Touna/Strategic Acts, 7. Writing Women out of Women’s Movements

Over the past several decades, various attempts have been made by feminist scholars to describe the activism of many international women’s groups as “feminist” even though such groups often heavily resemble many American conservative women’s groups that have often been labeled by the same scholars as “anti-feminist.” Using the work of Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Uma Narayan as a frame of reference, I discuss how some scholars of “global feminism” use certain rhetorical techniques to make this identity labeling possible in order to fit a series of specific political interests, even though such techniques may depend on a philosophical double standard to achieve the appearance of consistency.