Today, I woke up feeling uneasy. See, it is International Women’s Day and I am supposed to be celebrating. Several people have wished me “A happy Women’s Day”. However, I cannot be happy. I do not know how to celebrate a day that media promotes through a hegemonic, universalized category of “woman”, presenting issues of women like me through racial stereotypes, dissecting the countries where women like me come from as “backwards”, as “un-enlighted”, “corrupt”. The generic woman that gets celebrated today in media fits a narrow, hetero-cis-White-normative, able-bodied, definition of woman. They fit these stereotypical notions that represent a small portion of the womanhood pie. In those rare occasions when mainstream media highlights achievements by different women, it is almost always to “Other” us, to present us as unique, a deviation from the norm, an exception. Today, mainstream media will tell us “Look at this African woman here! Look at what she has done for her people!”. Africa, the countrified continent, populated by African women, a homogenous collective devoid of differences, of nuance, of political or cultural distinctions. Or we will be told to look at this one immigrant woman! Look at her, she succeeded!, which means, she is like “us”, she has succeeded in “our” terms, within “our” rules.
And yet, all I want to do is resist. I want no part in this universalized promotion of “woman”. I want no celebration or further advancement of these mainstream values as the only desirable goal.
So, when Gender Across Borders posed the question “How can we, as a culture and as members of the global community, involve, educate, and inspire girls in a positive way?”, I thought long and hard. After all, I do not see myself as either inspirational or an educator. Not because I do not believe in these but because I do not think I am qualified to be either. I see both as too big a responsibility. I take them seriously. So, the only sensible way I can see to inspire or educate is through resistance.
(Continued)