War

In Anzaldua’s article, “Towards a New Consciousness”, I am reminded of the Latinx brown bag I went to. I remember one of the speakers saying that she was too American back in her home town, Mexico, but she was too Hispanic in America. She describes feeling torn between these two identities, and I am reminded of the part in Anzaldua’s article where she too mentions duality and its imprisoning effects: “The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject- object duality that keeps her a prisoner”. Not only am I reminded of the Latinx brown bag, but also of a quote from the book “The Awakening”. In this book the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, describes a feeling of being trapped between “the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions”. Although Edna is an upper-class white woman, I think this quote does a good job of describing the concept of duality. Anzaldua recognizes that we have to change this perspective of duality and embrace differences in order to form a “new consciousness”. This idea of forming a new conscious reminds me of The Sneaker reading and how women in Third World countries, like South Korea, are held to unrealistic standards and need to conform to become the “ideal” mother, wife, and daughter. Only through changing these ideals by becoming more aware will progress be made in the feminist world.  

In Moraga’s article, “Refugees of a World on Fire”, she imposes an important question: “How do we organize ourselves to survive this war?”. This was an enlightening question to read because although I have heard of the war on sex, I had never really considered what it meant to be in this feminist war. It is hard to fight a war, however, if the people on your side are fighting against you. Going off of this idea, it is conceivable to understand why there had not been a lot of success within these movements. Because as explained in past readings through Lorde, we have not embraced and accepted each other’s differences. In reading Moraga’s article on Third World feminism, I realized how little I knew about this group of feminists. Before, this article as well as articles in this class thus far, I never realized how many feminist groups existed. This is mostly because during my high school education, I had only ever been exposed to the feminist movements pertaining to white middle to upper class women who were often housewives.