Week 9 Difference

Currently, diversity is a huge topic that is being talked about in nearly any industry. In attempts to be diverse, white-dominated groups end up with tokenism. In this week's reading, Trinh T. Minh-ha writes about the struggles that women and minority groups have to face while in white-dominated situations. From the attempts to be more diverse, diversity and inclusion committees were created. Within these committees, you would expect those who are uneducated to educate themselves but that is not always the case. Minh-ha provides a quote from Audre Lorde, "now we hear that it is the task of black and third world women to educate white women..." This speaks on how committees will pass on the work to the group of minorities to be the ones to educate them instead of educating themselves. This places a burden on the people who are invited to opportunities where they can educate others. The burden comes from the idea that if they decline the invitation then they are losing their voice. 

Minh-ha provides the question, "why do we have to be concerned with the question of third world women?" which she uses as an example to explain how problems such as racism and sexism are interconnected. Minh-ha's simply replaces or removes words in these questions to find the common ground in the issues that people ignore. The original question is about third world women but once you remove "third world," the question catches the attention of more people because the question possibly includes them or those around them. Racism and sexism are the exclusion of others so when a question such as, "why do we have to be concerned with..." is interchangeable, it shows how they deal with the same problem of being excluded. As people see how the problems relate to each other, they are able to recognize that they were in the same situation in the relationship between oppressor and the oppressed. Minh-ha helps us view it from the perspective of a white women, Ellen Pence, "women of color joined us on our terms (Minh-ha, 21). Pence lays out the similarities between how men would treat white women and then how she would treat women of color the same way men would treat her. Men would set up committees to help white women deal with their issues themselves and make it seem as though men were not part of the issue. Pence realized that white women would not commit to understanding the issues of women of color like men did not commit to understanding their part in sexism. This maintained the oppressive relationship even when it was thought that progress was being made, when in reality, power was not being shared with women of color and in turn third world women.

Throughout different scenarios, Minh-ha uses the terms "master" and "servant" to explain how once the servant steps into the world of the master, the servant no longer generalizes the issue. Instead the issue becomes more spread out and specific that excludes other groups and makes them deal with their issues alone. To be included in with the privileged and be entering the "master's" world, creates a sense of being "special." Minh-ha explains how the feeling of being special creates confusion on whether they are making a difference or being the first to be a part of the privileged. Women who have achieved success and defy stereotypes have reinforced the concept that other women need to be "special" to be on the same playing field as the women who are privileged. The feeling of being "special" creates a competition where women resist the idea of other women succeeding as they did since they will no longer be special (Minh-ha, 22). In order to remain special, these women must tolerate and follow the rules that are placed onto them. This issue ties into the model minority issue. A model minority would be a minority who has achieved greater success than those in their group, creating a stereotype and standard that is higher than of white people. The minority group is held to the high standard while white people are not held to such high standards, making it harder for minority groups to achieve the same success and rejecting them if they do not fit the stereotype.

Different women face different forms of oppression. Not all women will face the same struggles, as it was stated before, non-white women have had to join white women on their terms. While some women may succeed, it does not mean that all women will be able to share that success. Minh-ha states that while all women do share similar forms and degrees of oppression, it does not mean that all women will face the same struggles. Women will continue to fight for themselves even when other women have had other accomplishments and advancements in their society. To fight for all women, it would be necessary to fight the racism and classism that women also face. We must not distance ourselves from the problems of those who are like us simply from our differences.

Trinh T. Minh-ha

Bibliography

Minh-ha, Trinh T. “Difference: ‘A Special Third World Women Issue.’” Discourse 8 (1986): 11–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44000269.