Reading assignment for Monday, February 20. Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. Remember, you don’t need to answer all or even any of the questions, but your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.
- Editors: Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, This Bridge Called My Back. Please have the entire text read by Monday, focusing more on the essays than the poetry.
Based on your reading of the text, who is its intended audience? Is there a multiple answer to this question? Where do you see it addressed within the text?
Define Third World feminism. Which contributors do you see making the strongest / clearest case for it and why? By the same token, why do these authors define themselves as “radical women of color”? Coming out of our earlier readings, what is radical about this text?
This Bridge Called My Back is interesting for several reasons, from both the poetry and the essays. I especially like “La Guera” because of the realness that’s implemented throughout it. For example she doesn’t make it seem that it’s impossible to speak out and stand up and in fact understands that it’s difficult to do so but she also understands that people need to come to terms with themselves. She actually says if one is willing to be responsible to the results of the connection of silence being the same as starvation of both psyche and emotions. She understands this to be a big problem because if no one speaks up then everyone will be isolated within their own oppressions. And the fix is simple yet difficult for several reasons. One reason that is interesting is the one that if you were to speak out, you are almost giving up your privileges of being a certain race, color, class, gender and sexuality. The reflection written by Yamada seems to give some credit to this because she also sees that the silence is actually invisibility. She goes on to say that even if women talk of certain things they may not be taken seriously. To not be listened to is just another way of being invisible, so for Yamada women not only need to speak up but also make sure that people are listening with serious intent.
Within “The Bridge Called My Back,” there were multiple stories and the one I connected with the most and remembered most vividly was Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women, by Gloria Anzaldua. She utilized imagery to engage her audience and I loved how she incorporated three different ethnicities but all connected. She also brings in the idea that women of color are not seen and also lesbians are invisible to the eye. She incorporates an inspiring poem by Cherrie Moraga that contributes to the lack of voice women have. I also was brought back to reality on how women try and be superior, publish books, and obtain a degree like Anzaldue says but we are not seen by the male counterpart. In today’s society feminism has gotten better, there are more women in college and achieving the never befores but we are still second best. But all we can do is do our best and keep striving for the future we want to obtain. Anzaldua was very inspiring and I enjoyed her article very much.
In chapter three there was an important point made that white women were the only race that could afford to ignore racism in their lives. The third world women had no choice but to have to deal with racism in their lives whether they wanted to or not. Hattie made the argument that it is hard for third world women to have a voice for their issues since no one respects their ideas. This implies how under valued women are, whichNorma points out in her writings when she talks about the mother that sold her daughter to please her husband. Most of the time the enemy isn’t always the white person who is oppressing women, but it is sometimes their own people that will want to take away their voice.For example, Mitsuye talked about her dad telling her it didn’t matter what she believed in. He was implying her husbands beliefs would matter. There is a constant understanding that all third world women share the same problem that white women just don’t understand their struggle, as well as the world. The poems and essays about the Asian American women had a recurring theme that they were expected to be quiet and not have a voice. Even if they spoke up, their opinions weren’t taken seriously.Women like Gloria almost killed herself until she had the vision that she had to fight for women rights. It took women of great courage to be a third world woman and fight for your rights.The answer to fighting for women rights wasn’t always solved by joining a feminist group. Chrystos pointed out that she had her own issues that the feminist group just weren’t solving. There were even instances where the feminsst couldn’t trust each other, like when Aurora pointed out in her writing that there wasn’t any loyalty between the women in the group. You had white feminist that didn’t want to help third wold women, and you had third world women who discriminated against each other in their groups. This is why it was so hard for third world feminist to get their voice out.
Third World, as a descriptor, generally denotes a nation of low economic status. My first impression of Third World feminism was that it was a feminism that encompassed women from, or descended from, Third World nations. For the most part, however, the women we’re concerned about in This Bridge Called My Back are American. America is most certainly not a Third World nation, so is it really fair to call them Third World Feminists despite their existence in a First World nation? Then I thought a little bit deeper, and read a little bit further, and it struck me when I remembered how poor so many women of color are. And how even if we’re not poor, we have to fight against multi-layered oppressions to make leeway in a dominantly white, heterosexual, male workforce. And how invisible so many of those struggles are to men, to white women. That is when I came to the conclusion that Third World feminists are Third World because they occupy a Third World space in this country. Women of color live in a reality where they are forced to be in state of economic development and political development, even in a country that is apparently economically and politically developed.
The intended audience differs depending on the entry. The audience in “And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You” by JoCarrillo is for white feminists. This poem criticizes the ways in which upper-middle class white feminist women “love to won pictures” of poor working class people. I claim the intended audience is white feminist women because the poem begins with “Our white sisters/ radical friends” (63). The photographs described are false portrayals of working class field workers “walking to the fields in hot sun/ with straw hat on head if brown/ bandana is black/ in bright embroidered shirts/ holding brown yellow black red children” (63).
This book is a perfect example of intersectionality. The stories of women of color show how they face different types of oppression that are a product of all of their backgrounds. Although it’s also important to know that what happens to them is often not just one just type of oppression due to their socioeconomic class, race, sexual orientation, etc., but should be seen as influenced by several types of discriminatory ideology. Furthermore, I agree with Michelle Badillo about how certain struggles are invisible to men and white women. The issue of invisibility is really discussed in Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster. She relates her experiences as an Asian American woman and how she thought being silent and polite was being obedient and the right thing to do. However she realizes that she’s really internalized racism without her knowing it because the oppression caused by others has transformed into her own repression. I think it’s good to know that repression derives from within while oppression is an external subjugation. I can relate to her experiences because it can happen when someone tries to assume an identity in order, to gain access to resources and to navigate through society. However that identity can consume you and make you think it is the natural you even though it was just meant to be temporary. Society really rewards conformity and obedience, which is why I can see how someone might not realize that they are contributing to their own oppression through repression, feelings of guilt and inferiority. We need to expel that from our bodies and minds.