#while I also dont support everything zakaria has said in the past this isnt an endorsement

[cirripedia]

As a young girl growing up in Pakistan, I barely ever heard the word ‘feminist’. There were strong women around me, even a female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, but never this idea of a commitment to gender equality being somehow central to one’s identity. On the obverse, I saw a vast chasm between Bhutto and her glitzy entourage and the general condition of women in Pakistan, which was defined by powerlessness and poverty. Jayawardena’s introduction to her chapter on Sri Lanka hence struck a chord: she recalls the great attention Sri Lanka garnered in 1960, when a woman, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world’s first female prime minister. There is a tendency, Jayawardena points out, to elevate the extraordinary achievements of individual women as indicative of the general condition of women in the country. It was a problem in 1960 when Bandaranaike was elected, it was a problem in 1988 when Bhutto was elected, and it is still one today.

Foreword "Saving Solidarity" by Rafia Zakaria, "Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World" by Kumari Jayawardena

#quotes #rafia zakaria #feminism and nationalism in the third world #kumari jayawardena #while I also dont support everything zakaria has said in the past this isnt an endorsement #I finally got enough mental energy to read thru some stuff and am gonna post a couple of sections of the foreword #because these are good historical examples #feminism #radical feminism #radfem #qt #pakistan #sri lanka