Decolonizing Feminism?

One of our final, and my favorite, visits of the month was to the Instituto Gregoria Apaza, a foundation dedicated to promoting gender equality in three different areas: economic empowerment, personal empowerment, exigibilidad [there is no direct translation of this – “The point is to start from social rights rather than corporate rights, and to demand that which is required to fulfill social needs” (Globalization, Knowledge and Labour: Education for Solidarity within Spaces of Resistance, Novelli and Ferus-Comelo, 2009)] and incident (this frequently looks like formal law assistance in cases of domestic and sexual violence).

The majority of my research interests are centered on feminism and women’s movements, what those look like in different contexts, and the ways in which Western, liberal feminism (not that I don’t identify as one) can inhibit gender parity movements in non-Western spaces. I am particularly interested in feminism as development – something I think is easy for us, women who live in an already-developed country, to forget.

Instituto Gregoria Apaza was the perfect place, basically a dream, to see some of my thoughts as reality –

The first space we visited was a daycare area for young children whose mothers were in the second space we saw: classrooms where women were learning to sew and bake.

For me, a feminist raised to believe and embrace liberal values, this was so ironic. Where was the math? The sciences? Why were they teaching women traditional gender normative skills? I mean, I’m from a place where home economics is no longer offered in school because it was too conservative.

While shocking when I first saw, I do not believe teaching women to sew or to bake is inherently bad or gender normative. I do, however, believe it is a great example of feminism as development and a fabulous way to give economic power to women who otherwise would have none.

The model Instituto Gregoria Apaza follows offers up a great opportunity for us feminists in the West to rethink our doctrines and to open up our table to women who are non-white, non-Western. Our feminism has brought us so far, so much that we can now project all of our energy toward projects like $0.77 for the $1.00 or #FreeTheNipple. Not to discredit those campaigns, as I think they are worthwhile, but there are women around the world who are unable to fight for equal pay because they are completely excluded from the labor force, or who, due to (just as valid) traditions or customs, have concerns that are primarily centered on the ideas of mothering and motherhood.  

I am a white feminist with many critiques of my own movement:

We cannot pretend feminism only if for the equality of the sexes, ignoring all of the added connotations that have cumulated over time. We cannot act as if feminism hasn’t primarily benefited white women.

We can, however, being to ask: What does it mean to be a woman in a constellation of different cultural values that differ from Western values? What does feminism as development look like? And how might women organize? Can our feminism include women who still strongly identify by some sort of gender role?

Or, more honestly and candidly, does feminism, as we know it, even have anything to offer to Latin or indigenous women?