Well I enjoyed this chapter much more than the one on Psychoanalytical feminism. I agree with this perspective more and many points that Multicultural etc. feminists focus on really make sense to me. The flaws they point out in other feminist perspective, primarily liberal feminism, are things that also bug me. Like the "women as sisters" thing, which never really settles well with me. You don't have to like and identify with all women in order to want equality.
Something else the mention here is "female chauvinism" - when one woman or group of women presumes to speak for all women around the world. This particularly happens in the Western world with privileged women - white, middle-class, heterosexual and/or well-educated. As a woman who fits into most of these categories, this particular issue is very relevant to me. The last thing I want is to assume to know anybody else's life story and what it is like to live their life. But one quote really stuck with me when talking about global feminist theory (part of a larger quote from Charlotte Bunch): "For women in industrialized countries, this connectedness [among women activists around the world] must be based in the authenticity of our struggles at home, in our need to learn from others, and in our efforts to understand the global implications of our actions, not in liberal guilt, condescending charity, or the false imposition of our models on others." (pg. 216-217, emphasis mine)
There is much more I could talk about in the chapter, but it is a lot to cover. I think I will leave it at this snippet for now. On a completely different note, I also found what I learned about Postmodern/3rd Wave feminism in class today to be very relevant to me. Personally, I like the idea of ditching the gender binary, even though that is pretty much an impractical idea. If we would stop focusing so much on gender, we could value individuals for their own merit, instead of what model they are supposed to fit into. But maybe that's just me.
-Sara
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