Is Western Feminism for White Middle Class Women? CONCLUSION
In conclusion, although western feminism is diverse and has various strands to it, for analytical purposes is seen as a monolithic movement and ideology. This way it is easier to use the three lenses of class, race and culture to analyse the concerns of western feminism. In general, western feminism is limited to the concerns of white middle-class women because their concerns align with those of the capitalist society in which they operate. Western feminism wants to filter through their concerns to the Other women and tell them what they need and want. These concerns can be general or more specific. Western feminism’s concerns can also be seen through the denial of intersectionality.
Western feminism aims to see women be part of a global sisterhood where concerns are met, but by doing this they fail to acknowledge their position of power and the concerns of others. Class, is interesting because it plays an important component in the West so even by those standards western feminism does not even appeal to all western women, only the ones who have a certain power relation to capital. Western feminism fails to see the specific concerns of different classes, other races as well as other cultures and religions because the concerns of these women are often in relation not to their gender but to their position of power. The Matrix of Domination is a good analytical tool to explore identity and show how gender is just one element of one’s identity and its importance is relative (Brewer &Collins, 1992). This Matrix of Domination has functioned as the skeleton of this paper.
Gender is only one element of your identity and is not inherently more defining than class, race or culture. White middle-class women who embody western feminism are concerned with the problems of gender, not the other identity characteristics because that is the only oppression they encounter. To conclude western feminism, although not inherently bad or linked to all white women, is primarily focused on the concerns of white middle-class women and often disregards, not always intentionally, the concerns of other women.
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