Transnational feminism’s charm has been summarised by feminist activist, Patricia Valoy; “While Western feminism overemphasizes commonalities with women across nations, transnational feminism recognizes inequalities across different groups of women, so that in essence, it’s a series of feminisms addressing particular issues and not one uniform movement”. It is thus clear feminism cannot be applied as a ‘one size fits all’ concept, but must instead account for the uniqueness of the individual at the personal, local and global level which can only be achieved through a transnational approach. This essay will subsequently reinforce the validity of this perspective in relation to immigration and war, drawing on examples from Taiwan, France and Syria to demonstrate the implications of capitalism, colonialism and religion; factors Western feminism has arguably overlooked.
A transnational interpretation of migration control is used by Mei-Hua Chen in relation to fake marriage tests carried out by Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency, where the intersections of gender, nationalism and sexuality cross as immigrants are subjected to invasive, largely inconsistent assessments of marital legitimacy. This example details the primary dynamics at play when borders are gendered, as Chen argues the acceptability of migrant sex workers is synonymous with the extent in which migrants fulfil Taiwanese gender norms through appeasing their ‘fake’ husbands. Conversely, those suspected of neglecting spousal duties risk deportation for involvement in a ‘fake marriage’, as evidenced by the ‘illicit work’ that is condemned by the Taiwanese government when the wives’ “(re)productive labour” fails to align with that of her spouse. This transnational approach subsequently reveals the gendered power struggles that occur at borders as the extent in which a marriage is deemed legitimate, and thus grounds for immigration, depends on traditional, Taiwanese conventions of marriage and intimacy; both of which determine the tolerability of sex work.
Building on this, an analysis of border control in France broadens the transnational intersection through the addition of colonial dynamics and racial and religious identity as, according to Miriam Ticktin, anti-prostitution laws, anti-head scarf laws and the bilateral accords collectively facilitate the subjugation of immigrant, particularly Muslim, women. In terms of sex work, Article 18 and Article 29 disproportionately impact immigrant women as the authorisation of identity checks serves more as an assessment of citizenship than preservation of the public order. As a result, immigrant sex workers can be deported back to conditions they had once fled from by the French state in, paradoxically, the name of protection and national security. Likewise, the implications of migrant status are further reflected in the fact that nationals who expose their pimps are granted victimhood, whereas immigrants unable to do so are deemed complicit in sex trafficking and are therefore not afforded sympathy by the French state. An intolerance of French authorities to those seemingly failing to comply with public order is reflected in laïcité; a concept of secularism which is used to assert that the Muslim population threatens national, uniform identity. Similarly enacted under the guise of state paternalism, this law claims to be emancipatory for Muslim women forced to wear headscarves by their ‘oppressive, barbarian’ Muslim male counterparts. A transnational approach to this issue not only demonstrates that these laws enable the aggressive policing of Muslim woman in France and subsequent othering of those unwilling to rid a seemingly oppressive item of clothing, but also the demonising of Muslim men who assume a ‘predatory, uncivilised’ role in French society. Moreover, the bilateral accords see both immigrant-specific and Muslim-specific issues imposed by legislation exacerbated, as primarily North African women in France are not recognised as subjects in themselves, but instead immature beings bound to colonial laws that regulate the private sphere. As a result of Article 3, which asserts non-nationals in France are subject to their own national laws concerning personal status, Ticktin assumes a transnational approach in arguing this legislation institutes both gender and racial inequality. This is as institutions such as marriage, family, divorce, inheritance and property operate under colonial legal codes causing, for example, Algerian women in France to merely be entitled to half of what men receive in inheritance and to require permission from a guardian to marry; laws drastically more restrictive than those imposed on national men and women, and immigrant men. The French judicial system thus renders those of colonial descent not subjects in themselves, but external bodies whose personal lives are subject to state scrutiny. Sociologist Manisha Desai also reiterates this sentiment, arguing colonialism did not end with the formal independence of previously colonised regions, but instead manifests in current social and material conditions whereby systemic racism encoded into the judiciary serves to regulate certain populations.
The defects of the laws in France are alluded to in Ticktin’s discussion of ‘Zina’; an Algerian woman in possession of a ten-year French residency permit who, upon fleeing a forced marriage in Algeria, was denied entry back into France where she had previously lived for almost 16 years due to her failure to claim citizenship by 18. Not only this, but the bilateral accords legally bound Zina to her father and husband, forcing her to apply for political asylum, before eventually being accepted on territorial asylum that, in exceptional circumstances, allowed entry deemed consistent with national interest. Deeply problematic within this narrative is the grounds in which this asylum was granted, with a transnational approach revealing the orientalist exceptions operating in this case as Zina was granted entry on account of her plea being sensationalised to frame France as the Western saviour. In turn, this representation furthered neo-colonial agendas depicting Muslim women in need of liberation and Western women as the benchmarks of freedom. It is thus evident Muslim women in France are not afforded state paternalism in the context of the bilateral accords which institutionalise inequality, with the exception of cases that can be framed as civilising missions, yet they are perceived as oppressed by headscarves and subsequently require the state to liberate them from seemingly primitive traditions. Likewise, paternalism can also be enacted in the sex work industry permitting it simultaneously operates as an assessment of citizenship, which differs from its treatment in Taiwan where tolerance is predicated on immigrant sex workers ability to normatively perform gender. The transnational paradigm therefore reveals how borders act as fields of gender and racial hierarchies, each interplaying with sexuality, nationality and religion in a way that sees immigrant women in the sex work industry and/or from religious minorities being subjected to significantly more hostile immigration laws than their male, national counterparts.
Desai’s neo-colonialist assumptions also carry through into the context of war, with many of the dynamics at play in immigration transpiring, and even intensifying, during conflict as dichotomous frameworks are utilised to justify the waging of liberal wars against illiberal populations. Transnational feminist Chandra Mohanty perhaps best explains this polarity with her abstraction of the ‘Third World Woman’; “a cultural and ideological composite” contrasted against “women – real material subjects of their collective histories”. Through eradicating the particularities of women in the Global South and homogenising their oppression, a narrative of universal struggle against patriarchal conditions is superimposed on non-European/North American women. Equally problematic in this cultural reductionism, which has grown worse with the Eurocentrism of knowledge production and assumption that feminism has travelled from North to South, lies the connotations associated with the ‘Third World Woman’. According to Mohanty, women in the Global South are represented as eternal victims, frozen in history, located at the peripheries of feminism and lacking agency, all of which can be contrasted against the empowered, enlightened, cosmopolitan attributes assigned to Western women. It is thus of no surprise that gender has been used to justify colonialism; “white men saving brown women from brown men”, as well as ongoing capitalist exploitation, trade laws and border regimes, as evidenced in Zina’s case.
When applying this transnational critique of feminist knowledge production to conflict, the troublesome nature of erasing local gender hierarchies in lieu of Western gender hegemonies becomes evident. The case of Kurdish women fighters in the Women’s Protection Unit (YPJ) demonstrates this, as conditional recognition of the all-women, secular military force in Western media saw the fighters themselves portrayed as heroines of a struggle entirely divorced from the genuine cause of the YPJ. Bahar Şimşek and Joost Jongerden attribute this to geopolitics and orientalism, arguing recognition of this struggle is done so superficially, and in a sensationalised manner, through placing the YPJ in Western liberation discourse that represents the Middle East as backwards and women fighting in this Unit doing so in the name of Western ideals. Instead of authentically representing the conflict with consideration of its historical and political roots and developments, the YPJ are subsequently silenced as romanticised tropes of the ‘Third World Women’ replace genuine recognition of the Unit’s idiosyncrasies. Transnational feminism also reveals that this simplification occurs to erase Western complicity in Middle Eastern regimes, such as the US support of the Taliban in the 1980s, through reemphasising the saviour role North American/European states have played in global conflict, and the support they continue to afford the more ‘liberal’ opponent in present-day wars.
Just as paradoxes were present in the French examples discussed, a transnational approach also reveals contradictions in the realm of statehood and the ways in which national identity is conjured during conflict. Feminist theorist Jasbir Puar reiterates concepts of a progressive, developed West, and argues American exceptionalism rooted in sovereign masculinity advances domestic support for the “War on Terror” against a dualistically distinct East. Sovereign masculinity operates through drawing on developmental aspirations to manhood, a spectral and unstable concept, demanding hyperbolic displays of agency and traits conventionally associated with masculinity, such as violence and aggression. The concept is subsequently self-justifying, forcing those failing to fulfil expectations of manhood into redemptive, violent acts of self-display. In the context of the state, transnational feminism therefore reveals male populations are emotionally coerced into support of wars against seemingly illiberal states as conflict is tied to the performance of gender. Contradiction therefore lies in the illiberal mechanisms exercised by liberal states in their attempt to liberalise illiberal states, rendering the psychologically challenging means of gaging domestic support and hypermasculine, physical violence enacted by the US against ‘barbaric’ societies a mere reproduction of the tropes liberalism, as an ideology, holds in contempt.
In conclusion, it is evident immigration and war analysed independent of transnational feminism leaves much uncovered. Through consideration of colonial, political and religious dynamics, the ways in which certain demographics of women are systemically oppressed by predominantly liberal power regimes become apparent in ways many Western feminists have neglected. Furthermore, by assuming this approach, universal methodologies are moved away from as the ‘Third World Women’ comes to be held at the core of the study through the consideration of local factors and personal histories. Likewise, Eurocentric knowledge production, though still dominant in much academia, increasingly ceases to monopolise understandings of the Global South and its relationship with North America/Europe as transnational feminists assert feminism does not necessarily travel North to South, nor are gender hierarchies monolithic. A transnational approach to immigration and war therefore makes for a more nuanced, refined understanding of the facets in global, gender systems.
