Hispanic Women from a Post-Modern Lens

1. Hispanic Women from a Post-Modern Lens Dr. Rosa Perez-Koenig

2. The Movement from Modernism to Post-Modernism • Many social observers agree that the western world has experienced a change in paradigms that began with a shift from Modernism to Post-Modernism and later Post colonialism. • Modernism began with the Enlightenment Era also known as the scientific era.

3. The Movement from Modernism to Post-Modernism • Modernism is based on the following assumptions: • Knowledge is not only certain (rational), it is objective. • Societies can be built on a foundation of a universal rationality alone. Our focus is on Post-Modernism

4. Introduction to Post-Modernism • First coined in the 1930’s as a designation to major development in the arts, which later invaded architecture, academia and eventually a broader culture. • Abandons the notion of an objective world as a result of a rejection of a realist understanding of truth. • Rejects the possibility of constructing a single correct world view. It speaks instead of the many views and by extension many worlds.

5. Post-Modernism • Post-Modernism evolved from different schools of thoughts such as: • Post-Structuralism • Constructionism • Feminism • Deconstructionism

6. Post-Modernists Jean Paul Lyotard • Viewed science as “Myth” (a narrative belief) • Described the myth of WWII as the belief that through science, humanity would rise up to freedom and dignity – emancipating itself from ignorance and oppression.

7. Post-Modernists Michel Foucault • Knowledge/Power: • Postulated that social science decides what is true and by deciding what is true (knowledge) defines humanity and the powers that act on humanity. • Dominant Discourse: • Discourse is the language of the specialist which has ever-increasing power over people and Knowledge/Power profoundly shapes the structure of humanity. • Subjugated Voices: • Those that are at the margin to whom an outside construction of reality is imposed on them that attempt to deny their own construction of their reality.

8. Post-Modernists Jacques Derrida • Deconstruction • Deconstructed logo-centrism which led to the belief that meaning exists “out there” and by being “out there” truth in our statements is guaranteed.

9. Post-Modernists Simone deBeaouvoir • Women were brought up in a world defined by men and we ourselves are defined by men. • Raised the question – How free are we to break away from the definition of ourselves as secondary if we never encounter other definitions?

10. Post-Modernists Julia Kristeva Women are entrapped in the classic double bind: • “if a woman identifies with the mother, she ensures her exclusion from marginality in relation to the patriarchal order. • “if a woman identifies with the father, she makes herself in his image, then she ends up becoming “him” and supporting the same patriarchal order which excludes and marginalizes her as a woman.

11. Post-Modernists Luce Irigaray • Believed that psychoanalysis is patriarchal, phallocentric, and has not sufficiently recognized the role of the maternal or female sexuality.

12. Post-Modernists bell hooks Questioned the relevance of post modernism to African American Politics • American women accept the same materialistic and individualistic values as American men. • American Women are just as reluctant as American men to struggle for a new society based on new values of mutual respect, cooperation and social responsibility. • American women, active in the feminist movement were interested in reform as an end in itself, not as a stage in the progression towards revolutionary transformation.

13. Conclusion • The Dominant Discourse has universalized knowledge on Hispanic woman under one category. • The Dominant Discourse has usually studied Hispanic women from a deficit and/or pathology perspective. Because of this, Hispanic women have been stereotyped i.e. submissive, fatalistic, powerless. • It is imperative to break these stereotypes.

14. Conclusion • Hispanic women are a diverse population. • We must listen to the narratives of Hispanic women. We must listen to their particular voices which have been kept subjugated.