Transnational Feminism in War

I was thrilled about this week's readings because I've been thinking a lot about how especially since 9/11 and in the context of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, feminist discourses have been misappropriated by the American press and politicians to justify racist and imperialist actions in the Middle East. "We don't like how those Muslims treat women, so we need to overthrow their governments."

Doubtless, as noted by Aihwa Ong, there are some very real abuses against women that occur at the hands of (particularly more "extreme") Islamist governments. But the American rhetoric on the issue is troubling, particularly given the absurd prevalence of rape and other violence against women in the military, the institution given authority to carry out these actions "in defense of women's rights."

In particular, I was jumping up and down in my seat and grinning like an idiot while reading Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan's piece on transnational sexuality. Not only was it fantastic to see another rigorous dissection of the term "transnational," but their observation that "sexual politics [is] at once national, regional, local, even 'cross-cultural' and hybrid" hit the nail on the head. I'd love to talk more in class about the US anti-Taliban rhetoric as an example of "the old colonial project of saving the brown woman from her own kind," which Grewal and Kaplan address in the context of "Third World" sex trafficking. It seems to me that many of the same impulses are at play in the discourses of war and "the clash of civilizations" that we have witnessed over the last ten years.