a Chinese feminist scholar maneuvering in the U.S. academy provides me a unique perspective for participating in feminist discourse. I approach feminist philosophical literature partly with an eye on the problems that arise due to the language in which the debates

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are stated. I am developing my own perspective as a result of my discussion and evaluation of these theories, and I write from the standpoint of someone who does not ft in any of the categories that these feminists have typically employed. My goal is to analyze the authors’ theories that I discuss to determine their argumentative integrity as well as to illustrate how their concepts ft into the perspective that I hope to develop. Due to the need to think of interconnectedness of cultures, it is self-indulgent to remain satisfed with the current feminist discourse that favors multiculturalism and carve out a niche for myself as a culture-fuid feminist. By writing this book, I intend to contribute to a new feminist discourse instead of simply adding something to the current feminist discursive transfguration. Even though women like me are underrepresented in (western) feminist literature, I am not concerned about representing a group because I think mutual understanding and communication matters more than representation. My perspective on feminist theories offers a different viewpoint and broadens the analysis because I approach these theories as a scholar who is from another part of the world and who seeks to develop an argument that is transcultural and cosmopolitan. By connecting contemporary western feminist theories with Chinese philosophical ideas, I illustrated that a transcultural feminist reconstruction of feminist discourse is much needed. Transcultural experiences, for example, genuine collaborations between U.S. feminism and Chinese feminism, reveal that the resistance is not only white women’s resistance, or U.S. women of color’s resistance, but also a resistance in the transcultural sense. Transcultural experiences do not view cultural differences as a challenge to women’s solidarity; rather, the transcultural approach offers an alternative social and practical framework to think about differences in a more constructive way and to construct women’s solidarity without dismissing differences among them. Feminist solidarity does not mean that all women would act in solidarity, but that it is possible for women in very different circumstances to fnd balance among their differences and work with each other to eliminate gender oppression. While we acknowledge differences among women and among cultures, we should learn to understand differences, confront conficts, and intentionally decrease the divide in feminism. This book is a small step toward this intention by an individual who benefts from transcultural experiences. Through transcultural experiences, one not only understands others better but also understands oneself better.

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Index

additive analysis, 9, 23, 36–37 Allen, Amy, 172–77, 185, 186 Ames, Roger T., 195–96, 200–201, 204 analogy of traffc, 22. See also image of intersection; imagery of a crossroads Anderson, Benedict, 93–94 A/not-A pseudo-dichotomy, 58. See also A/not-A pseudo-dualism A/not-A pseudo-dualism, 55, 57 anti-domestic violence network, 219–21 anti-essentialist critique, 42, 69–70 anti-racist politics, 22–23 Anzaldúa, Gloria, 21, 96 argument for women’s particularity, 36, 248 Barlow, Tani, 215, 222–23, 236, 240 Benhabib, Seyla, 107–10 Bennett, Tony, 91–92, 95 bentuhua, 231–32 Bhabha, Homi K., 95 Bilge, Sirma, 35–36 Black feminism, 26–28 Black women’s experiences, 18, 22–23, 26–27, 32–33, 36 bottom-up approach, 29, 32 Brown, Wendy, 41–52, 56, 60–61, 69, 71 Bunch, Charlotte, 171, 177–78, 186, 223

Carastathis, Anna, 24–27 categorization, 10, 41, 52, 55–56, 58, 60–61, 73, 174 category construction, 55–61, 68–69, 73, 204 category of women, 38–39, 41, 50–53, 55–58, 60–63, 71–73, 193–95, 201–7 Chinese Confucian philosophy, 189– 202, 206, 234–35 Chinese correlative thinking, 195–96 Chinese feminism, 187, 189, 202; birth of, 210, 212–13; contemporary Chinese feminism, 205, 209–11, 216, 224–28, 231, 235, 242, 247; indigenous Chinese feminism, 202, 217, 247; theory development of, 224; uniqueness of, 231–33 Chinese feminist experiences, 165, 187, 224–25, 235–37, 242–43, 250 Chinese feminist NGOs, 220, 230, 241 Chinese philosophy, 189, 193, 195, 198–200, 203, 205–6, 234–35 Chinese women, 51, 72, 87, 156; Chinese women’s experiences, 200, 210, 213, 232, 234, 238, 250; Chinese women’s exploitation, 239; Chinese women’s studies movement, 213; marginalization of Chinese women, 239 Chowdhury, Elora, 171, 179–82, 186

263

264

Index

coalition: coalition politics, 170, 175, 185; feminist political coalition, 172–77; feminist strategic coalitionbuilding, 172; political coalitionbuilding, 183 collective consciousness raising, 170, 225, 239 collective power, 171, 185. See also collective resistance to oppression collective resistance to oppression, 72 Collins, Patricia Hill, 21, 27, 35–36 commonality of women’s oppression, 178, 180 common differences, 128–30 Confucian ethics, 196–97, 201 Confucian feminism, 190–92, 194–95 container logic, 56, 69. See also logic of the container correlation, 55, 58, 63, 203–4, 228, 237 correlational density in a multidimensional quality space, 55, 58 correlational identity of women, 63 cosmopolitan experiences, 116 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 21–38, 48, 51, 60 critique of multiculturalism: liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism, 88, 90, 97, 99, 100, 111, 134–35, 248–49; methodological/casuistic critique of multiculturalism, 112; multicultural feminist critique of multiculturalism, 119 cultural determinism, 113–14 cultural differences, 73, 77, 79, 93, 98, 99, 102, 115, 119–21, 125–30, 135–39, 148–50, 159, 164–65, 169, 182, 186–87, 225, 228, 239, 248–49 cultural diversity, 73, 77–78, 81–82, 95, 102, 106, 113–14, 116–17, 136, 143 cultural essentialism, 120, 122–25 cultural imperialism, 102, 161–62, 186 cultural pluralism, 78, 108, 126–27, 129 culture: alternative concept of, 97–99, 102; concept of, 87–88, 91–92, 95, 97–100, 101–2, 105, 109, 114, 119, 121, 123, 125–30, 134, 136–38;

defnition of, 78, 81, 91–93, 109, 135; essentialist notion of, 121; as an identity marker and differentiator, 108; as an ideological vehicle, 100–101, 106; notion of, 88, 91, 102, 119–25, 134–35, 137–39, 181; “package picture” of, 119–20, 122–24; problematic account of, 86–88, 99, 105, 117; problematic notion of culture, 102, 123–25, 134, 181; reconstructed concept of, 134, 137–38, 249; as a self-contained and well-integrated entity, 99, 101; transformed concept of, 95 cultures of dissent, 125–29 curdle-separation, 152, 156 decolonization, 127, 130, 181 defense of group rights, 85 dialectical interplay of identity and nonidentity, 174 difference: difference critique, 3–4, 13, 16, 19, 38–39, 52–53, 60, 69, 71, 135, 163, 170, 181, 193, 205, 238; problem of, 3, 52, 58, 61, 153–54, 250; relational understanding of, 65–66 differential consciousness, 96–97 Du, Fangqin, 217–18, 222, 231 emancipation, 16, 19, 49–50, 63, 77, 159–60, 211 empowerment, 35, 50, 105, 107, 169–70, 176, 247 epistemological foundation, 42–45 Epstein, Mikhail, 141–49, 151, 155–58, 161–62 essentialism, 3, 6, 10–12, 13–17, 19, 36, 46, 52, 55–56, 58–62, 69–73, 103, 106, 109, 114, 120, 122–25, 165, 214–15, 245–50 essential “womanness,” 6–8, 10, 12–13, 19, 36, 38–39 ethnocentrism, 7–11, 13–14, 17–19, 55, 58–61, 69–70, 87, 102, 117, 124–25, 135–36, 141, 153–54, 156, 192, 202, 236, 241

Index

exploitation, 18, 47, 94, 131, 161–62, 176, 180, 186, 237–39 family resemblance, 67 feminine mystique, 4–5 feminist care ethics, 196, 201 feminist comparative philosophy, 199– 200, 205 feminist solidarity, 3, 12, 19, 30, 71, 103, 117, 127–31, 134–35, 138, 165, 169–77; cross-border feminist solidarity, 129, 242; international feminist solidarity, 180; transcultural feminist solidarity, 161, 169, 181, 182–87, 225, 228, 234, 236–37, 240, 242–43, 250 feminist standpoint theory, 32, 43, 47 feminist transcultural perspective, 158– 60, 164–65 Ford Foundation, 221–22, 227 Friedan, Betty, 4–8, 10–13, 19, 33, 36, 38, 59–60, 62, 70, 73 Frye, Marilyn, 53, 55–63, 65–66, 68–70, 72, 171 gender categorization, 10, 52, 55, 73 “gender complex,” 197, 202 gender difference, 66, 93, 164, 193, 214 gender essentialism, 120 gender inequality, 82, 84, 87–88, 90, 103, 122, 136, 170, 230, 239 gender justice, 56, 132, 204, 233 gender normalization, 68 gender oppression, 8–13, 16–18, 22–23, 25, 30, 35–36, 38–39, 41–42, 48–52, 61, 63, 68–69, 71–73, 89, 98–99, 123–24, 129, 156, 164–65, 170, 175–77, 185–86, 201–2 gender training, 217, 220 “gender” trouble, 42, 217–18, 223 “gender turn,” 209–10, 215–17, 227 generalization, 8, 10–19, 38–39, 45, 51–52, 59–61, 69, 71, 98, 120–21, 130, 141, 154, 193; biological generalization, 15; historical generalization, 16–17; problematic

265

generalization, 38, 59, 69, 121, 141; valid generalization, 61, 69, 245 genuine engagement, 128, 148, 178 genuine subjectivities, 55 global economic capitalism, 161 global feminism, 77, 131–32, 160, 163– 64, 171–72, 177, 179–80, 183, 186, 192, 202, 204, 210, 219–20, 222–24, 230, 232–33, 240–43, 247. See also global/international feminism; international feminism global/international feminism, 209–10, 215, 220–21, 225, 228, 236, 243 globalization, 33, 130–31, 138, 161, 169, 176, 180–81, 185, 222, 227–29, 231–32, 237–38 global sisterhood, 30, 71, 132, 171–72, 179, 183 Grewal, Inderpal, 131 Grosz, Elizabeth, 14–15 group-differentiated rights, 77, 80–81, 87, 88 group differentiation, 65–66 group identity: mediated conception of, 172, 174; relational group identity, 65–66; women’s group identity, 48, 68, 169–70, 172–73, 175–77, 183, 186–87, 204, 209, 234–35, 245–46 Hancock, Ange-Marie, 27–28 Harding, Sandra, 47 “harmonious, empty pluralism,” 126, 128–29 Herr, Ranjoo Seodu, 132–34 Heyes, Cressida, 14–15, 170 hooks, bell, 7–8, 21, 27 human becomings, 195 human interconnectedness, 64, 193 identifcation-with, 68 identity politics, 14, 23–24, 29, 31, 35–36, 41–52, 56, 60, 64, 83, 96, 101, 105–6, 151, 169–70, 172–77, 181, 183, 186, 207; feminist identity politics, 42, 47–48, 52, 60; postidentity politics, 49

266

Index

image of intersection, 25. See also intersectionality imagery of a crossroads, 24 imagined political community, 93 injured identity, 42, 48–49. See also past of injury; wounded attachments interaction of Confucianism and feminism, 198–200 interconnectedness of cultures, 116, 251. See also interdependency of cultures interdependence, 63–64, 66, 89, 97, 99, 154, 156, 169, 204–5 interdependency of cultures, 160 interference, 144–51, 155–64, 182–84, 187, 193, 207, 236, 243; constructive interference, 145, 148, 159, 161; deconstructive interference, 145, 159, 161; transcultural interference, 146, 183, 187 intermeshedness of oppressions, 157 intermeshed oppressions, 152, 156. See also intermeshedness of oppressions intermeshed social relations, 63 international feminism, 131–33, 160, 163, 164, 209–10, 215, 218, 222–24, 232, 236. See also global feminism; global/international feminism intersectionality: account of, 21–23; as an analytical tool, 23, 35; complexity of, 27; genealogy of, 28; holistic approach to, 35; normative claims of, 29; theory of, 25, 27, 29, 30, 34, 36, 38, 179, 181, 248; as a theory of identity, 23, 25, 33, 35 intersectional model of identity, 25 intersectional turn, 27–28 Jacqui, Alexander M., 132 Kaplan, Caren, 131 Kittay, Eva Feder, 64, 193, 204 knowledge production, 127, 202, 209, 229–32 Kruks, Sonia, 64–65, 68

Kymlicka, Will, 77–87, 93–94, 99–103, 109–10, 113, 115, 124, 163 Li, Chenyang, 190, 196, 204–5 Li, Xiaojiang, 210, 213–15, 217–18, 222, 225, 229, 231–33, 239 Liberalism, 44, 47–48, 79–80, 85–86, 88–90, 100, 102, 104, 130 logic: logic of curdling, 152; logic of difference, 58; logic of fragmentation, 151, 156; logic of impurity, 152; logic of purity, 151–52 logically positive category construction, 55, 57 logic of the container, 58 Lugones, María, 141, 151–58, 164, 171, 177, 181 Mason, Andrew, 103–4 May, Vivian, 26 member of a social group, 48. See also membership in the category of women membership in the category of women, 62, 63 mestizaje, 152, 155, 156 metaphor: of the basement, 26–27; of the birdcage, 62; of center-margin, 28; of the intersection, 23–26, 29, 32, 34 Min, Dongchao, 218–19 minority groups, 77, 79, 81, 83, 86, 89, 105, 111–12 modernity, 44–45, 94, 131, 212, 227 Mohanty, Chandra T., 110, 119, 125–30, 132–34, 138, 180–82, 186 Moi, Toril, 14 Morgan, Robin, 171–72 multicultural approach, 73, 99, 102, 117–18, 130, 136, 138, 141, 151, 157, 164 multicultural feminism, 101, 110–11, 116, 134–35, 138, 249

Index

multiculturalism: critical multiculturalism, 106–7; difference multiculturalism, 106; ideology of multiculturalism, 113; institutionalization of, 117, 127, 135, 164; liberal multiculturalism, 77, 79, 81, 84, 102, 135; mosaic or strong multiculturalism, 101; polycentric multiculturalism, 155; stereotype of, 100, 105–7 multiple mediations, 124 multiplicity, 56, 121, 142, 145, 151–53, 155, 160, 184, 210 mutual recognition, 159, 175 Nagar, Richa, 131 Narayan, Uma, 110, 114, 119–25, 134, 138 Nash, Jennifer, 26 national identity, 93 nationalism, 93–94, 106, 131–34, 211 national minorities, 78–79, 81, 110, 179 nation-states, 108, 109, 132, 134, 163 nei-wai, 191–94 neo-imperialism, 161, 192, 200 nonidentity, 172–74 normalizing discourse of toleration, 115–16 Okin, Susan, 77, 81–90, 92–94, 99–100, 101, 102, 103, 108, 110, 111, 113, 124, 133, 159 overgeneralization, 11, 13, 19, 39, 52, 55, 58, 174, 193, 202 Pang-White, Ann A., 198–99 paradigm case, 8, 18, 34, 56, 59, 60, 190, 246 paradox of multicultural vulnerability, 112–13 past of injury, 42–43, 45, 48 Patil, Vrushali, 32 patriarchal mentality, 171 person-in-relations, 191 Phillips, Anne, 113–14

267

pluralism as ideology, 126. See also proliferation of ideologies of pluralism political economy of knowledge production, 228, 230 political fellow-feeling, 157 politics of cultural difference, 91, 115– 16. See also cultural difference politics of difference, 51, 55, 63–64, 83, 160 politics of positional difference, 115 politics of recognition, 64, 83 positive categorization, 56–57 positive category construction, 55, 57, 60. See also positive categorization postcolonial feminist critique, 110–11, 117, 119, 134–35, 138, 249 power-over, 69 power-with, 69, 177 practice of differences, 58, 60, 174. See also practice of pluralism practice of pluralism, 55, 57 “problem that has no name,” 4–8, 12, 36 proliferation of ideologies of pluralism, 126–27 qualifed inequality, 191, 194, 201 refective distance, 158, 159 refective solidarity, 181 relational autonomy, 63–64 relational identity, 55, 63, 67, 206. See also relational personhood; relational self relational logic, 66 relationally constituted structural differentiations, 66 relational personhood, 191, 195, 201, 203–6 relational self, 63, 191, 193, 203 ressentiment, 43, 45–46, 49 Rosenlee, Li-Hsiang Lisa, 190–95, 204 Sandoval, Chela, 96 Scott, Joan W., 215

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Index

self-differentiation, 142, 145–46 self-representation, 155, 162 set membership, 57, 61 set-rhetoric, 58. See also set membership Sewell, William, 95 sexed person, 214 Shachar, Ayelet, 110–13 “sheerly political” struggle, 45, 50 single-axis framework, 21–22, 25, 30, 33 situated knowledge, 43 social fragmentation, 151, 153, 155 social gender, 218, 225 social group, 48–50, 64–66, 79, 83–84, 124, 177, 186 social imaginary, 94 socially perceived identity, 68 social structure of power relations, 63, 64, 148, 184, 194, 201, 203, 228 social vulnerability, 162 societal culture, 77–78, 80, 109–10 Spakowski, Nicola, 217–18, 222–24 Spelman, Elizabeth V., 3, 6–13, 19, 21, 24, 33, 36–39, 48, 51–52, 59–61 split-separation, 152 state feminism, 211, 235, 241 Stoljar, Natalie, 14–15, 63 strong refexivity, 47 structural oppressions, 38 structural social group, 66 structure, 55, 57–66 Swarr, Amanda Lock, 131 “theory import,” 209, 216, 217, 223–24, 228 “third space,” 95–98, 100, 164 Third-World feminism, 103, 130, 132, 134, 138, 162, 184, 238 Third-World transnational feminism, 169, 179–80, 182–83 tokenism, 126, 162 top-down approach, 29 transcultural experiences, 72, 98, 141–42, 144, 148–51, 155, 158–65, 182, 185, 240, 250–51

transcultural feminism, 163–65, 183, 193, 209, 236 transcultural feminist philosophy, 234–36, 243 transculturalism, 146–50, 151, 154, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164, 169, 183–85, 206, 228, 236, 237 transnational feminism, 32, 130–34, 138, 163–64. See also Third-World transnational feminism trans people’s identity, 68 traveling theory, 219 Turner, Terence, 105–7 unifed and coherent subject, 41, 42, 44 universal global feminism, 247 universalism, 14–15, 240–41 U.S. women of color anti-racist feminisms, 169, 179, 182 Wang, Zheng, 51, 211–12, 214, 216, 217, 220, 221, 222, 233, 241 Weir, Allison, 68, 71 Williams, Raymond, 91–92, 100 women: as a group, 8, 52, 201, 203, 213, 246; philosophical concept of, 175; the variability and the dynamics of, 60, 98, 174, 249; as women, 8, 16, 18, 60–63, 71–72, 170, 175, 183, 201, 205, 228, 235, 236, 246; women’s collective political goals, 71; women’s human rights, 82, 178, 180, 220 “world”-traveling, 154–58, 165, 181 wounded attachments, 49 xiao (flial piety), 64 Xu, Feng, 229–30 yin-yang, 191–94, 199 Young, Iris M., 64–68, 115–16 Zhang, Lu, 220

About the Author

Yuanfang Dai is an assistant professor of philosophy and writing at Michigan State University.

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