Political theory and feminist social criticism

In Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism, Brooke Ackerly demonstrates the shortcomings of contemporary deliberative democratic theory, relativism, and essentialism for guiding the practice of social criticism in the real, imperfect world. Drawing theoretical implications from the activism of Third World feminists who help bring to public audiences the voices of women silenced by coercion, she provides a practicable model of social criticism. She argues that feminist critics have managed to achieve in practice what other theorists do only incompletely in theory. Complemented by Third World feminist social criticism, deliberative democratic theory becomes critical theory ± actionable, coherent, and self-re¯ective. While a complement to democratic theory, Third World feminist social riticism also addresses the problem in feminist theory associated with attempts to deal with identity politics. Third World feminist social criticism thus takes feminist theory beyond the critical impasse of the tension between anti-relativist and anti-essentialist feminist theory.

In Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism, Brooke Ackerlydemonstrates the shortcomings of contemporary deliberative demo-cratic theory, relativism, and essentialism for guiding the practice ofsocial criticism in the real, imperfect world Drawing theoreticalimplications from the activism of Third World feminists who helpbring to public audiences the voices of women silenced by coercion,she provides a practicable model of social criticism She argues thatfeminist critics have managed to achieve in practice what othertheorists do only incompletely in theory Complemented by ThirdWorld feminist social criticism, deliberative democratic theorybecomes critical theory ± actionable, coherent, and self-re¯ective.While a complement to democratic theory, Third World feminist socialcriticism also addresses the problem in feminist theory associated withattempts to deal with identity politics Third World feminist socialcriticism thus takes feminist theory beyond the critical impasse of thetension between anti-relativist and anti-essentialist feminist theory.Brooke Ackerly is Visiting Assistant Professor in the PoliticalScience Department at University of California, Los Angeles.

Series Editor

Ian Shapiro

Editorial Board

Russell Hardin Stephen Holmes Jeffrey Isaac

John Keane Elizabeth Kiss Susan Okin

Phillipe Van Parijs Phillip Pettit

As the twenty-®rst century approaches, major new political challengeshave arisen at the same time as some of the most enduring dilemmas ofpolitical association remain unresolved The collapse of communismand the end of the Cold War re¯ect a victory for democratic and liberalvalues, yet in many of the western countries that nurtured those valuesthere are severe problems of urban decay, class and racial con¯ict, andfailing political legitimacy Enduring global injustice and inequalityseem compounded by environmental problems, disease, the oppression

of women, racial, ethnic and religious minorities, and the relentlessgrowth of the world's population In such circumstances, the need forcreative thinking about the fundamentals of human political association

is manifest This new series in contemporary political theory is tended to foster such systematic normative re¯ection

in-The series proceeds in the belief that the time is ripe for a reassertion ofthe importance of problem-driven political theory It is concerned, that

is, with works that are motivated by the impulse to understand, thinkcritically about, and address the problems in the world, rather thanissues that are thrown up primarily in academic debate Books in theseries may be interdisciplinary in character, ranging over issues con-ventionally dealt with in philosophy, law, history and the humansciences The range of materials and the methods of proceeding should

be dictated by the problem at hand, not the conventional debates ordisciplinary divisions of academia

Other books in the series

Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-CordoÂn (eds.)

Democracy's Value

Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-CordoÂn (eds.)

Democracy's Edges

Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism

Brooke A Ackerly

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Acknowledgements page x

1 Silent voices and everyday critics: problems in political theory,solutions from Third World feminist social criticism 1

2 A Third World feminist theory of social criticism 33

3 Method: skeptical scrutiny, guiding criteria, and deliberative

5 Quali®cations: everyday critics, multi-sited critics, and

The problems associated with inequality and the inability of somepeople in a society to attain a public audience have interested meacademically since college Therefore my primary intellectual debts are

to Professors of Economics Henry Bruton and Roger Bolton of WilliamsCollege who oversaw my ®rst look into problems of inequality inMalaysia and instilled in me a passion for academic inquiry

Next I owe tremendous personal and intellectual debts to thoseeveryday critics in Bangladesh who educated me and to those develop-ment professionals who enabled my work with so many village womenand development workers in Kustia, Tangail, and Brahmanbaria Inparticular, I wish to thank Tom and Lisa Krift for inviting me to base myresearch in Bangladesh Elke Kraus gave me my ®rst home in Dhaka,introduced me to my closest friends in Bangladesh, and enabled me tospend formative time in Kustia with the women's savings group membersfrom Tangail My intellectual debt to her and them is obvious from the

®rst pages of this book By sharing their home life with me during theirtime of family crises, Adil and Naju Sha® let me experience their needsand concerns as if they were my own Finally, I am grateful to Dorothy

``Bina'' D'Costa who, with the help of Jagadindra ``Bappi'' Majumder,transformed me from an outside observer to a multi-sited critic I havelearned much from our continued deliberative exchange over the years

My intellectual debts to Joshua Cohen, Martha Nussbaum, andMichael Walzer are evidenced by these theorists' central presence in thisbook Though generally critical of their conclusions, I ®nd their scholar-ship engaging and important I consider my own work to complementand further, not refute, theirs

I am grateful to the academic communities at Stanford, Yale, andUCLA that provided stimulating environments during the developmentand polishing of the ideas in this book In addition, ongoing conversa-tions with Elisabeth Friedman, Bina D'Costa, and Anne Marie Goetzthroughout this project have helped me continue to see this work in its

x

larger contexts of political theory, development practice, and ThirdWorld women's activism.

During the writing of the book, audiences at Wellesley College, theUniversity of Arizona, and the annual meeting of the American PoliticalScience Association offered provocative questions that pushed me toclarify parts of the argument Particular among these were questionsfrom Joel Krieger, Cary Nederman, Cheryl Hall, and Melissa Lane Inaddition, Victor Wolfenstein and Iris Marion Young offered thoughtfulcommentary based on the text of those remarks that pushed me tosituate my work in the context of postmodernism and relativism

The text itself has bene®ted from many readers Mark Tunick offeredcareful attention to early drafts and made an inspiring investment in thequality of my writing Debra Satz and Jim March asked provocativetheoretical questions in response to early drafts Elisabeth Hansotprovided thoughtful and thorough comments on the organization andargument of the book Ian Shapiro offered suggestions about emphasisand organization that were essential to its current form Nancy Hirsch-mann read the manuscript critically and constructively twice Heradvice guided its reorganization and her comments improved its overallquality Any errors and vagaries that remain do so despite theirthoughtful efforts

For comic relief early on and attention to the readability of the ®nalmanuscript, Rebecca Todd deserves special thanks For ushering thebook through the editorial process with the right combination ofdiscipline and cheer, I am grateful to John Haslam Others have readparts of the manuscript Phyllis Barnes gave an inspired read of the ®rstchapter Michael Goodhart offered thoughtful comments on chaptertwo Elisabeth Friedman provided critical commentary on the discus-sion of the women's rights movement in chapter four In addition totheir thoughtful commentary, these readers have identi®ed a ¯aw orendearing feature of the book: no chapter stands on its own In my effort

to explicate my ideas while acknowledging my intellectual debts I havehad to make decisions about the order of discussions The reader maynot like my choices On occasion I refer the reader to other chapters but

I expect the impatient reader to make good use of the index to ®nd thediscussions that interest her

For encouragement I thank my family who have been a personalresource throughout this project Speci®cally, Katherine Stevenson,Chris Stevenson, Ann Jacobs, Carl Jacobs, and Rick Ackerly kept theroad to completion paved and plowed

A J William Fulbright Research Fellowship funded the Bangladesh

research and the American Association of University Women AmericanFellowship funded the early writing process.

Finally and most importantly, I owe special thanks to two people who

in different and complementary ways have helped strengthen me as ascholar and a person Susan Okin has seen my thoughts develop fromseemingly unrelated re¯ections on Aristotle and efforts to articulaterespectful feminist criticism of power dynamics in families under theeconomic stress of poverty into a coherent manuscript Her con®dencehas been motivational from the beginning Moreover, her careful andrespectful though critical readings of others, coupled with a cleartheoretical message of her own and an enduring concern about injustice

in the world, make each piece of her scholarship a model

Bill Zinke has likewise witnessed the development in my thought Hehas been convinced since its earliest articulations that Third Worldfeminist social criticism is relevant to criticism beyond the scope offeminist concerns and thus misnamed I agree; feminist social criticism

is political theory While I still hold to the label I have chosen for reasonsexplained in the text, I thank him for considering every deliberativeexchange about feminism an opportunity to envision feminism ashumanism

Martha Nussbaum, Political Theory (20, 2), p 222, copyright # 1992 bySage Publications, Inc Reprinted by Permission of Sage Publications,Inc

in political theory, solutions from Third

World feminist social criticism

When you live in the water, you don't argue with the crocodiles

(Bengali proverb)

Prologue

In Bangladesh in September of 1993, I accompanied a group of ruralwomen from Tangail who were members of Save the Children women'sgroups on their visit with rural women of Kustia who were members ofSoptagram women's savings groups.1On the afternoon of the third day,

as we walked from a workshop on women's legal rights to a meetingbetween the women's groups, we heard shrieks of terror coming from ahousehold compound on the other side of a rice ®eld ``What's goingon?'' I asked Sahara, a Tangail woman, turned to me with anger and amemory of terror in her eyes and hit her right ®st into her cupped lefthand She had experienced domestic violence and recognized thesounds from across the ®eld

After a time, Sahara asked, ``Do husbands beat their wives in yourcountry?'' ``Some do,'' I answered, ``even though it is illegal.'' We alllaughed at the irony, having just learned about women's formal legalrights in Bangladesh and noting how they differed from local practice.2

1 Save the Children is a US-based international nongovernment organization (NGO) operating in Bangladesh; Soptagram is a Bangladeshi NGO operating in the western portion of the country primarily in Kustia Tangail and Kustia are two thanas, a regional designation with the approximate political function of a county in the United States Tangail is in the center of the country near the capital, Dhaka; Kustia is on the western border with India Most of the women on the trip had never been outside their thana.

2 As a result of women's activism in the late '70s against all forms of violence against women, but especially dowry-related beatings and death, Bangladesh passed laws protecting women (Jahan 1995) These include the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1979, the Cruelty to Women Punishment Ordinance of 1983, the Child Marriage Restraint Act of

1984 (making marriage illegal for girls under the age of 18 and for boys under 21), the Illegal Traf®cking of Women Act of 1988 and the Family Court Ordinance of 1985 These laws are regularly violated in social practices For example, although national statistics are unavailable, it is generally con®rmed in local studies that dowry is now paid

in nearly all Hindu and Muslim marriages When the law was passed, generally Hindus

``Why do men hit their wives?'' I asked ``Because they had a bad day.Because they are poor,'' answered Sahara ``Because the rice is too hot,

or there is not enough rice,'' said Apfza, a woman from Kustia Then sheadded, ``A good husband does not beat his wife even when they arepoor.''

Then Jahanara, another Tangail woman overhearing our conversation,told the story of her women's group which went as a group to the house

of a member who was being abused and asked her husband to stopbeating her This reminded another Tangail woman walking ahead of us

of another group's effort to get a member's husband to allow theirdaughter to continue in school even though he was ready to arrange hermarriage They staged a sit-in at the member's home

Although separately they had used their groups as bases of collectiveaction, before their walk together in Kustia, the Tangail women's groupswere unaware of each other's collective actions Together, they recog-nized that their collective action caused the husbands' public embarrass-ment and brought public attention to their views on domestic violenceand girls' education By the time we arrived at the meeting place, thewomen were energized by their stories Through their dialogue, theKustia and Tangail women recognized that the examples of group actionwere not isolated They identi®ed collective action as a tried andeffective method of breaking out of coerced silence in order to voicesocial criticism and to in¯uence social decision making And theylearned they possessed the means of an effective form of activism.The main purpose of the trip was for Save the Children to train itsTangail women's groups in leadership and group management skills sothat they could sustain themselves when Save the Children ceasedworking in Tangail Save the Children was in the process of focusingtheir efforts in the more economically challenged region of Nasrinagar,

to the northeast The conventional approach to such a training wouldhave been to bring leadership trainers from elsewhere in Bangladesh toTangail However, the principal program of®cer proposed the training

be conducted by Soptagram leadership trainers in Kustia for a number

of reasons The journey to Kustia would provide the Tangail womenwith a life experience that would make them unique in their villages.Women and most poor men do not travel beyond their villages except(for women) to marry The experience of bidesh (``foreign'') travel wouldstrengthen their position in the community, bene®ting the women andtheir groups The women were required to get their husbands' per-mission for the trip Having one's wife go was a source of status for most

practiced dowry and Muslims, particularly poor Muslims, practiced it in less than 20%

of marriages (Timm & Gain 1992: 74; White 1992: 104±106).

men, so they granted their support for their wives' trips and ingly, for their wives' ongoing participation in the groups.

correspond-The purpose of bringing the Tangail women to Kustia (an all-dayjourney) for a week was to allow women from different backgroundswho had been participating in women's groups sponsored by Save theChildren in Tangail and Soptagram in Kustia to learn from eachothers' experiences The program of®cer expected that, together, unin-hibited by family pressures, the women would speak freely about theirlives and honestly about the potential for their families to inhibit thesuccess of the groups By locating the training in Kustia, Save theChildren would remove the women from their families and communitytemporarily and thereby free them from some social constraints thatmight otherwise inhibit their interactions In addition Save the Childrenidenti®ed Soptagram as the ideal partner for this training as they hadtheir own women's groups and shared the goal of women's empower-ment Both Soptagram and Save the Children thought their groupswould be strengthened by meeting each other They did not know whatthe Tangail and Kustia women would learn from each other, but Savethe Children hoped that the Tangail women would learn that theycould be self-reliant and that they did not need Save the Children tokeep their groups sustained

The groups' activism before coming to Kustia and their sharing theirexperiences in Kustia are examples of social criticism in a context ofcoercive gender hierarchy The deliberation in Kustia between Tangailand Kustia women was a form of deliberation that resulted in the sharedlearning among the women in an environment secure from potentiallyharmful gender inequality The activism of the Tangail women ofstaging sit-ins to in¯uence their husbands is an example of critics trying

to make an otherwise insecure environment one in which their voices areheard Before a background of gender inequality, these women demon-strate deliberation as important social criticism Ignoring the Bengaliproverb, these women have found a means to argue with the crocodiles.3

The anecdote and social criticism

Although this anecdote does not give us a complete account of ThirdWorld feminist social criticism, it provides an illustration and a startingpoint for my subsequent discussion While it seems like a story about

3 Sarah C White provides the source of the proverb in Arguing with the Crocodile (1992) For more general discussions of women's activism in the context of gender hierarchy in Bangladesh see White (1992) for a local and anthropological description and Roushan Jahan (1995) for a more general and political description.

particular women, the story actually reveals the critical components of

my philosophy of social criticism This anecdote raises three sets ofquestions about social critics and social criticism in everyday life: how

do social critics do social criticism? what do social critics do? and who is

a social critic? A philosophy of social criticism needs to give a generalaccount of the method, roles, and quali®cations of social critics

Through this anecdote, I offer a glimpse of the method of socialcriticism practiced by women activists Having discussed the problems

of domestic violence among themselves, the women on the walk identifycollective action as a potential means of making their social criticismheard Being heard is no guarantee that their social criticism, oncemade, will successfully in¯uence social change These women live underfamilial, social, political, and economic values, practices, and normsthat enforce women's silence.4 However, they have identi®ed a way tobreak that silence with each other and to force their husbands to hearthem As critics, these women challenge the common practice of wifebattery and they assert a daughter's right to an education Their method

is to inform themselves through collective dialogue, to challenge ally accepted values, practices, and norms, and to advocate for thosethings they believe women should have, in this case safety in their homesand an education

gener-The critics in my anecdote also demonstrate the multiple roles ofsocial critics Critics promote inquiry The foreign researcher askedquestions: ``What's going on?'' and ``Why do men hit their wives?''Critics promote deliberation By asking questions I facilitated inquiryamong the women Individual women shared their understandings ofthe causes of domestic violence The women described using collectiveaction to enable their participation in deliberation about the values,practices, and norms that affect their lives Critics promote institutionalchange By bringing the women together in the ®rst place, Save theChildren under the initiative of its program of®cer acted as a social critic

by offering a unique institutional environment for the women I call this

an institutional change because it changed (temporarily) the tional context of women's interaction with each other and created a

conven-4 By ``values, practices, and norms'' I mean to include the familial, social, economic and political institutions of a society including formal laws and legal organizations (like legislatures or courts), informal practices like dating, and hybrid practices such as marriage which are guided by both formal laws, organized religion, and informal norms.

I mention familial values, practices, and norms separately from social ones because I want to be able to distinguish between family activities and those social activities that are not directly related to the family Although I refer to them as a society's values, practices and norms, I do not mean to imply that they are recognized or practiced universally within that society.

unique opportunity for interaction since poor rural women rarelyexchange experiences with strangers The process might promotefurther inquiry, deliberation, and institutional changes when the women

go home to their communities All three roles of critics can overlap andall three can be directed at visible practices such as domestic violence or

at more foundational social values and norms such as gendered powerinequalities By promoting inquiry, deliberation, and institutionalchange in an otherwise coercive and oppressive environment, critics maypromote social change that is more informed, collective, and uncoerced

By informed, I mean that all views are heard and given the respect ofcritical attention By collective, I mean that perspectives are shared sothat together society has more information (though some informationcan be misleading) And by uncoerced I mean that views are expressedfreely and speakers are uninhibited by norms of behavior or by speci®cthreats from others

Finally, the anecdote demonstrates that the quali®cations of socialcritics are not exclusive The critics in the story are real people, doingtheir jobs and living their lives They are a foreign researcher who asked

a question, a woman who experiences domestic violence in her home,another who is familiar with it in her neighborhood, two groups ofwomen who acted in concert to voice their criticism of wife abuse andtheir desire to educate their daughters, the Save the Children programof®cer, and the two development organizations They are individualsand collectivities; they are foreigners, locals, and people who cannotneatly be categorized as either; they have thought about these issuesalone, but they work in concert for social change Who among these aresocial critics? All are

Everyday people walking in an everyday place, undocumented byreporters is not what people commonly think of when they picture socialcritics or activists But, I argue that these women are active in theirsocial criticism and by example offer a model of social criticism appro-priate for those otherwise silenced by the values, practices, and norms oftheir daily lives This is not to say that, when using the method I outline

to do the roles I describe, the critics I identify will be able to effect socialchange Social criticism is one way to counter, mitigate, or underminepower inequalities, but whether a particular critical effort will beeffective is a matter of politics

Social criticism and political theory

Contemporary deliberative liberal democratic theory provides thecontext for the theory of social criticism I propose Deliberative theorists

have outlined principles for framing discussion, designed institutions forpromoting free and equal discussion, and even brought to life a modeldeliberative forum Explicit and implicit in their work is criticism of asociety in which political power is unevenly disbursed and an argumentthat more inclusive public deliberation will enhance the legitimacy ofpolitical decision making even while those decisions remain largely inthe hands of representatives.

Despite its critical implications, deliberative theorists have yet to showhow to use deliberation in everyday life to bring into practice theassumptions, principles, institutions, and models that are the substance

of their theories An account of social criticism is an essential ment to deliberative theory if the latter is to be a credible attack onpower inequalities

comple-Were deliberative theorists to give greater attention to the sources ofinequality and misinterpretation in the real world, they might alsorecognize that an account of social criticism is a valuable component of

a political philosophy Educative deliberation ± that is, deliberation forthe purposes of contributing to a society's collective learning process,discovery, and knowledge ± is the basis of the complementary philo-sophy of social criticism I propose Given the importance of educativedeliberation to social decision making, the critic's role is to promote it;critics from a variety of perspectives contribute to it; good critics makeuse of it in their methodology

In the exposition of their political theories democratic theoristsprovide an account of how citizens generally participate in democraticsociety and decision making as they describe it They give accounts ofthe education required to participate thus, and they give examples of theinstitutions that will enable citizens to participate as described And yet,when it comes to social criticism ± to giving an account of how thosesame citizens can participate in bringing about the polity they describe ±these theorists are silent At most they give an account of the role of thepolitical theorist as social critic But political theorists are not the mostimportant political actors in bringing about social change; certainly, weought not to base our hopes for seeing greater democracy realized on thetheorists' ability to make a sound argument Really, social changetoward greater or worse democracy is brought about by those samecitizens who will participate in the improved polity once achieved And

so, it makes sense that a democratic political theory should have thing to say about how social criticism might in¯uence social decisionmaking such that social change toward a more democratic society(however envisioned) is possible The theorist or philosopher of socialcriticism cannot predict how effective a given practice of social criticism

some-will be ± that is a matter of actual politics ± but an account of citizens'roles in bringing about political change is a missing constitutive element

of contemporary democratic theory

Some liberal democratic theorists have made speaking, listening,exchanging arguments, and thinking critically essential to their views ofpublic decision making.5These deliberative theorists might be expected

to give a similar account of social criticism as being a function of acritic's speaking with and listening to others, thinking critically abouttheir and her own ideas and exchanging arguments with others More-over, one might expect them to argue that the critic's job is to promotesuch activity in the political forum As such, one might expect that theyconsider how a critic goes about promoting such deliberation under thecircumstance of real world inequality, exclusivity of political fora,advantage of elite political actors, and coercion of nonelite actors.However, the more common approach among political theorists is tooffer social criticism as an explicit or implied extension of their politicalphilosophy Whether their own social criticism is explicit or implied, thedeliberative theorists do not offer a general account of what socialcriticism should be

John Dewey, a forefather of deliberative democratic theory, has beenexplicit in incorporating a philosophy of social criticism into his politicaltheory His philosophy of human learning is foundational to his politicaltheory and theory of social criticism Dewey argues that people andsociety learn by listening to one another's ideas and then playing out intheir imagination all of the possible scenarios to which following onesuggestion would lead

[D]eliberation is a dramatic rehearsal (in imagination) of various competingpossible lines of action Thought runs ahead and foresees outcomes, andthereby avoids having to await the instruction of actual failure or disaster (1983[1922]: 132±133)

Individuals and societies make decisions similarly Both have an interest

in making the best decisions as measured by their ability to reconcilecompeting understandings (1983 [1922]: 134 and 1989 [1944]: 273).According to Dewey's political philosophy, for individuals to participateequally and freely in democracy, they must have the intellectual capacity

5 Contemporary deliberative political theorists are numerous and varied in their theorizing, as I will discuss in chapter 2 Theorists who have written foundational arguments in deliberative democratic theory include Joseph M Bessette (1980), James Bohman (1996) Joshua Cohen (1989a), John S Dryzek (1990), Jon Elster (1997), David Estlund (1993), James S Fishkin (1991), Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson (1996), Jack Knight and James Johnson (1994), Bernard Manin (1987), Jane Mans- bridge (1992, 1988), Frank I Michelman (1986), David Miller (1992), Thomas A Spragens, Jr (1990), Cass R Sunstein (1988) and Mark Warren (1996a).

to do so They must be able to think free, undictated thoughts, todiscover and learn with others (1983 [1922]: 9±11, 134 and 1989[1946b]: 221) In addition, deliberation requires the ability to imagine ±

to imagine the responses that one's actions will elicit from others and toimagine the possible consequences of one's actions (1983 [1922]: 134,

144, 217) And people must value the collective life that facilitates theequal and free participation of all (1989 [1942]: 174, 178±9) Then, inDewey's view, deliberation is at once the means of developing in peoplethe ability to participate equally, freely and valuably in their collectivelife, and it is the end of collective life Dewey's political philosophyemphasizes the developmental role of deliberation in individuals' abil-ities to contribute to collective life and in the society's ability to functionaccording to the collected understandings of its citizens The role of thesocial critic, according to Dewey's political philosophy, is to educatefuture citizens to be critical thinkers Of equal import, the critic mustinspire current citizens to re¯ect thoughtfully on the existing or emer-ging values, practices, and norms of their society such as increasinginequality in industrializing society (1980 [1916b] and 1982 [1919])and totalitarianism (1989 [1942]) because they may otherwise under-mine the freedom and equality of liberal democracy (1980 [1916a] and

1980 [1916b]) No deliberative theorist since Dewey has appreciatedthe role of deliberation in bringing about the conditions for deliberativedemocracy

The implied social criticism of deliberative theorists tends to focus on

a society's institutional and social preconditions, and procedures ofdeliberative democracy For example, Amy Gutmann and Joshua Cohenarticulate a political philosophy of deliberative democracy according towhich, despite moral disagreements, citizens debate political issues andreach political consensus.6 Such a view requires that citizens tolerateopposing views, listen to each other respectfully, and make their deci-sions based on their thoughtful evaluation of the arguments presented.According to the deliberative theorists, deliberative democracy requiresand reinforces an ideal environment for deliberated social decisionmaking that includes self-respect, mutual respect, equality, and anagreed-upon de®nition of what constitutes reasonable argument in thepublic sphere According to their view, where societies suf®cientlyapproximate the ideal environment, deliberative democracy will perpe-tuate that environment and yield legitimate political consensus (e.g.,Cohen 1989a) The implied social criticism is that societies should work

to promote the ideal deliberative environment and its corresponding

6 See Gutmann (1995), Gutmann & Thompson (1996), and Cohen (1989a).

necessary institutions Cohen and co-author Joel Rogers argue thatassociations are such necessary institutions for deliberative democracyand they offer an idealized account of those associations, but do notoffer a complementary account of how to bring about such institutions(Cohen & Rogers 1992) Gutmann implies through her discussion ofMozert v Hawkins and Wisconsin v Yoder that social criticism shouldpromote an educational system that teaches critical thinking such thatpeople learn to hold their views not dogmatically, but based on theirhaving respectfully considered alternative views and having chosen theirown views as being most promising (Gutmann 1995; see also Gutmann

& Thompson 1996) The social criticism she offers is implied ratherthan explicit She offers examples of what constitute (in her view)convincing arguments about what education should entail, but there is

no complementary account of how society might bring about such aneducational system

Both Cohen and Gutmann (and their co-authors) offer an account ofdeliberative democracy that is based on the strong assumptions of self-respect, mutual respect, equality, and an agreed-upon de®nition of whatconstitutes reasonable argument preexisting in the society in question.But such preconditions are lacking in most societies (and one might besuspicious of how widespread they are in a society that someone claimsnearly approximates those preconditions).7 In the real world, inequal-ities are too pressing, or too invisible, for the implied social criticism ofideal political theory to be relevant Deliberation is essential to theirpolitical vision, but they have not employed it for social criticism wherethe preconditions of deliberative democracy are lacking Moreover, theyrequire that a society agree on the form of argument that will beacceptable in deliberative fora and they describe that form as narrowlyconsistent with legal norms of argumentation Following this paradigm,social criticism would be very similar to what a judge does and verydissimilar to the actions and offstage voices of silent critics

Benjamin Barber comes closer to Dewey in incorporating a theory ofsocial criticism into his political theory In Strong Democracy, Barberincludes in his argument for participatory democracy an argumentabout what social criticism needs to be in order to bring about suchparticipatory democracy For Barber, strong democracy is an ongoingform of political life where people participate in public decision making

as free citizens and who, through self-legislation, together resolve

con-¯ict despite lack of common ground (1984: 117±138, 151) Social

7 Jack Knight and James Johnson argue that deliberative democracy requires ``equal opportunity of access to political in¯uence,'' but argue that there is no way to measure the capacity to exercise political in¯uence (1997: 280, 303±304, 305).

criticism complements and promotes strong democracy according toBarber Social criticism is an ongoing incremental process leading towardstrong democracy by taking advantage of existing practices and institu-tions that are supportive of strong democracy (1984: 262) Of the speci®cinstitutions he proposes, some, such as television-facilitated national

``town meetings'' and the national referendum process have been tried insome form (1984: 274±278).8Barber offers explicit social criticisms thatare consistent with his political philosophy and are intended to bring itabout But note, these are speci®c criticisms offered by him He doesnot tell us how he arrived at these suggestions and not others

In my view, strong democracy implies a philosophy of social criticismaccording to which many social critics from a variety of critical perspec-tives exchange their ideas of what constitutes appropriate social criti-cism Barber has articulated that social criticism should be incrementaland ongoing, but then he offers a list of suggestions that, to be consistentwith strong democracy, should be offered as the result of a deliberativeexchange among a variety of social critics One might argue that theresearch leading up to his publishing this list included deliberativeexchanges with other social scientists, but he does not tell us why herecommends these, and not other, suggestions

I am not criticizing Barber for not doing what he did not promise to

do Rather, I use him as an example of a deliberative theorist who offers

a partial sketch of what social criticism generally should be in order to

be consistent with his account of strong democracy But social criticismneeds to be more than incremental, practicable, and leading towardstrong democracy; it also needs to specify the roles, quali®cations, andmethod of social critics Recognizing that we live in an imperfect world,deliberative theorists owe society a general account of the process ofsocial criticism so that, as a society, we can bring about deliberativedemocracy in a deliberative way In addition, as I will show in chapter 2,deliberative democratic theory as social criticism resolves a debateamong deliberative theorists about whether deliberation sets or meets anepistemological standard

All of the deliberative theorists discussed above articulate a politicalphilosophy and either explicitly or implicitly suggest certain corre-sponding social criticisms However, real world values in con¯ict,competing interests, and disputed priorities generate philosophical di-lemmas A question in political philosophy is interesting only if it seemsrelevant to contemporary political life Ian Shapiro takes the oppositetack from those discussed above In Political Criticism, Shapiro criticizes

8 Barber proposes modi®cations to the current state referendum process and menting it on the national level I discuss the proposal in chapter 4.

imple-constructed political theory and offers in its place a view of politicaltheory as social criticism According to Shapiro, a political theorycannot be based on any speci®c principles because it is human nature toexplore and question those principles (1990: 262; see also 1994).Instead political theory is the kind of social criticism that a politicalphilosopher can give The job of a political theorist is to offer criticism

of a society's previously opaque dimensions of social actions thatperpetuate systematic domination (1990: 296) Unlike other politicaltheorists, Shapiro sets his political theorizing in the broader context ofhis philosophy of social criticism The critic's basic assumption is thatpeople ``have an interest in knowing and acting on the truth'' (1990:285) By offering a political theory (an account of the ``truth''), thetheorist acts as a critic by revealing that some existing institutionsperpetuate systematic domination

Shapiro distinguishes the general philosophy of social criticism from aparticular political theory of an individual critic As a political-theoristcritic, Shapiro argues that democracy best serves legitimate governance

as a method for empowering the disempowered, securing the freedom todisagree with political decisions, and institutionalizing mechanisms forloyal opposition Consequently, it requires citizens' suspicion of estab-lished power relationships and their education to develop their capacityfor critical thinking (Shapiro 1996b) According to Shapiro, there is noblueprint for a democratic polity Rather in a democracy, the de®nition

of social justice is determined democratically The values, practices, andnorms of a society are suspect if they are hierarchical, but they arechangeable; and political change takes place democratically (1994)

In my view, Shapiro's philosophy of social criticism and his politicalphilosophy are promising for a general philosophy of social criticism.However, Shapiro himself is not so con®dent In ``Three Ways to Be aDemocrat'' he suspects ``that there is little that is general to be saidabout the democratic management of tensions internal to the demo-cratic ideal'' (1994: 147) One such tension might be the tensionbetween, say, the suspicion of a hierarchical practice and a democraticdecision to maintain that practice despite the harm it causes the lesspowerful In order to be relevant to the pressing problems of the day, thephilosophy of social criticism needs to provide a general account of howsocial critics should attempt to redress the harms caused by suchcon¯icts However, to do so democratically, social criticism cannot bethe job solely of the political theorist She is but one kind of social criticand not one known for being particularly active in the trenches of realworld inequalities In order to complement a democratic politicaltheory, a philosophy of social criticism needs to offer an account of the

practice of social criticism which, even under the nonideal conditions ofinequality, coercion, exploitation, and oppression, can promote socialdecision making that is more informed, collective, and uncoerced Thusthe philosophy of social criticism I present both offers a ``metanarrative''about what social criticism needs to be generally in order to be suf®-ciently critical and is critical of speci®c social criticisms if they are based

on a presumption of a metanarrative Without the postmodern jargon,

in order to be suf®ciently critical, social critics must make use of thecritical method I describe and be critical of their own criticism.9

Michael Walzer offers an account of social criticism that explicitlycomplements his political philosophy In Spheres of Justice, Walzer(1983) advocates a social democratic society in which inequalities in onesphere of life cannot be transposed into inequalities in other spheres.Most obviously, one should not be able to convert economic wealth intopolitical power Further, he asserts that communities have ``sharedunderstandings'' about the values according to which goods within eachsphere should be distributed Walzer does offer an account of socialcriticism which complements his political philosophy According toWalzer's account of social criticism, the critic, who is an insider,interprets the practices of a society to determine whether they areconsistent with its shared meanings (1987 and 1988) Walzer's account

of social criticism is relativist (or anti-essentialist) because social valuesare determined relative to a given context The result is an account ofsocial criticism that is unable to deal with disagreements as to whatconstitutes ``shared'' values, that is, disagreements about morality(1987: 32) Because it does not tell a society and its critics how toproceed under conditions of such disagreement, I argue that interpret-ation as social criticism offers too narrow an account of social criticism.Despite its shortcomings as a comprehensive philosophy of social criti-cism (and although Walzer himself is only obliquely aware of it),Walzer's political philosophy includes a presumed universal value ±opposition to oppression ± which is useful for a more general account ofsocial criticism, speci®cally, the critic's method as I will describe it.From the perspective of a modi®ed liberal democrat, Martha Nuss-baum's social criticism also explicitly complements her political philo-sophy Her self-described historically sensitive essentialist approach tosocial criticism allows for de®nitive judgments about certain socialvalues She argues that certain values are universally recognized as beingessential to being human Those values include the ability to meet one'sbasic physical needs, but they also include the ability to participate in

9 Compare this view to the assumption of some postmodernists that all social criticism is founded on a metanarrative (Fraser & Nicholson 1990: 34).

decision making about matters that affect one's life (1992) In a detailedlist of capabilities, Nussbaum identi®es those capabilities that she arguesare essential to living a life worthy of being described as human Certainliberal democratic values are embodied in Nussbaum's list of values.The role of social critics and societies is to bring about changes suchthat all members of a society are able to live a ful®lling human life.Nussbaum's account of social criticism is incomplete; it incorporates nomethodological requirement to consult with the silent voices of a societyand, consequently, as I discuss in chapter 3, it allows mistakes ininterpretation on the part of the social critic to go unchallenged.Nussbaum's main contribution to the philosophy of social criticism is,however, an important aspect of the critical method Social criticismrequires, among other things, universal standards by which to assessgiven local practices Nussbaum offers a draft of such criteria.

I chose to discuss Walzer and Nussbaum in detail in chapter 3because they outline and practice a philosophy of social criticism andbecause, though ¯awed, each makes use of one aspect of the tripartitemethodology which I argue is necessary for social criticism that listens

to the silent voices of a society I accept the deliberative theorists'account of the ideal political world, but argue that their politicalphilosophy is meaningful only as an ideal In order to be useful for socialcriticism it requires not merely each individual theorist's suggestions forinstitutional changes, but rather a more general, complementaryaccount of social criticism that promotes social change toward achievingthe ideal Although Walzer provides a complementary philosophy ofsocial criticism for his political philosophy, that philosophy is based on afaulty premise I argue that social understandings are not always well-de®ned and ``shared.'' In fact, they are frequently disputed, or, undercircumstances of coercion, they are shared by some and forced onothers Accordingly, in my view, social critics have greater responsibil-ities than merely to interpret existing ``shared'' understandings relative

to their given context but also to be skeptical of how universally they areheld within a society Walzer's account of interpretation as socialcriticism is an incomplete account of social criticism Nussbaum'saccount of social criticism is also incomplete, but for different reasonsthan those of the deliberative theorists or Walzer Nussbaum's account

of social criticism is incomplete because her critical method is de®ned Nussbaum's essentialist model of social criticism has nomethodological check to prevent or correct critics' errors in interpreting

ill-or priill-oritizing people's basic needs Were Walzer and Nussbaum tive to the views of those whose voices are silenced, they might embracethe deliberative approach to social criticism

atten-In sum, while attempting to offer models of social criticism, thesetheorists provide incomplete accounts of the roles, quali®cations, andmethods of social critics in the real imperfect world According to thephilosophy of social criticism I propose, social critics help societypromote informed, collective, and uncoerced social decision making inthe real world where inequalities are perpetuated by social values,practices, and norms In the process of explicating this account of socialcriticism I argue that the women in the anecdote and other womenactivists and scholars around the world have managed to achieve inpractice what these philosophers do incompletely in theory.

Social criticism requires the examination of seemingly shared values,practices, and norms Political theory might guide us in determining theends of social criticism; but in this book I focus on the process of socialcriticism For this purpose I take the end of social criticism to be theongoing process of bringing about incrementally a more informed,collective, and uncoerced process of social change Although they maynot always be successful, the everyday critics such as those on the walk

in Bangladesh, and their counterparts around the world, practice socialcriticism that has been successful in this regard

The social change inspired by the practice of social criticism I describewill generally promote democracy, but the speci®c form of that democ-racy need not and cannot be speci®ed The account of social criticism Iprovide is consistent with many institutional forms of deliberativedemocracy, including associations and variations in party politics Thisview of social criticism is conducive to any institutions that promotedirect, inclusive, and collective participation in governance, but it is alsoopen to the possibility that good representatives and institutions ofrepresentation may enable a society to achieve informed, collective, anduncoerced social decision making

Social criticism as I outline it is a process conducive to incremental,informed, collective, and uncoerced social change Social criticism is themeans for society and its critics to evaluate existing values, practices,and norms that cause or perpetuate harmful inequalities It promotessocial discussion of, but does not guarantee resolution of, con¯icts.Despite existing inequalities, there is an important role for deliberation

in social criticism

A Third World feminist tripartite methodology

In contexts of coercion where disagreements are not easily articulated,

my philosophy of social criticism de®nes roles and quali®cations forcritics that together potentially challenge all forms of oppression and

coercion However, because it is dif®cult to recognize oppression onehas not experienced and because it is sometimes dif®cult to understandand articulate oppression one has experienced, social critics need amethod As feminist legal scholar Katharine Bartlett notes, ``a methodneither guarantees a particular result nor even the right result It does,however, provide some discipline'' (1990: 849) My feminist method-ology provides such discipline It is a method for the critic and thosewithin the society she criticizes to learn about people and perspectiveswhich pursuit of one's own interests, or even genuine concern forothers, might not lead one to acknowledge I do not claim to be theauthor of the method of social criticism I articulate Rather, I havedistilled it from the practice of many Third World women activists.

``Third World'' is a term that denotes countries of various stages ofeconomic, social and political development By virtue of their histories,the phrase reminds us of the dynamics of race, class, nationality, andcolonialism and the struggles of identity, self-determination, and cul-tural survival that are relevant to their present economy, society andpolitics.10 The phrase is ®rst attributed to French sociologist AlfredSauvy in 1952 when he referred to the countries that were not alignedwith the USA or the USSR as the ``tiers monde'', thereby likening thenonaligned countries to France's Tiers Etat or commoners The changes

in the world that called for the participation of the tiers monde in worldleadership would be as important to the future of the world as thechanges in France that called for the participation of the Tiers Etat in theFrench government in 1789 were to the future of France Leaders of thepostcolonial states ± most notably Sukarno of Indonesia and Nehru ofIndia ± sought to outline a third way of development that followedneither of the major ideologies of the West: capitalism and communism

At the Bandung Conference of 1955, leaders of Asian and Africancountries asserted their common desires for world peace and develop-ment.11In the sixties in the USA, ``Third World'' became a pejorativeterm for referring to countries whose populations live with poverty, lack

of education, high unemployment, and in the seventies with in¯ationand high national debt Its usage also expanded to include communitieswithin developed states who lived under similar conditions of poverty,lack of education, and high unemployment.12

10 Struggles of identity, self-determination, and cultural survival are sometimes deemed Fourth World issues with reference to indigenous people's struggles.

11 See George McTurnan Kahin (1956), the transcripts of speeches at Bandung published

by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Indonesia (1955), and Richard Wright (1956).

12 See also Peter Worsley's account of the history of the idea of the ``Third World'' in The Three Worlds (1984: especially 306±344).

Recently, women from certain countries and backgrounds haveappropriated the term, in part because it reminds their audience ofhistorical and contemporary relations of power between developedand less developed countries which they want to challenge, because it

is ¯exible enough to refer to underdeveloped communities withindeveloped countries, and because it avoids the judgments associatedwith ``less developed'' and ``underdeveloped.'' Chandra TalpadeMohanty criticizes those who would depict Third World women asde®ned by their victim status She broadly de®nes Third Worldwomen as women who struggle from a combination of discriminations(1991b: 74±75, fn 1) Gita Sen and Caren Grown argue that ThirdWorld women is ``a positive self-af®rmation based on our strugglesagainst the multiple oppressions of nation, gender, class, and ethnicity''(1987: 97)

Other feminists have thought to solve problems in feminist theory bydrawing on Third World women's activism (Moser 1989; Chowdhry1995; French 1992; Jayawardena 1986; Sen & Grown 1987) JulieMostov (1992), Marion Smiley (1993) and Jodi Dean (1996) havearticulated feminist theory consistent with what I call Third Worldfeminism by focusing on women's empowerment

In my view, Third World women activists today seek what ThirdWorld leaders sought in the 1950s: another way Through their practicethey demonstrate a way to empower women that is a function neither ofnotions of women as they have been understood in their traditionalroles as wives, mothers, and care-givers nor of their presumed identitywith men, but rather is a function of their own attempts to opposeharmful inequalities in their lives Thus, I use the term ``Third World''

to refer to those seeking a third way, an empowered way, for womenand for the socioeconomic development of their countries Whendescribing women's activism ± particularly in chapter 4, the women'shuman rights activism ± I distinguish between western (includingwestern-educated women who af®liate themselves with western ideas)and nonwestern women because I mean to refer to their differences inresources and education Although I don't like the connotation ofotherness associated with the term nonwestern, I use it because, asopposed to the monolithic connotation of ``western,'' nonwestern re-cognizes the range of perspectives that may be excluded by following awestern paradigm When I mean to refer to women's geographicdifferences I use the more currently accepted terms of Northern andSouthern women In my view, Third World feminists are de®ned bytheir search for another way for feminism, not by their issues, interests,education, resources, or geography They may be western or nonwes-

tern, Northern or Southern In this sense, Fourth World feminists arealso Third World feminists.13

I call these activists and scholars ``feminists'' because they are engaged

in activism or scholarship organized by women to transform themselvesand their world As Brazilian feminists Vera Soares, Ana Alice AlcantaraCosta, Cristina Maria Buarque, Denise Dourado Dora, and WaniaSant'Anna de®ne it, feminism is ``the political action of women asagents effecting change in their own condition Feminism supports theproposition that women should transform themselves and the world''(1995: 302) Some activists call themselves ``feminist.'' However,because of the negative associations that the term ``feminist'' has tomany ears, many Third World women activists reject the label Not allwomen activists or self-described feminists practice social criticism as Idescribe it And not all women who practice this methodology wouldidentify themselves with the label ``feminist.'' However, many womenactivists do practice Third World feminist social criticism as I describe

it, and many more through their work have contributed to this criticalmethodology Although women working for women's empowermentdeveloped this methodology, it is a model of social criticism that isappropriate for challenging institutionalized hierarchy broadly Thus,though feminism provides the source of this method, its application isnot limited to feminist issues In fact, this view of social criticism is thericher articulation of the critique of hierarchy that some democratictheorists have been seeking.14

The activists highlighted in this book offer more than well-arguedcomplaint They offer well-strategized direction for social change Theyinclude grassroots activists like SEWA, the Self-Employed Women'sAssociation, in Gujarat, India, which has mobilized previously un-united self-employed workers to lobby and strike for their own interests.They include self-described feminists like DAWN (Development Alter-natives for Women in a New Era), a network of women scholars and

13 According to Paula Gunn Allen (1992) and Sherna Berger Gluck (1998), indigenous women are centrally concerned with physical and cultural survival In addition indigenous women face the problems of respecting tradition while being critical of imported patriarchal so-called traditions (Green 1982: 172), choosing between aligning with community or with national civil rights movements (Gluck 198: 43), and challenging misogyny within their communities while supporting their communities Many Northern and Southern women are forced by their context to prioritize physical and cultural survival and many face similar challenges though they manifest themselves differently in different contexts.

14 For example, Thomas Christiano doubts that under conditions of inequality it is possible to design political institutions to challenge those inequalities and thus relies on

an understanding of democratic societies as always changing (1996: 291±295) The feminist vision of social criticism provides an account of the democratic scrutiny of existing inequalities.

activists working in development around the world who criticize existingeconomic development strategies and their impact on women whileoffering an alternative vision for economic development These criticsshare a belief that in the ideal world, social decision making is collec-tively informed, collective, and uncoerced Third World women activists

± whether they embrace the feminist label or not ± practice socialcriticism intended to make it more so

The feminist method of social criticism is a critical bridge between theideal and the reality of social change It guides critics in their evaluation

of existing values, practices, and norms and prompts them to bestrategic in their inquiry Such critics develop their strategies for socialchange by analyzing the answers to three questions:

1 Do the people of the society deliberate inclusively, collectively, andwithout use of coercion about the values, practices, and norms thataffect their lives?

2 Are inequalities exploitable to the detriment of the less powerful?

3 And how does the life each person leads compare with the life ahuman being should be capable of living?

These three questions correspond to the three parts of the feministmethodology: deliberation as a means of inquiry; skeptical scrutiny ofelitist, coercive, and exclusionary and potentially exploitative values,practices, and norms; and the development of a set of criteria forevaluating values, practices, and norms

Each of the critics in the Bangladesh anecdote practices this method.The researcher, skeptical of the practice of wife battery and havinggeneral criteria that include basic physical security, uses deliberativeinquiry with the Bangladeshi women to criticize the practice of battery.The village women, skeptical of wife battery and husbands' authorityover their wives and having criteria that include physical safety andeducation, use deliberative inquiry ®rst to discuss among themselvesappropriate action and then to promote public awareness of the problem

by staging a sit-in in the houses of their husbands Save the Children,skeptical of husbands' authority over their wives and having generalcriteria that include women's autonomy in the context of interdependentand supportive family structures, creates the conditions for deliberativeinquiry among the women

By outlining the Third World feminist critical methodology, I givetheoretical coherence to what is already practiced by the critics aroundthe world and offer it not only as a method of social criticism, but also as

an effective complement to those political theorists who rely in somemeasure on equality in society Although all Third World feminist critics

practice the preceding method, the range of critics' roles is so broad that

it requires multiple critics

Silent voices and the roles of social critics

Though there is great variety in the lives of rural Bangladeshi women,some similarities cross regional and religious boundaries Generally,rural women in Bangladesh depend on men for their access to marketsand for their very subsistence While men depend on women for theirsubsistence as well, men's and women's mutual dependence should not

be interpreted as reciprocal Men can and do leave their wives andchildren, move to other places, and start new lives Generally, womencan leave their husbands only by returning to their fathers' homes.Without husbands, sons, or fathers, women are economically isolatedbecause they cannot get access to markets and are socially isolated andharassed by their neighbors for being ``bad'' women.15To use a Bengalimetaphor, Bangladeshi rural women live in the water with the croco-diles Living all their lives in the water, they develop ways to avoidarguing with them

Occasionally, a woman endures beatings in silence, for example, fornot having the meal ready for her husband when he comes home fromwork or for serving a meal too hot A young bride is particularlyvulnerable to battery in her husband's house if her father did not pay herhusband the promised dowry Within a given marriage, the distribution

of power may vary, but most of a woman's constraints are due to thesocially recognized relatively greater power of her husband Somepeople mistakenly associate women's inferior position with the teachings

of Islam However, comparable conditions exist for Hindu women inBangladesh, and many similarities exist in the gender hierarchies ofBangladesh and other countries of South Asia The values, practices,and norms constraining women's lives, while frequently attributed toIslam, are more accurately attributed to cultural constraints morebroadly The context of rural Bangladesh ± the economic constraints

15 I wish I could offer a clear de®nition of ``bad'' according to Bangladeshi people, particularly men The explanation of the use of this derogatory label always seemed tautological as in, she is ``bad'' because she is living in a ``bad'' way For example, when

I was in a conservative northeastern village, the house of a single woman with three young children was vandalized When I asked why, men told me it was because she was

a ``bad'' woman When I asked in what way she was bad, they answered that she lived alone I asked some women if there was some information the men were not telling me, but they said that, no, she was not a prostitute, but rather, she lived alone because her husband died Conventionally, widows live with their husband's brother or return to their natal home I do not know whether she had either of those options; nor (I suspect) did the men who vandalized her home.

that prevent women from accessing the market and the social constraintsthat prevent women from living autonomously regardless of their ®nan-cial means ± limits a woman's options so that leaving her husband israrely a choice a woman makes.16In sum, Sarah White writes:

There are many coercive aspects short of overt physical violence in the socialconditions in which women live in rural Bangladesh, as elsewhere Theirconstruction as legal minors, their exclusion from property rights, the distrustand policing of their sexuality, their isolation in an unfamiliar setting aftermarriage, their segregation into the least valued and least remunerative kinds ofwork ± all these are a kind of violence which helps to enforce female submission

It is not for nothing that folk culture disproportionately represents women asweeping, as in sorrow, as undergoing loss and pain (1992: 137)

Both a woman's means of exercising her will and her resignation not tochallenge the will of her husband must be appreciated in the context ofthe more general constraints on women that are prevalent in Bangla-deshi culture

One might ask if it is possible for women to resist without directlychallenging the will of their husbands White identi®es some weapons ofresistance women employ One is complaint masked in irony Forexample, when asked why she continues to borrow from a neighbor abasic household tool for husking rice ± ``what isn't yours mended yet?'' ±

a woman responds, ``The work gets done this way, why should theymend it?'' (1992: 137) Irony is a subtle form of complaint to whichwomen resort because they cannot complain directly

Another form of resistance is the appropriation by women of genderstereotyping for their own ends White gives the example of the women

of one Muslim family whose water pump broke The women wereforced to fetch water from a pump in front of a wealthy Hindu house-hold a distance away After six months, the women asked the head oftheir household for a new pump claiming that their modesty wasviolated by having to go out for water White considers that the womenwere voicing their own standards of modesty, but judges from otherremarks and observations that the women were not concerned abouttheir modesty but rather just tired of fetching water from such a distance(1992: 138) Like the peasants in James Scott's Weapons of the Weak,rural Bangladeshi women's subordination is such that their objectionstake the form of offstage de®ance rather than formal resistance (Scott1985: 25) These examples of resistance are impressive However, the

16 Developing Albert Hirschman's thesis in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), Susan Moller Okin makes a similar argument about the vulnerability of women in many marriages in the United States She argues that since their exit options are socially constrained by what she describes as the asymmetric vulnerability of women and men in marriage, their voice in their relationships with their husbands is limited (1989: chapter 7).

choice of irony over direct complaint, and complaining not about thedistance but about the violation of their modesty, demonstrate that forBangladeshi women even informal resistance is severely constrained.

To describe Bangladeshi women as silent oversimpli®es both thewomen's judicious use of voice and the range of ways in which potentialsocial critics are silent and silenced Some are silent, but would speak ifpower and resource inequalities did not create obstacles Obstaclesinclude formal institutional barriers to participation such as the educa-tion required to be able to speak in the legalese of government publicfora, and more subtle barriers such as discrimination resulting in themajority of a public audience not hearing or ignoring the critic Otherswould speak but choose silence as a result of fear of harm Some appearnot to speak publicly, but instead exercise what Scott describes asoffstage de®ance (1985) Others speak publicly but anonymously, ineuphemisms, by veiling dissent, or through more elaborate forms ofcamou¯age (Scott 1990: chapter 6) Although I use ``silent'' to describethis range of public voice and lack thereof, the differences among thesesilent voices are as important to social criticism as their commonalities.Moreover, understanding the range of experiences of silence and voice

of those who do not present their social criticism in politically familiarways is more useful than equating silence with political disinterest, falseconsciousness, or oppression

More generally, cases which appear to be demonstrative of a ``falseconsciousness'' on the part of some group are instead cases of (1)misinterpretation on the part of the observer who identi®es the ``falseconsciousness''; (2) an inaccurate observation of uniform beliefs where,

in fact beliefs are diverse; and (3) ``true consciousness'' based on theavailable information and knowledge of the group For example, somesuspect that Arab women believe that they are impure, inferior humanswhose presence ``pollutes'' men's activities and thoughts In contrast,Leila Ahmed in her account of the social separation of men and women

on the Arabian peninsula, argues that women's inviolable spaces are asource of deliberative inquiry among women at the exclusion of men.The women, Ahmed argues, are conscious of men's authority topromote ideology and practices that reinforce the inferiority of womenand yet their own identities are not victim to those efforts: ``I have neverseen in any other culture, including America, women whose self-percep-tions were so singularly impervious to the assertions of the dominantideology regarding their `natural' inferiority and `natural' subservience,and who clearly perceived that ideology as part of a system whose object

is to legitimize, mystify, and further entrench those in power'' (Ahmed1982a: 530±531) According to Ahmed, those who accuse Arab women

of ``false consciousness'' misinterpret the women's self-understandings,mistakenly observe that Arab women share Arab men's ideology aboutwomen, and fail to appreciate that the women's consciousness is in facttrue to their experience and knowledge of themselves and their society.Scott offers further insight into Ahmed's argument with his account ofthe apparent complicity of the oppressed in the dominant ideology whilebeing covert or anonymous in their resistance to it (1990; see also 1985).

It is not surprising that someone oppressed does not speak out againsther oppressor or against practices that are oppressive with the samedirectness and volume as the oppressor uses to maintain the hierarchy.Oppressed and living in a culture of developed tacit communications, aBangladeshi woman does not openly and indiscriminately express herobjections to the social devaluing of women, to oppressive practicessuch as wife beating, or to her practical inability to exercise her formalpolitical and legal rights that might enable her to protect herself In herhome, lacking an economic, social or political voice, a woman may onlysilently wish that she were not beaten when her husband came in fromthe ®eld and his food was not ready Metaphorically, she lives in thewater and does not argue with the crocodiles Third World feministsocial criticism gives the silent a voice

Contrast the isolation of the Bangladeshi women with the parentsdescribed by Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson entering intodemocratic deliberations (and then a lawsuit) with the Hawkins CountyBoard of Education in Tennessee about the content of the public schoolcurriculum (1996: 63±69) In Democracy and Disagreement, Gutmann &Thompson outline a theory of deliberation for equal citizens to resolvethe moral disagreements common in public policy formation Theyinsulate their explication of deliberation in democracy from ``the con-texts of ordinary politics: the pressures of power, the problems ofinequality, the demands of diversity, [and] the exigencies of persuasion''(1996: 3) by assuming mutual respect and tolerance on the part ofcitizens That insulation may approximately describe the courtroom ofthe Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in which the parents and HawkinsCounty argued their cases Gutmann & Thompson are able to discussthe case because the parents were able to go to court, the arguments forboth sides documented, and the decision published However, despiteexisting formal laws, there is no mechanism that rural Bangladeshiwomen can rely on to protect them from domestic abuse, or even tolisten to their complaints The circumstances of respectful public delib-eration are unfamiliar to those who live in crocodile-infested waters.How can those who are silent due to inequalities join democraticdeliberations?

Contrast the silent women in Bangladesh with the political protesters

in Eastern Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall Walzerbegins his book, Thick and Thin, with the image of people in the streets

of Prague in 1989 marching for ``Truth'' and ``Justice,'' the wordscarried on placards and shouted by the marchers (1994a: 1) Walzerunderstands the marchers: they ``wanted to hear true statements fromtheir political leaders; they wanted to be able to believe what they read

in the newspapers; they didn't want to be lied to anymore'' (1994a: 2).Walzer's understanding of the marchers' wishes was possible because hecould see the words ``truth'' and ``justice'' and because he couldrecognize their meaning at a general level not limited by personal orsocial interpretation of particulars But, how can anyone see and inter-pret wishes that are not written or spoken?

Without prior social criticism, the silent cannot participate in legalinstitutions or even in social movements Moreover, they cannot knowwhat they would say were they to participate Marx de®nes the role ofcriticism as promoting the ``self-understanding of the age concerning itsstruggles and wishes.'' He adds, ``This is the task for the world and forus,'' the social critics (Marx 1843: 215) Third World feminist socialcriticism requires the critic to help the silent clarify the struggles bylistening to their unspoken wishes and asking society to do so as well.Such social criticism needs to be prior to (or at least not coincidentwith) legal and social action Third World feminist social critics makethe silent heard They promote inquiry, deliberative opportunities, andinstitutional change in an effort to make social criticism inclusive of theperspectives of those marginalized by their silence These forms of socialcriticism must take place prior to getting to a courtroom or marching inthe streets if legal institutions and social protest are to be informed andinclusive practices However, Third World feminist social criticism doesnot guarantee that social decision making will be more inclusivelyinformed, collective, or uncoerced, or that social criticism will be able toeffect social change, but it does contribute to those ends

Everyday critics, multi-sited critics, and multiple criticsThe anecdote of the women's exchange illustrates the contributions tosocial criticism by people every day, the importance of critics from avariety of critical perspectives, and the value of having multiple criticsfor social criticism In general there are three kinds of critics: outsiders,insiders, and those who cross boundaries First, as an outsider, theresearcher was able to ask a question about domestic violence that thewomen themselves were not inclined to ask because such scenes were

common On the walk in Bangladesh, even though we had just comefrom a meeting on women's legal protections against domestic abuse(among other things), the scene we were passing went undiscussed until

I asked the question, ``What's going on?''

Second, the information about the causes of wife abuse came frominsiders, the village women The village women also discussed that,though common, they thought wife battery was not acceptable Further,they identi®ed appropriate means for challenging husbands who beattheir wives Women staging a sit-in in a home bring embarrassing publicattention to a batterer

Third, Save the Children and its program of®cer offered socialcriticism that neither the outsider nor the insiders could offer Most ofthe Save the Children program workers were Bangladeshi; the programof®cer was a German woman ¯uent in Bengali; and the funding agencyfor the trip was the US Agency for International Development Collec-tively, these critics from multiple perspectives sought to remove thewomen from their watchful familial and social environments They did

so according to acceptable practices by requiring the wives to ask theirhusbands' permission They promoted incremental social change, chal-lenging the norm of women's constrained mobility while following theconvention of men's authority over their wives Although they did nothave preconceived notions about what the women would experiencewhen working together in a special context, they expected that the resultwould be the sustainable strength of the women's groups The anecdotegives examples of outside critics, inside critics, and critics whose criticalperspective cannot be singly de®ned by the critic's origin I call this lastgroup ``multi-sited'' critics to re¯ect the multiple perspectives of suchcritics, and I explain the term further in chapter 5

Although one may be inclined to view the last perspective as de®nitive

of social criticism, the insider and the outsider offer critical perspectivesthat the multi-sited critic does not share Critics from a single perspec-tive cannot suf®ciently bring about more informed, collective, anduncoerced social decision-making fora However, where critics frommultiple perspectives contribute to social criticism, social decision-making fora may become more informed, collective, and uncoerced.Third World feminist social criticism relies on multiple everyday critics,from varied critical perspectives

A Third World feminist philosophy of social criticismSocial criticism is more comprehensive in its analysis than complaintbecause it is systematic In the real world people complain about values,

practices, norms, and each other without intending to be social critics.Complaints can be directed at individual circumstances or at generalcircumstances, but whether individual or general, complaints are notsystematic, they are particular For an example of individual complaint,

a wife could complain about her husband's abuse Such a complaintparticularizes the complainer and particularizes the accused Change issubject to the ability of the complainer to voice her complaint and toargue well It is doubtful that the woman living in the crocodile-infestedwaters could effectively voice her own criticism or even that a represen-tative could interpret her silence But even where well-argued complaint

is effective in speci®c individual circumstances, because it is speci®c tothe individual circumstances, the argument does not affect those insimilar circumstances

Another approach to social criticism, equally ad hoc but intended tohave broader bene®t, is generalized complaint For example, an activistmight complain about domestic violence against women ± particularlynew brides ± in rural Bangladesh In this case, the complaint generalizesabout women's physical abuse in marriage, or even more generallyabout women's vulnerability in marriage As in the case of individualcomplaint, however, even where well-argued complaint is effective atraising awareness of rural women's vulnerability in Bangladesh, thecontext-speci®city of the argument inhibits related bene®ts from ac-cruing to others who are also but differently vulnerable, for examplewidows and unmarried girls Whether particular or generalized, suchcomplaint is too speci®c to be social criticism

In order to have an impact on the values, practices, and norms of asociety which perpetuate the particular harms identi®ed by the complai-ners and those they have not identi®ed, social criticism needs to besystematic and make respectful and informational use of complaint.Social criticism is distinguished from complaint in that the formerrecognizes oppression as systematic The social critic sees inequalities asproblems with the organization of society not merely as obstacles toachieving her own interests

One systematic approach to social criticism is offered by RaymondGeuss in his review of critical theory as it has been developed by theFrankfurt school, with Marx as its forefather and Habermas as its best-known spokesperson (1981) As Geuss describes it, a critical theoryposes epistemological challenges to traditional views Marx's socialcriticism, for example, provides a revolutionary account of the nature

of knowledge Without reviewing that literature, I borrow the features

of critical theory Geuss identi®es and add others I argue are essentialfor a philosophy of social criticism that is practicable in the real world

The three features consistent with Geuss's account of a critical theoryare:

1 Social criticism should guide human action

2 It should be coherent and consistent

And,

3 Social criticism should be ``re¯ective''; that is, critics should be able

to criticize the values, practices, and norms of a society according toprinciples which are themselves open to criticism (Geuss 1981: 1±2,55±95)

These are important criteria of a critical theory, but there is nothing inthese criteria that requires a theorist to be critical of real world values,practices, and norms (though a particular critical theory such as Marx'smay be) A society might have a coherent explanation for the exploita-tion of certain groups within it such that it was not critical of practicesthat exploit or discriminate against them In the real world whereinequalities frequently exhibit coherent patterns, critical theory needsmore than the criteria of actionability, consistency, and self-re¯ection Itneeds to be critical As Marx encourages, in order to be critical a politicalphilosophy needs to wrestle with ``the struggles and wishes'' of realpeople (1967 [1843]: 215)

Though systematic, the framework of critical theory outlined byGeuss does not systematically require critics' attention to the strugglesand silent wishes of the oppressed For example, Nancy Fraser arguesthat Habermas fails to incorporate into his theory analysis of thestruggles of women In her criticism of Habermas, Fraser draws atten-tion to Marx's mandate suggesting that in order for critical theory to becritical it must wrestle with the struggles and wishes of women Thus,where social criticism is most necessary, Habermas's critical theory isnot critical (Fraser 1991)

Feminist theorists have consistently paid attention to the practical andcritical import of political theory for the struggles and wishes of women.From a liberal perspective, Susan Okin criticizes contemporary theories

of justice for assuming an idealized just family To complement theRawlsian assumption of equality in the original position, Okin articu-lates a critique of vulnerability created through social practices (1989).From a poststructuralist perspective, Chris Weedon argues that byoffering feminists a critique of the epistemological power of language,poststructuralism is a useful complement to feminism (1997) Bycontrast, Mridula Udayagiri argues that postmodern feminism is notdirected at social change and embodies a language of power all its own(1995) Sharing somewhat both views, Susan Bordo argues that post-modernism provides a tool, but that it is inadequate as feminist theory