"Women, Native, Other"

Trinh Minh-ha

Summary by Kate Wunsch

I want to begin this summary by saying that this article was a great challenge for me to dissect and to present in this form. For that very reason, I do not feel as if I have a complete grasp of what Minh-ha tries to present in every section of this article. So, I went ahead and mentioned in each of those sections if I had problems totally understanding.

Minh-ha begins her article with a criticism of women's position in the world of writing. She states that inevitably women will fail at the writing of history because, "The more one depends on the master's house for support, the less one hears what he doesn't want to hear." (80). She says that it is importnat for those who have suffered from the master's discomfort with difference must define themselves instead of letting the master.

The policy of "separate development"

Here she begins the base of her argument for the entire article when she says "..'difference' is essentially 'division' in the understanding of many," (82). From this she establishes the difference that the master or colonial ruler gives to the traditional culture under the premise of a celebration of specialness and difference is really just the creation of lines for division and separation. She uses the comparason of South African apartheid and the allowances for the traditional cultures to keep the customs and laws deemed worthy by the ruling power as long as the customs and laws don't overstep their boundaries. She stresses it is easier to dismiss or eliminate on the pretext of difference than to live with and within differences.

She then compares the lack of women's history in the traditional HIStory to the lack of Third World Women's History in white feminist history. She believes that the understanding of such differences should be shared by all instead of black and Third World Women (TWW) being responsible for the education of white women. She also points out the inherent racism in modern feminism. She shows the priority towards white feminism than Third World feminism, and says that without the focus on the rights of ALL women, feminism is self-serving.

The sense of specialness

Here she brings up the important issue of competition tha tbuilds when women who have broken in to the all male areas resist the entrance of new women into these areas. She makes the leap from the specialness of these few women to the specialness people of other ethnicities are made to feel when in America.

The question of roots and authenticity

Following the ethinic and authenticity topic of the previous section, Minh-ha states that inauthenticity is treated as a "loss of origins and whitening of non-Western values" (89). She says that minorities of today are faced with demands by white society not to ignore their differences and instead to assert it. This takes their difference and instead of making it a point of reference in their daily lives it makes it into their entire identity.

Infinite layers

I think she got a bit carried away with herself here and could have made the same point in half of the time and space and a lot less confusion to me! What I do understand her to be saying is that "I" is multiple and it is impossible to determine only one category or characteristic that defines "I". And within this identity of "I" there is an "obsessive fear" of loosing contact with one's authenticity. (94).

The female identity enclosure

Minh-ha continues her discussion of identity now expanding it to include female identity. She objects to previous definitions of female identity based on male identity. She then says,"Woman can never be defined." (96).

Third World

For this Minh-ha looks at the different connotations to the lable Third World. She discusses the choice of TWW to call themselves such. Here she asks if they were to use less "defeating" terms such as 'non-Western', why would whites not want to use 'non-Afron-Asian"? I think she is rebelling in her way and insisting that if the master is going to consider her as other, why would she allow him to use the nicer lable just to make him feel better? She then says, "the search and the claim for an essential female/ethnic identity difference today can never be anything more than a move within the male-is-norm divide and conquer trap." (101).

Subject-in -the-making

Not much is covered here, bt she does use Chinese women as a very good example as the difference between "repression of sexual differences" and "different distribution of sexual difference" (103).

Ethnicity of womanhood

Here she takes up much time and space going back and forth between fighting for one's sex first or one's ethnicity. Then she points out that pitting the anti-racists and anti-sexists against each other, allows the oppressor to deny the existence of either. The other main topic discussed in this section is the relatively reccent study of sex verses gender.

The gender contraversy

Minh-ha finally brings the article to an end when she seems to combine the problems with the labling of 'Third World' and of 'Women'. She claims the idea of gender differences is beneficial as long as it continues to be discordent. But, she states that Illich's use of gender theory is in fact damaging to feminism as it works towards "separation and enclousre" (113). She shows the weakness of a gender based feminist theory by showing how easily it could feul an anti-feminist Thirf World argument maintaining "there should not ne equality and rights for women becuase traditionally these simply did not exist," (114) and continue to claim an absences of oppression of women. In her final paragraph Minh-ha says a gendered way of living is a life of differece, whcih as she said earlier, is a life of division.