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The Other:Poetic Reflections

on Third WorldFeminist Literature

Leah KnowlesWMS 530Global Women's IssuesMarch 31, 2010

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When I chose poetry as a medium to explore the various concepts affecting global women, I knew it would

be a challenge. I have studied poetry, I have written poetry, and I have been critiqued as a poet and as a poetic

interpreter. For me, poetry is almost entirely an aggravation. I've always faced obstacles with the genre, even as I

appreciate the raw emotional muscle that infuses the poetic form. In aiming to create poetry which centers around

my personal connection to the plight of the “Third World” woman, I realized my task was impossible. There is no

homogenized collective of women from the so-called Global South. I have never felt the emotions one feels after

witnessing the savage rape and murder of family members. I have never known what it is to be utterly, unfathomable

alone. To be abandoned. Dispensable. I have never been denied education; I have never truly appreciated the worth

of literacy. Still, I have known what it means to have my body stolen from me. I have felt the immense loss of

agency. Perhaps there is some universality in that. Perhaps the billions of people looking into the center from the

margins will realize their power. We've got them surrounded.

In the poems above, I strove for honesty and unity. I struggled to define concepts like globalization,

colonization, identity, Third World feminism, collective memory, the “Other,” and connected subordination. I have

discussed these issues with friends, colleagues, and family and I hope I have learned in the process. I cannot claim

definitive conclusions, but I did learn. I am more hopeful for collaborative efforts. I foresee humility and

understanding in future global feminist praxis. One of the most significant lessons I took from this project is the

value of process over a final, polished product. To live in the present is to find enlightenment along the way. Maybe

the means justifies the end. I am far from certain about any of these ideas, but the journey was valuable and

poignant. For me and the heterogeneous women of the Third World, “poetry is not a luxury” (Feminist Theory 15).

The first poem, entitled “Between,” was born out of a personal belief as well as concepts we have discussed

in class. In using a character with a mental illness (in this case, “schizo”), I attempted to invoke one of my earliest

methods of “othering” myself. Since I was young, I have always felt something beyond pity for individuals with

mental disabilities. Whether their conditions were caused by heredity, advanced age, or environmental factors, I

considered the mentally ill with a sense of awe and respect. I was uncomfortable with the way they were treated as if

they were helpless, dependent, and inept. I realized their illnesses could cause harm, but I felt the isolation from

society developed from their inability to assimilate with the rest of civilized society. They were an embarrassment like

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other minorities, and therefore must be hidden away. I am reminded of “Mad Bertha's” character in Elizabeth

Nunez's Beyond the Limbo Silence.

Another observation I have made about the mentally handicapped is the fact that many of them are gifted

with tremendous mental ability. Take for example those with autism, Asperger's syndrome, or even those we do not

consider to be mentally unstable (those incredibly intelligent people who have trouble fitting in socially). They are

misunderstood and ostracized because they are above normal. I use the word above because I have always felt there

was a systemic societal envy of their abilities. In a society where assimilation is prized above abnormally talented

individuals, the mentally disabled do not fit in the center.

The problem of defining the boundary between intellect and insanity is at the heart of this poem. There

exists a hegemony among interdisciplinary academia, and those in power make the decisions about what is intelligent

and what is not. Quite often, those in positions of power share common traits. They are frequently white, male,

upper-class, and heterosexual. If we take the concept of “passing” as it pertains to race and apply it to intellect, who

passes? Is it the lower-class Latina with Asperger's or the quirky, anti-social doctoral student who also happens to be

a white male? In any society, social location heavily influences who receives an education, and in western societies it

is far from equal distribution among the oppressors and the oppressed. Although many marginalized peoples may be

quite intelligent, their lack of literacy combined with the cryptic rhetoric of the intellectuals will continue to widen

the gap between them.

Gloria Anzaldúa speaks against this privileging of jargon and language: “I have not yet unlearned the

esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing” (Women Writing Resistance 79).

Much like the camouflaged talents of the mentally ill, Anzaldúa challenges feminists to remember the gifts of

uneducated women of color. “...many of us women of color who have strung degrees, credentials, and published

books around our necks like pearls that we hand onto for dear life are in danger of contributing to the invisibility of

our sister-writers” (Women Writing Resistance 82). She also reflects on the elitism and closed-mindedness of academics

when she writes: “Many who have words and tongue have no ear, they cannot listen and they will not hear” (Women

Writing Resistance 89). The privilege of education is taken for granted by the powerful, and it is vital that even as we

learn, we do not forget the wisdom of subaltern knowledges.

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In her essay “Under Western Eyes,” Chandra Mohanty also acknowledges the oppression of knowledge.

“...western feminist writing on women in the Third World must be considered in the context of the global hegemony

of western scholarship” (Mohanty 21). Nawal El Saadawi also writes on the hierarchy of knowledge and our

responsibility to practice inclusion in our activism. “They [the global powers] want to separate the intellectuals and

the peoples who resist at home” (Saadawi 132). In her essay on “dissidence and creativity,” El Saadawi critiques

western academics for their inaccessibility: “These scholars drowned in abstract theories and words taken out of

context” (Saadawi 164).

Krik? Krak! By Edwidge Danticat also supports the necessity for marginalized knowledge bases present in

my poem. The grandmother reminds her grand-daughter that “intelligence is not only in reading and writing”

(Danticat 107). Unfortunately, literacy is valued above other forms of wisdom in the intellectual power dynamic. As

we can see in Nervous Conditions, literacy is only granted to a select few. Tambudzai recalls her anger at her brother

over his gloating. She reflects: “If he had not insisted that there were other criteria that disqualified me at the outset,

I might have been happy for him. But he did insist, and I was very angry indeed” (Dangarembga 50). Dangarembga

also shows the unique dialectic women face in their pursuit of education. “I was an intelligent girl but I had also to

develop into a good woman, he said, stressing both qualities equally and not seeing any contradiction in this” (89).

While my poem “Between” uses the example of the paranoid schizophrenic, the principle of including marginalized

intelligence can be readily applied to the conditions of Third World women as well.

My second poem is called “Spectrum” and reflects my love of the variety of brilliant colors which are found

in this world. I often feel if I was born in a tropical climate my love of bright colors would be more socially

accepted. I don't understand why earth tones only include browns and greens when every color exists naturally on

the earth somewhere or another. “It is custom, however, not chromosomes, that leads us to choose scarlet over

pink... older sisters and mothers who had grown up on a tropical island where the natural environment was a riot of

primary colors, where showing your skin was one way to keep cool as well as to look sexy” (Women Writing Resistance

111). Colors symbolize and represent culture. In our society, for example, pink represents female children and blue is

the designated color for little boys. This poem expresses my dissatisfaction with the vanilla landscape of western

culture and my craving for the colors and flavors of different cultures. Assisted by much of our reading, I have

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realized that in this way I crave the exotic mystery these tropical nations inhabit, and in this way I establish their

otherness and my own centrality. Even if I feel their courage to decorate and surround themselves with bold

brilliance is a more positive and cheerful view of the world compared to our drab environment, we are still the

normal ones. How does one appreciate cultures which are different from her own without making them exotic? This

is a conflict which still presents a challenge for me. How does exoticism affect the people of these lands? We can see

that Angela's character in Beyond the Limbo Silence succumbs to her image as the exotic, and it reduces her person

down to an historically inaccurate, objectified cliché.

In othering colorful cultures, even if I reject the drab lack of color in my own, I support western cultural

dominance. The color white in my poem represents the literal, quite depressing color of a New Haven overcast sky,

but it also symbolizes white supremacy. As ugly as I feel the white and beige we wear on our bodies and slap on our

walls and houses is, it doesn't negate the fact that we are still the center of the spectrum. Bright colors are not “in”

over here; that's something poor folks do over there. As much as I love the rainbow, white remains at the top.

I also found as I wrote this poem that I need to acknowledge the brightness that does exist in western

culture. There is a danger in homogenizing “our” and “we” just as there is with Third World women. There are those

(although they are most often minorities to some extent) who are not afraid to wear primary colors and proudly

display the richness of their culture. While many immigrants have become assimilated in American society, many also

retain cultural traditions from their homelands (for example, the “Puerto Rican girls” in Cofer's essay).

This poem was most heavily influenced by Elizabeth Nunez's use of color symbolism in Beyond the Limbo

Silence. For the author, colors symbolize different concepts as her narrator crosses from one culture to an entirely

different one. When I ask the proverbial “other” in my poem about the color of her rain, I am referring to the

Nunez's description of September in Trinidad. “Like April in the country I would soon journey to, September

ushered in new life from the destruction of the old... The flamboyant spread out its thick brown arms and sprouted

flames of fire, red and yellow, from its branches” (Nunez 35).

We first see color symbolism used on page fifty-one, when protagonist Sarah Edgehill finds a new kind of

blue in the eyes of an American. “I didn't think blue could be so hard. Blue, I saw in the soft sky in Trinidad. Blue, in

the warm turquoise sea” (Nunez). She also becomes overwhelmed by her new white surroundings (the white

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supremacy found in my poem): “...white steam rising from mounds of fluffy white mashed potatoes topped with a

pat of pale melting butter, white baked fish covered in a white sauce and slices of white bread served on white plates

on top of a white linen tablecloth” (Nunez 54). Green represents her colored connections between life and death;

between Trinidad and New York. “In New York, these colors had reminded me of death, green having been the only

color I had associated with life” (Nunez 67). Sarah is also reminded of the sea in the green eyes of the head nun, but

when she learns the symbolic cost of her scholarship, the loses the connection. “There was no sea left in her eyes.

Only green. Hard as emeralds and shining” (Nunez 212). Nunez uses colors to demonstrate the painful crossing

from one cultural identity to another, and this reflects the ideas I attempted to convey in my poem “Spectrum.”

I knew very little about the African diaspora and the countless tragedies of the Wide Sargasso Sea before I

began this course on global women's issues. My third poem, called “Shipwreck,” combines the need to remember

this mass sacrifice and also my own struggle to suppress a painful past. This poem was my attempt to connect the

personal and the political, while I fully acknowledge the magnitude of loss during the African diaspora. The voyage

was motivated by domination, slavery, and colonization. In the end of the poem I challenge the reader to face her

personal battles head on—to fight for her right to individual autonomy and freedom from heteropatriarchal abuse. I

also commission society at large to face the horrors of the past and right the wrongs we directly or inadvertently

support in the present.

“Shipwreck” was largely conceptualized through reading the stories of Caribbean women in Beyond the

Limbo Silence and Krik? Krak! In “Children of the Sea,” Edwidge Danticat expresses the feeling of helplessness

displacement associated with the sea when she writes, “there are no borderlines on the sea. The whole thing look

likes one” (Danticat 6). The same emotions are present on the ship after dark. “At night, the sky and the sea are one”

(Danticat 9). I feel a sense of despair in the loss and uncertainty facing the boy on the ship. Danticat also calls us to

remember this history because the souls who drowned in that ocean will never forget. “I know that my memory of

you will live even there as I too become a child of the sea” (Danticat 28).

Nunez opens her book with the death of Sarah's relative in the tumultuous, unforgiving sea. She takes this

further, however, comparing the sea to the way America treats people of color. Sarah's grandmother warns her:

“America is like the sea. ...when you're not looking, not thinking about it, America can drown you like the sea”

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(Nunez 16-17). It is powerful literature like this which inspired my poetry and my exploration of global

consciousness.

Because it is the most structured of my poems, the fourth one called “Caribbean” can best be described

stanza by stanza. The first part symbolizes Caribbean peoples under western feet. Whether through their experience

as immigrants in American or through the exploitation of their islands for tourism, these cultures have been

colonized and subordinated by Eurocentric oppressors. The second segment is reminiscent of the infants and

women of Danticat's Haiti. “In the city, I hear they throw out whole entire children” (Danticat 93). They have been

treated as disposable, worthless bodies as a result of the war and poverty inflicted on their nation by those to which

they're indebted.

The third stanza reflects again the idea that the souls lost to the sea will never forget their pain. It also asks

how long will the run-off from age old atrocities continue to cause pain for their future generations who now feel

the consequences of colonization. The final stanza reflects the white girls' attitude toward the Caribbean students in

Beyond the Limbo Silence. They have false and stereotypical ideas about the various cultures of the islands, and they

are surprised by the assimilation in Sarah and Angela as a result of colonization. The last stanza represents a western

perspective on the colonization of language, names, and culture. In my attempts to connect my experience with

Third World women, I have othered them again by my own ignorance of western influence in their countries.

In her book Pedagogies of Crossing, Jacqui Alexander writes a chilling and poignant line regarding the lost

souls of the Wide Sargasso Sea: “The dead do not like to be forgotten” (290). If her people do forget, Alexander

admonishes them. “There is a cost associated with taking refuge in the borrowed gifts of alienation that cultivate the

practice of forgetting, the refusal to pull on the ancestral cord, denying ourselves life source” (319). “Caribbean”

seeks not only to remind, but to educate those who never had the responsibility to remember.

Like “Spectrum,” my fifth poem, entitled “Crocus,” reflects on natural and seasonal differences between

regions of the globe. It is a simple curiosity seeking understanding and connection in the reliable observance of

seasonal transition. I feel this poem paints a picture of simplicity in unifying women all over the world. In something

as elemental and mundane as vegetation, perhaps we can reach and communal spirit in the way we perceive our

natural surroundings. Again, this is influenced by September in Trinidad and also the rainy seasons written of in

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Krik? Krak! and Nervous Conditions.

On a deeper level, spring flowers encompass our need to classify and organize our world unequally.

Although the rose may be considered the most popular flower in western traditions, marigolds, lotuses, or gardenias

may hold special significance in others. On the surface, floral growth schedules are not meaningful. It is humans who

ascribe meaning and value to the world, and it is never distributed equally or fairly.

My sixth poem, “Arab,” was written in response to our class discussions about western representation of the

Third World and the presupposition that feminism is a western invention which has yet to reach the “developing”

world. The waterfall motif symbolizes the ancient beauty and quiet power embodied in Arab women. While it rejects

the assumption that these women are automatically oppressed by Islam and therefore cannot be feminist, I recognize

their fight is far from over. As we learned from Nawal El Saadawi, we cannot blame Islam for the condition of Arab

women. This does not mean, however, that many Arab nations are not exceedingly patriarchal and oppressive to

women. It is because of this treatment that women in these societies have begun to reject sexist traditions and the

hegemonic injustice in their cultures. At the same time, western feminists have created a kind of monopoly on

women's rights and assumed all women from developing countries are in need of rescue. The women of former

Rhodesia in Nervous Conditions would not accept their being denied education and equality with the men of their

community. Lucia's character is especially fierce and rebellious without having any western feminist show her how it's

done. It is high time we stop thinking of women in the Global South as passive and helpless. They are equal, and we

should unify in revolution with a mutual reverence and understanding.

As I mentioned above, Nawal El Saadawi's chapters on Islam and Arab women are incarnate in this poem.

She gives us a history of the pre-Islamic Middle East in which women were more equal to men and favored in

society. Her research on the fiery courage of the Prophet's wives inspired the phrase “Muhammad's warrior wives.”

She also writes about Arab women's role in politics and instead of simply educating the reader to make her aware of

Arab feminism, she speaks directly to the feminists of the Middle East. She challenges them to reclaim and

reinterpret their history rather than mimic western feminist practice and theory. If our histories, cultures, and goals

are distinct from each other, our politics cannot and should not be identical. She asks them to examine their lives on

a local and global level.

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Assia Djebar's The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry also raises the important problem of the dispensable

female body. In “Woman in Pieces,” many events take place after the woman has already been murdered; after she's

been silenced. The men in the story have all the agency, while she remains an object rather than a valued human

being lost to a tragic end. “The body of the woman in pieces rests near the room where the caliph hears his counsel.

Unburied. Unmourned” (Djebar 113). Like the eyes of the women in my poem, Djebar finds autonomy in the voice

of the woman in pieces, or rather, through its silence. “The body, the head. But the voice? Where has Atyka's voice

taken refuge?” (125). The teacher, who spoke for women, has been severed in many ways. There is a danger in the

voices of Arab women. The oppressor knows this and seeks to silence them and hide them behind veils.

Although Conquest by Andrea Smith mainly sheds light on the oppression of American Indian women, she

also critiques the hero mentality of white feminists. “Again, even within feminist circles, the colonial logic prevails

that women of color, indigenous women, and women from Global South countries are only victims of oppression

rather than organizers in their own right” (25). There is a great legacy of strong Arab women fighting for their rights

as equal humans. Despite the ignorance of many western feminists, the warrior spirit of Muhammad's wives “still

dwells within.”

The seventh installment (“Old Seminole Woman”) is largely an exploration of my own cultural and ethnic

identity. I found out as an adult that I am 1/16th Seminole Indian, a discovery which meant a lot to me. The social

demographics one identifies with affect the formation of identity, and also one's place in the social hierarchy. I have

struggled throughout my life as I learned more about my German heritage and the atrocities which are woven into

the history of that nationality. As an American, I find less and less reasons to be patriotic. I care about the injustice

suffered by marginalized peoples. I care, which is why it has always been difficult for me to relate to the oppressor. It

was almost a relief to discover some ancestors who lived at the margins. In my discussions with colleagues, some

expressed a sense of envy of my Seminole heritage. I am still somewhat reticent to claim my Seminole blood, which

is displayed through the brackets surrounding the word “my” in my poem. In some ways it is easier to identify with

the colonized because they represent innocence and goodness. It is the whites, the rich, the men who have acted

wrongly and taken advantage of their power to exploit the poor and women of color. On the other hand, it is

tempting to accept one's privilege and be grateful for one's lot in life. Indeed, many who have even a small amount

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of privilege are encouraged to deny the fact that they are discriminated against and be thankful for what they have.

How much of who I am is in my ethnic heritage? How much does socialization represent? Are power/subordinate

positions arbitrary or is there a reason history repeats itself ? How much more must mixed-race and those with

multiple cultural identities struggle with these issues? These questions have remained by my side through this poetic

journey and they will change me even if I am never satisfied with the answers.

The main piece of literature which helped me through my exploration of my Seminole heritage is Andrea

Smith's Conquest. I have mentioned that my goal in this project is to connect my experience as a woman with that

of the Third World woman, but Smith gives me a major obstacle in that endeavor. “Women of color do not just face

quantitatively more issues when they suffer violence... but their experience is qualitatively different from that of

white women” (8). Simply because a small part of my ethnic heritage is Seminole does not mean I was socialized in

their culture or felt what it means to be discriminated against as an indigenous woman. I am still white, as much as I

care about the Seminole nation. I will never fully relate to them. At the same time, I am very proud to be even

loosely connected to a Native American tribe. Many indigenous nations have a long history of equality and peace

between the sexes, which makes it truly unfortunate that their colonizers sought to destroy such a positive quality in

the name of assimilation. When writing about boarding school abuse of Native children, Smith writes: “The primary

role of this education for Indian girls was to inculcate patriarchal norms into Native communities so that women

would lose their place of leadership in Native communities” (37).

Not only am I undeniably white, but I was also socialized as an Evangelical Christian. My aunt and uncle are

missionaries in Karachi, Pakistan and my reading has made me conscious of some problems underlying the mission

of the Christian church. The church has been associated with power since Constantine adopted Christianity as the

official religion of the imperialist Roman empire. Through mission work, the biblical message is not only given to

indigenous peoples throughout the world, it is imposed upon them. There is a link between the church's history and

a legacy of white, heteropatriarchal oppression. Smith recognizes this connection. “This project also highlights the

importance of analyzing the interrelatedness of white supremacy and Christian imperialism” (52). This presents

another challenge for my identity. I find it difficult to reconcile my goal to work with and for women of the Third

World and support the church in its hegemonic goals. Although I was raised to accept the Christian faith, this is not

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a mandatory aspect of my social identity. I cannot help the sex or race I occupy, but I can change my association

with certain institutions if I feel their tenets conflict with the principles of others. After exploring this issue thus far,

I feel I should work within the church to change the imperialist practices, especially in regards to mission work. I do

not expect to be a catalyst for total revolution in an institution that has been established for almost two thousand

years, but I plan to raise awareness and challenge my local church family. Otherwise I would find it difficult to

reconcile my connection with the church and feminist praxis.

“The Mark,” the eighth and final poem in my series, is an attempt to connect the residual violence left on all

women's bodies. By using the word “we,” the poem becomes a plea for unity in surviving the abuses of the

dominant society. As I have discussed above, there is a danger in homogenizing “we” and I feel an intersectional

approach to our relations works to combat this assumption. At the same time though, I thirst for solidarity among

the women of the world. We differ immensely and we need to understand the local condition, but surely there are

commonalities there too. As Nawal El Saadawi writes, “our humanity is common but it takes many forms” (126).

Specifically, Part I combines the abusive environment systemic military violence can create for Third World

women and my own experience of physical violence. Both instances incorporate a long shaft-like weapon (a vaguely

phallic symbol) and a colorful bruise left on the violated woman. Just as I emphasized the possessive “my” in “Old

Seminole Woman,” I single out “willing” in this poem. This is meant to show that although no woman wishes to be

abused, she is constricted by shock, anger, fear, and even feminine propriety at the traumatic moment. This

phenomenon has often been used to blame the victim for her role in the abuse. Also, using the all encompassing

“we” at the end of the poem connects the two women and acknowledges the institutional violence committed

against all women and minorities throughout the history of the world. Part II documents my emotional journey as I

intentionally chose to painfully mark my body as a reminder of the struggle of the people at the margins.

The image of the rifle is borrowed from a part in Krik? Krak! On pages 118 and 119, a guard in military

controlled Haiti uses his gun to intimidate an woman looking for her mother in a mass grave. He is brazen and

insensitive to the potential violence he could inflict with such a weapon as he points it at her head and orders her to

leave the premises. In his mind, she should be grateful if the rifle only leaves a mark. Conquest influenced Part II of

the poem in a general sense. Smith is careful not to homogenize Native peoples, and she includes stories of violence

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from many different tribes. Part II shows my appreciation of Indian culture (particularly Northwest Indian painting)

before it was tainted by the colonizers' imposed assimilation. To achieve my mark, I had to endure pain. Although

my pain was incomparable to that which all American Indian tribes have suffered, it was a significant aspect of my

reminder. The mark represents a permanent accountability that I must keep working with those who have the

courage to challenge the great powers of society.

At the end of this process, it is difficult to say whether I succeeded in my endeavor to connect the personal

with the global. I have admitted my shortcomings and my tendency to homogenize and act as representative for

Third World women. Although I may feel I have failed in some ways or simply maintained the status quo in others, I

gained insight in my own search for identity and in the lives of Third World women. I have discovered a connection

in the quest for cultural heritage, the anger inherent in suffering centuries of patriarchal violence, and in the

appreciation of beauty in both nature and culture. Still, I am educated. I was given the gift of literacy and it's still the

voice of the western feminist you are hearing. I conclude this project in the hope that I will listen ever more

earnestly to the voices of the women to whom I have devoted these pages.

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Alexander, Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Duke

University Press, 2006. Print.

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions: A Novel. New York: Seal Press, 2004. Print.

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. Print.

Djebar, Assia. The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry: Stories. Seven Stories Pr, 2006. Print.

Feminist Theory: A Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2005. Print.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University

Press, 2003. Print.

Nunez, Elizabeth. Beyond the Limbo Silence. 1st ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. Print.

Saadawi, Nawal. The Nawal El Saadawi Reader. London: Zed Books, 1997. Print.

Smith, Andrea. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005. Print.

Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean. Cambridge, Mass: South End Press, 2003. Print.