Connection between mohanty and shah

In class on Tuesday as we were discussing Chandra Mohanty’s article, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” I couldn’t help but think back to “Tight Jeans and a Chania Chorris” by Sonia Shah in Listen Up. Shah’s story about her sister now seems to represent kind of a microcosm of some of the concepts discussed by Mohanty, because at first, she did not employ cultural relativism to any extent. She initially tried to apply a Western feminist perspective, learned from an American university, to her sister who was grappling with her mode of expression, and quickly found that it was ineffective. In terms of Mohanty’s reasoning, Shah’s first attempts could be considered paternalistic because she tried to impose views derived from her Western schooling within her Indian family, yet wondered why her efforts to advocate (Western) feminism were not always accepted. Shah pointed out that white feminism does not recognize cultural duality, a fact that explains why her “interventions” were such failures in the context of her Indian household (228). She eventually realized that one’s identity does not have to be confined within just one culture’s patriarchy. Her initial adherence to white cultural norms clashed with her parents’ Indian cultural context, but when she wore a chania chorri, which blatantly displayed flesh but through a culturally appropriate article of clothing (to her parents), it dissipated the household tension. To Shah, this change symbolizes a middle ground between realms that symbolize cultural context that is exclusively white or Indian, and thus reflects a middle ground between being completely paternalist and completely relativis. She figured out how to draw a balance that reflected dualism, and more importantly, the interconnectedness of the Indian and white cultures in her life.