Revolutionizing Feminism

by Lacsamana,Anne E.

• ISBN13: 9781594519406
• ISBN10: 1594519404
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Revolutionizing Feminismoffers the first gendered analysis of the contemporary human rights crisis in the Philippines since the election of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2001 and the subsequent declaration of the country as the Ssecond front in the U.S.-led Swar on terror in 2002. During the Arroyo presidency (2001 “2010) the Philippines steadily devolved into a virtual killing field with over 1,000 legal activists from across the social spectrum (peasants, union leaders, feminists, journalists, students, lawyers) murdered and hundreds more Sdisappeared. Against a backdrop of instability and de facto martial law, Revolutionizing Feminismexamines themes of identity, migration, militarism, and prostitution in the Philippine context. Utilizing a historical materialist analysis, this project situates Filipino women squarely within the international division of labor, making explicit the connection between the Ssuper-exploitation of their labor power at home and their migration abroad to over 197 countries as domestic workers, nurses, nannies, entertainers, and Smail-order brides, marking a fundamental methodological and theoretical break from previous postcolonial and transnational feminist analyses of the subject. In contrast to the cultural turn in contemporary feminist theorizing that has steadily retreated from progressive analyses of class and class exploitation, Revolutionizing Feminismseeks to reorient prevailing modes of feminist scholarship by rehabilitating the analytical concepts of class, state, and nation to better understand the material realties of those living in an increasingly unstable, impoverished, global South.