Against Empire: Feminisms, Racism and the West
Zillah Eisenstein grew up against the background of the civil rights movement in the USA. The daughter of communist, atheist, Jewish parents, her worldview has been shaped by this unusual background of politics. She writes: I have never known God as an explanation for what people do, or for what happens to them. I was brought up to believe in people: that people make the world through their struggle and pain. Her questioning attitude results in a book that is thoughtful, sometimes complex, but never complacent. She asks why it is that Bush can speak of good and evil in biblical terms, see no moral ambiguity in dropping bombs on Iraq, and yet be regarded as the leader of a secular state, while on the other hand Islamic leaders are defined as religious fanatics.
Her analyses of colonisation and of how the West is defined are illuminating. She brings to it skepticism about the language of racism and whiteness, of slavery and how this is both racialised and sexualised in the US context. Eisenstein examines the effect of September 11, the appropriations of Afghan women and the variety of feminist responses. Her vision for the future includes a theory of anti-racist feminism, and polyversal feminisms which take account of location and situatedness in terms of language, culture, class and a host of other defining identities. This book is timely in its trenchant critique of globalisation and US unilateralism. Her take, as a US citizen, on US imperial irresponsibility is refreshing.
2004 | ISBN 9781876756536 | Paperback | 218 x 140 mm | 236 pp