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Strategic Sisterhood Or Sisters In Solidarity? Questions Of Communitarianism And Citizenship In Asia, Aihwa Ong
Strategic Sisterhood Or Sisters In Solidarity? Questions Of Communitarianism And Citizenship In Asia, Aihwa Ong
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies
The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) has spawned a
Triumphant sense among Western/Northern feminists that they are forging a
strategic sisterhood with less privileged women in the South. Feminists from
metropolitan countries seek a new North-South alliance whereby they make
strategic interventions on behalf of third world women by putting pressure on
their governments. Professor Ong critiques strategic sisterhood on the
following grounds:
First, strategic sisterhood is based on individualistic notions of
transnational feminine citizenship, ignoring the historical and cultural
differences between women from the first and third worlds. In particular, the
concept ignores geopolitical inequalities whereby postcolonial …