Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :"Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses"
Universal images of "'the third-world woman"' (the veiled woman, chaste virgin, etc.), images constructed from adding the "'third-world difference"' to "'sexual difference"', are predicated on (and hence obviously bring into sharper focus) assumptions about western women as secular, liberated and having control over their own lives. This is not to suggest that western women are secular and liberated and have control over their own lives. I am referring to a discursive self-presentation, not necessarily to material reality. If this were a material reality there would be no need for feminist political struggle in the west. Similarly, only from the vantage point of the west is it possible to define the "'third world"' as underdeveloped and economically dependent. Without the overdetermined discourse that creates the third world, there would be no (singular and privileged) first world. Without the "'third-world woman"', the particular self-presentation of western women mentioned above would be problematical. I am suggesting, in effect, that the one enables and sustains the other.
Here's the deal: all those images you think of or see when you hear "'Muslim woman"' or "'Middle Eastern woman"' or "'Arab woman"' (you get what we mean) come about because we have these (Western) assumptions of who the "'third-world woman"' is.
These assumptions come from the not-so-PC idea that western women are somehow more free—of religion, of "'backward"' laws, of veils—and, thus, are smarter, stronger, more independent…more feminist. Even if it's not actually true. Otherwise, why are western women and men still fighting over things like Roe v. Wade?
Point is, stereotypes and misconceptions of the "'third-world woman"' support the way western women view themselves. The only reason we think this way about "'third-world"' women (poor, unenlightened, unliberated) is because that's how the West "'constructs"' or re-creates images of the "'third-world"'—to the benefit of the West. By creating a "'villain"' (like, the Muslim man or "'non-feminist"' cultural traditions) and a "'victim"' to save (the "'third-world woman"'), the Western woman comes off looking so much better. Sound familiar? Totally Said, but with a feminist twist.
If you thought before that Gayatri Spivak is the lone significant woman in postcolonial studies, think again. Chandra Mohanty's just one example of all the rich, feminist postcolonial work out there. This essay, in particular, was groundbreaking in both feminist and postcolonial studies because of the way she critiqued Western feminism, as a—you guessed it—colonizing way of addressing "'Third World"' women.