Patricia Valoy is a transnational feminist and STEM advocate who offers a comprehensive summary of transnational feminist histories in the U.S. and a “toolkit” for transnational feminists to learn from these histories and achieve a new status quo that promotes anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-patriarchal thought and action. Valoy addresses U.S policies that advertise an attractive model for men of colour to join the military to achieve financial independence and economic advancement, yet this contributes to the hyper-militarization and furthering of the imperialist agenda. Western feminist discourse and practice is also questioned in regard to the sexual liberation of women, particularly women of colour who experience higher levels of racism, sexism and are more likely to be subjected to a myriad of violences throughout their lifetime.
Patricia Valoy`s article “Transnational Feminism: Why Feminist Activism Needs to Think Globally” is an incredibly rich source filled with hyperlinks to external articles and definitions, as well as deeply insightful and historical analysis through the lens of a transnational feminist, foreign born, woman of colour from the U.S. This article is a bite-sized resource that can be read by an individual who is being introduced to transnational feminist theory, or by transnational feminists operating within the academy. The external links are helpful that tie in current events as well as other transnational movements that have been covered in mass media like the Zapatistas, the veiled woman, and domestic worker protections in the U.S.
Keywords: imperialism, colonialism, militarization, intersectionality, mass media
Author: Sage Lacerte
As a graduate in Sociology with a minor in Women’s Studies class of 2002, Transnational Feminism was not something on my radar at that time. Although I still see so much value in what I studied back then, upon taking this course, I see that what I got from that degree was more from a one-third world – mostly about people being able to make choices about their lifestyle that were unconfined to heteropatriarchal social norms. Back then, the global proliferation of neoliberalism had just begun, or perhaps I should say a conscious analysis of it had not begun. It has been fascinating to return to Feminist studies seventeen years later and to see how modern-day issues are being analyze…