Calls for educating girls in the Third World: futurity, girls and the 'Third World Woman'. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: MacDonald, Katie
• Is Part Of: Gender, place and culture. Volume 23:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: transnational feminism -- girls' education -- international development -- Third World Woman -- representation -- futurity; feminismo transnacional -- educación de las niñas -- desarrollo internacional -- Mujer del Tercer Mundo -- representación -- vida futura; 跨国女性主义；女孩的教育；国际发展；第三世界女性；再现；未来性; Human geography -- Periodicals; Feminism -- Periodicals; Géographie féministe -- Périodiques; 305.305
• DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2014.991699
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0966-369X

Abstract

Abstract : In this article I examine three calls for Western support for girls' education in the 'developing world'. Using transnational feminist theory and discourse analysis I look at three examples of these calls; Three Cups of Tea, 'Because I Am a Girl' and the United National Girls Education Initiative. I suggest that what Mohanty (1988) terms the 'Third World Woman' – a homogeneous, static image of women in the third world – is the spectre used to motivate Western support. Through representations of girls, Western viewers/readers are hailed to invest in order to save the girl-child from the haunting 'Third World Woman'. The girl-child, through her particularity as a girl, her future womanhood as motherhood and her neoliberal potential, becomes presented as emblems of a better future with the investment of Westerners.