Women's Voices in Europe: Alternative, Indigenous and Dominant Intellectual Traditions

In this paper I use my own research and lived experience and the work of others I have edited to examine the impact of commonly employed western feminist frames of reference on the ways in which the production of knowledge is gendered and the ways in which gendered knowledge influences the outcomes of attempts to create gender-affirming social change. I will consider the implications of terms such as East/West and First/Third World used to designate populations and geographic locations and the consequences of applying and teaching our concepts and protocols for social change out of context. I will call attention to the ways in which concepts are modified as they travel and the difficulties we encounter in framing subject matter such as gender-based violence for study or application in ways that are context-specific yet allow for comparison and generalization.  I will show that despite advances in our understanding, the creation of knowledge is gendered and its transmission occurs within gendered institutions including the academy, publishing, governmental agencies and NGOs. While acknowledging that that we are well beyond essentially all women or seeing women outside the west as radically different from ourselves, I will also show that preconceived notions as well as our own feminist values and goals can sometimes be barriers to understanding what we observe.