December 14, 2014 - 22:43
If I were to write a paper on international feminism, I would like to focus on sentiments around abortion, and the different circumstances in various nations that shift women's perceptions of the topic. In the United States, the ability to abort if necessary is considered by many on the Left as a way of women claiming their own bodies and autonomy over their lives. However, this issue is much more complicated in other countries, where population control is (or has been) in effect. For example, studies conducted in China in 2000 revealed that, if a family already had one female child and the second was found, in utero, to be female as well, 92% of these pregnancies were aborted (Junhong, Chu. 2000). Although this decision could have been, in part, controlled by the mother, the valuing of male lives over female ones implies a greater, patriarchal power at work (especially given the government-imposed population control in the country). Here, it seems, abortion is no longer about women claiming autonomy over their own bodies, but rather about responding to male-centric ideologies about how a family and nation should function. Particularly because this phenomenon is related to production (in the family sense) it would be interesting to use Waring as a lens.
Although our focus on international feminism has been brief and frequently interrupted with planning for the #lasthurrah, I felt I gained quite a bit from having class discussions that were truly grounded in text. Particularly because I am so rarely exposed to economics (even on a basic, conventional level), I felt that I had gained access to a completely different side of feminism, and a very helpful way of looking at inequalities in the world (and particularly in capitalist nations). Learning about nego-feminism was humbling, and one of the most necessary subjects we touched on this semester, in my opinion. If we could have expanded the unit, I would have been most interested in further exploring this notion, and how it can be at play even in the United States (maybe this is a selfish way of asking for a relatable example, but it's also nice to learn about how women in our country fight different fights than we see on a day-to-day basis).