Gender Studies

A Louder Voice: The Resistance of Women in the Global South

A Louder Voice: The Resistance of Women in the Global South

In the post-colonial era, women have often not been considered as subjects of their own histories. Their voices have been silenced between both patriarchal subject formation and imperialist object-constitution. Colonialist elitism and dominant groups dominated the representation of women who live in the developing countries.. For decades, women in the global north often represented women in the global south in racist, imperialist and almost totally ethnocentric ways. Although this representation has been highly influential in the social sciences in reshaping modes of cultural analysis, it has been beset by a number of problems, which are reflected in a growing number of critiques. This paper poses two crucial questions; how in the global north represented women in the global south and which practices exist among women in the global south that counter this representation.  I argue that women in the global South have been misrepresented by women in the global North as a homogenous, victimized group, during and after decolonization. Women in the global South have resisted this misrepresentation, arguing and showing in different ways that they were not a single-whole but agents within various unique cultures. This rethinking of the woman of the global South as a subject in fact inspired an updated version of Feminism. Women in the global South have achieved greater agency, which can be seen in their resistance to local power structures.