Gina's Comment
Apr 19 2007, 11:08 PM EDT
| Post edited: Apr 19 2007, 11:08 PM EDT
Reading Spivak and her account of sati made me think about Female Genital Mutation. What was interesting about Spivak’s work was that it did not (explicitely) focus on the moral implications of sati, but instead on the subject, while FGM is used as an example when trying to define a universal moral good. Thinking of the two different approaches to topics that the western intellectual traditionally finds morally wrong, raises questions. I realized that in my experience, while we have read works by African women, discussing FGM has always been done with hope of ‘representing’ (as in acting as a proxy for) what the women “really” want. This then lead me to think about how we discuss situations like the war in Iraq. Both sides attempt to say what the Iraqi’s “really want.” Spivak’s emphasis on how the subaltern cannot speak made me question my own assumptions when discussion moral situations for groups other than my own. It would also be interesting to hear Spivak’s opinion on if there is a moral universal good, or if the “western intellectuals” who discuss such matters can ever really know, since it is impossible for all groups to be represented.
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