Women, Culture & Politics by Angela Y. Davis

Author:Angela Y. Davis [Davis, Angela Y.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-79850-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

The dynamics here are not entirely dissimilar from those characterizing the historical campaign waged by U.S. feminists for the right to birth control. It is easy to understand why that movement, as righteous as its intentions may have been, aroused hostility in Afro-American women, because it often portrayed us as bestial and oversexed, indiscriminantly reproducing in such numbers that the rule of the white majority might be ultimately challenged.

During the years in which I have lectured at various universities throughout the United States, I have encountered an astounding number of women who know virtually nothing about the situation of women in Egypt or in the Sudan, aside from the fact that they are victims of genital mutilation. It is indeed revealing that while these college students do not hesitate to express their disgust and horror at the idea of female circumcision, they rarely seem disturbed by the lengths to which some women in their own country will go in order to alter their bodies surgically for the purpose of conforming to male-supremacist standards of beauty. Moreover, they do not often recognize that they need to explore the larger picture of women’s oppression in those countries before presuming to make authoritative observations about what should be done to eradicate this misogynist practice. Before departing for Egypt, I realized that I could not in good conscience write about genital mutilation and other examples of sexual oppression in Egypt without acknowledging the manipulation of these problems by those who fail to consider the importance of the larger economic-political context of male supremacy.

Considering the nature of my visit to Egypt, I was greatly disappointed to learn that Nawal El Saadawi, the internationally acclaimed feminist who is president of the AWSA, would be abroad during the time I spent in her country. Ironically, she was scheduled to deliver a series of lectures in the United States during the only period I had free from my teaching responsibilities to make the trip to Cairo. Since she planned to remain in the United States for an extended period, I arranged to meet with her upon my return. I had been introduced to her the previous year when she was lecturing in the San Francisco Bay Area, and, having been thoroughly impressed by her personality as well as her brilliant writings, I looked forward to seeing her again in New York.

The itinerary arranged by the AWSA was conceived in hopes of permitting me to make contact with as wide a range of women as possible. Included in the schedule were large, relatively formal meetings, small discussions, and individual interviews. Political leaders, social scientists, writers, artists, trade unionists, students, and peasant women were among the scores with whom I was to meet. When I sat down with my traveling companion to discuss the itinerary after our seventeen-hour plane trip and an unsuccessful attempt at an afternoon nap, my mind felt rather fuzzy, and I began momentarily to doubt whether it would be possible to absorb the vast amount of information I would receive over the coming days.

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