Reply to comment

I think EMaciolek touches on an important part of Martin and Mohanty's article "Feminist Politics: What's Home Got to Do with It?" when they said,

"I wish we could talk about women in relation to the world simply because we're not men and have different viewpoints to offer. Instead it always turns into a fight against a history of oppression, or women's role in society, or something else political. It feels like falling into a trap every time that happens."

I got the impression that Martin and Mohanty feel just as frustrated when they see feminist critics tearing apart texts of fellow feminist writers for what they call “homogenizing, even colonialist gestures”. Martin and Mohanty say that by criticizing these texts they are, in effect, propagating the perception that feminism is only for Westerners or only for white women. It seems to me that this is detrimental to the feminist “cause” and that these critics are falling into “the trap” that EMaciolek is talking about.

Martin and Mohanty emphasize their belief that feminism is not an all-encompassing home and that there will never exist a feminist community with a coherent or absolute identity, but through Pratt’s autobiographical narrative they show us that contrary to popular belief this is not necessarily a bad thing. They say that we need to be careful not to conflate the idea of a political coalition and a home; inherent in the idea of a home is exclusion and repression of outsiders. Thus, in feminist politics the idea of the feminist community needs to be reevaluated.

I think that Martin and Mohanty’s vision of community is congruous with Johnson’s view that politics exists because there is “undecidability”. They say that easily defined communities are not natural to the political world, but that they are the product of work and constant change as they must accommodate for the varying priorities and personal histories of those in the group. I think this variation of opinions is the undecidability that Johnson is referring to.