reflections on the recent work of sheila rowbotham.doc

8/12/2019 Reflections on the Recent Work of Sheila Rowbotham.doc

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Anited States is not simply a personal decision on my part but also a product of a comple' historical process of capitalism+colonialism+ and imperialism in which the histories of Britain+ the Anited States+ and 7ndia are intertwined! With this understanding

of the historical process of the world capitalist system+ 7 do not see myself as @different@ from Western women! (ven when 7 dress

differently+ when 7 have a different cadence or accent in speech+ or different aesthetic tastes and food habits+ it does not make me

more @different@ in the Anited States than in 7ndia because both countries have a vast variety of people with a vast variety of tastesand languages! 7 know that 7 am not different as a human being from other human beings because we all need the same human

rights+ the same human care and same basic things in life+ and the same clean environment! *hat is why 7 refuse to he treated as

@different!@

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*oday+ all of us /*hird and irst Worlds alike3 e'perience the pressure of unrestrained global capitalism! 7n this perspective and

conte't it seems illogical and unrealistic to interpret and analy6e the e'periences of people and societies as only a process of internal/therefore+ different3 conditions! 7nstead+ we should try to understand the contemporary hegemonic powers and forces+ their

ideological and other mechanisms of control+ and e'plore how they interact with different societies and how they shape peoples=

views and consciousness! 7nternational feminist scholarship has begun the task of understanding the connections between irst and

*hird World economies and their effect on the lives of women in all countries! *his work is essential if links are to be forgedbetween women=s political struggles all over the world! *he idea of creating bridges has caught up many women in the world in

recent years+ and Sheila=s writings have been a contribution to that healthy trend!

*he massive migration of e'%colonial populations to the industrial cities of (urope and the Anited States /due to the demand for

cheap labor3 has created new kinds of multiethnic and multiracial social formations! Deeping these new realities of thecontemporary world in mind Sheila e'plains in her recent book ,omeworkers Worldwide /


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have become the sub-ect of research in connection with the Iother!= 7t is the Idifferences= rather than the issues of economic liberationthat has assumed a central position in academic analysis!@9 2ostmodernist discourse of @(urocentric bias@ has had the odd result of

discouraging the interest of women academics in the developing world in research that deals with the life and work of women with

different heritages than their own! *he work in this collection e'plains that this trend coincided with the ascendant ideologies of the

"#98s which fetishi6e the market mechanism and glorify self help and individual entrepreneurship! 7n such an atmosphere peoplewill readily shun collective responsibility for vulnerable or marginal groups even within the boundaries of their own nation+ let

alone beyond the boundaries /cultural or political3 of their own community! *he problem is compounded by those (cofeminists who

consider research on new technology and its impact on women to be irrelevant and unproductive! .ccording to such (cofeminists+

technology itself incorporates and reproduces values harmful to the poor people of the world! With logical consistency but littlesense+ they promote the goal of the subsistence economy! *his entire volume argues that appeals for subsistence economy are a

diversion from the central uestion of how to alter the material conditions that determine relations of power both nationally and

internationally!*he editors argue persuasively that both postmodernist and (cofeminist approaches lead to the erosion of any belief in the power of

collective action+ of course without in anyway diminishing the rate of feminist publications! Hne can find @shelves and shelves of

poetry and fiction+ books about se'uality+ about race+ about health+ about housing+ about violence+ about psychology!@ But the very

few books that attempt to put these concerns in the conte't of women=s changing economic relation with technology are @heavilyoutnumberKedL by =how to= books about computing!@# 7t seems that feminist attention has shifted away from the previously central

concern of women=s economic place in the system and of women=s work+ both paid and unpaid! *his change in the focus of feminist

academic attention is linked to a radical shift of emphasis from the collective to the individual! Rowbotham and Mitter point out that

the @language of =difference+= and antimodernity ironically gives the politics of e'clusiveness and (urocentrism a new lease of life!@*he feminist critiue of the (nlightenment devalues the different needs of women of non%(uropean origins which are best e'pressed

in precisely those same despised universal (nlightenment values of euality+ reason+ and autonomy!

Sheila Rowbotham has taken pains to remind us that @women studies after all had its origin not only in the desire to e'tend what was

studied but to transform the power relationship in how knowledge was constructed and communicated!@"8 *o this end our attention

must focus on the uestion of organi6ation for collective action! Rowbotham and Mitter have developed their ideas on the process oforgani6ation and collective action in a second recent collection entitled )ignity and )aily Bread: 0ew orms of (conomic

Hrgani6ing .mong 2oor Women in the *hird World and the irst / 0ew 1ork: Routledge+ "##G3! *his book is a valuableeffort to open as an area of inuiry the new kinds of organi6ing emerging among poor women around uestions directly concerned

with the process of production! But the actions and consciousness of poor women workers of the *hird World+ generally unable to

use traditional methods of labor organi6ing in the teeth of fiercely repressive local regimes+ cannot satisfactorily be e'plained under

narrow and constricted definitions of class consciousness and resistance! *hese workers are creating novel democratic organi6ingprocesses in the most varied conte'ts in the poor countries+ with conseuences in the Western countries as well! *he accounts in the

book reveal the true interconnection of class with gender and race by insisting on the basic Mar'ist notion of situating work and

class centrally within social e'istence as a whole+ while also subverting the assumption that new cultural forms and their theori6ing

originate only in the 0orth! .galn by including studies spanning both *hird and irst Worlds+ the editors are able to challenge theprevailing separation between studies focused on @women and development@ issues in the *hird World and work done on the

economic and social circumstances of class+ gender+ race+ and ethnicity in the irst World!

*his division of scholarly inuiry obscures the importance of multinational capital+ which does not fail to e'ercise influence over

@women=s studies@ in line with its influence in society more generally! We are then diverted from the task of finding patterns in themultiple forms of global events affecting women! Hur problem is that these patterns are comple'+ variable+ and far from readily

predictable in their development! 7nstead of giving up efforts to find commonalities amongst working women+ our aim must be tounderstand these comple' patterns by starting with inuiry into what is happening! *his is the only way we can assess the oddswhich are stacked against poor working women! or e'ample+ one can find patterns in the history of nineteenth century te'tile mill

women workers in Britain and the Anited States+ and in late nineteenth and early twentieth century ?apan+ which are parallel with

conditions within the modern ree *rade one /*3 found in the *hird World! or instance+ the employers in all these cases sought

influence over the attitudes of the new mostly female work force through providing accommodation! *he historical study of theselodging houses showed interesting unintended effects when women by sharing living space with other women were also able to

share their e'periences at the workplace as well+ and derive strength from one another+ which freuently+ developed into militant

consciousness! *he study of women=s current parallel e'perience in the *s is the type of task that Rowbotham and Mitter rightly

demand be taken up by the feminist scholarship of today!*he studies collected by Rowbotham and Mitter+ and Sheila=s own recent work+ document the emergence of new kinds of social and

economic democratic practices among the poor women of the world as their labor power is commodified! 7n this process+ so

deserving of our attention+ the poor women of the *hird World are demanding a very basic and minimum human needFdignity and

daily bread! @*hese women who labor for such small KbasicL rewards present us a tremendous human challenge Kone thatL compelsus to ask the following uestions: What kind of developmentC What kind of growthC What kind of society can ensure that these

basic aspirations are metC@"" ;an we find answers to such basic uestions of dignity and daily bread by postmodernism=s appeals

to Cdifferences= and cultural relativismC Rather+ the recent work of Sheila Rowbotham is a continuing demonstration by oneadmirable woman of a unity of practice and theory in practice that is a model to all+ worldwide!

0H*(S

"!Sheila Rowbotham+ Women=s


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reflections on the recent work of sheila rowbotham.doc

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