Gendered Cultural Identity

Paper Summary:

This paper expresses the belief that a gendered, cultural identity narration plays a useful role in finding or defining one's own identity with the caveat that identity is constantly evolving and being dynamically recreated. The author uses the falsity of the assumption that "all Canadians are peaceable" as an example of a ludicrous theory that a particular trait can represent the culture of an entire nation of people. The paper discuses the author's different experiences of being a woman and notes that economic discrimination against women in Canada is far more subtle than in Third World countries because women have the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The paper relates that, growing up in a Third World country as a white, where she was assumed to be 'Westernized', resulted in experiences unlike Black and Chicana feminists. The paper includes quotations.

From the Paper:

"As I have had the experience of being both a Third-World feminist and a First-World feminist, am I now a Third-World feminist or a First-World feminist? Narayan states that she chooses to call herself a Third-World feminist because many of her formative experiences took place in this context. This seems to me to be a valid point of view. While I cannot reduce my identity to simply "Third-World feminist," I can certainly see that many of my experiences growing up moulding me into a feminist - and perhaps more of a committed feminist than I might otherwise have been, ..."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bacigalupo, Ana Mariella. "Rethinking Identity and Feminism: Contributions of Mapuche Women and Machi from Southern Chile." Hypatia, 18.2 (2003): 32+.
• Bogardus, John. 1996. "Ways of Seeing: Theories in the Social Sciences." Sociology: A Critical Introduction. Ed. K.I. Anderson. Toronto: Nelson Canada. 162-168.
• Moya, Paula M.L. "What's Identity got to do with it? Mobilizing Identities in the Multicultural Classroom."
• Narayan, Uma. "Contesting Cultures."
• Narayan, Uma. "Undoing the 'Package Picture' of Cultures." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 25.4 (2000): 1083+.

More papers on Gendered Cultural Identity:

• Narrative Essay # 131650 : "Gendered Cultural Identity - A Narrative"
• Analytical Essay # 144541 : "Regional Cultural Identity in the Ottoman Balkans"
• Essay # 46098 : "Gender and Identity"

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