POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION

Politics of Representation: Gender

Politics of Representation: Gender

Introduction

Representation is defined as the language which is used to allocate a certain meaning to the groups and their social activities including the events and ecological and social conditions. Modes of representation differ depending upon the perception from which they are generally constructed, whether historical, biographical or socio-cultural. Ideology of representation tells about the thinking of people about a particular event, object, and situation but there will always be some competition among different groups as to what is the correct type of representation. This competition about the meaning among different groups is termed as “politics of representation.” (Weisberg 1993; Tuana 1995)

Gendered Identities

While considering the phenomenon of gendered identities, there is always an increasing want to interpret the supposed equality of gender and a huge interest in exploring the diversity and multiplicity of gendered characters in different organizations. Feminist theorists and researchers are concerned about both the criteria of representing and the process of speaking for others. All these practices are directly related to the production of power and knowledge and so are political and ethical. According to this, the politics of representation creates a lot of difficult issues for the feminist researchers. Certainly, the projects handled by feminist of improving the conditions of people and changing power relationships is very complicated by obstacles of representing the identities of other. (Schneir 1994; Ruddick 1998)

A strategic ethics of representation cannot be persistent on an unclear idea of political effectiveness, which goes for the empowerment of oppressed people. If source is suppose to be relating to the degree that it has an impact on the effect then political effectiveness comes up as a superficial strategy for the law abiding concerns raised in the first place. Representations of others under feminist theory are absolutely linked to implying assumptions regarding what effects are considered desirable. Therefore, it is essential for the feminist strategies of representation to concern with the way assumptions of empowerment and oppression turn out in other's representation. This slippage highlights the concern of how the intellectuals tend to construct the willpower of the oppressed people with unbelievable ease. (Rubin 1993)

In speaking and discussing about other's representation, the argument rises that intellectuals have placed themselves way too easily as clear communicators for the voices of the oppressed ones. Between imperialism and patriarchy, and object formation and subject-construction, the figure of woman fades away not into a perfect nothingness, but in a sadistic shuttling which is the transferred figuration of the third world women caught with modernization and traditionalism, development and cultural-ism. Thus, the oppressed cannot speak up. The practices of representations of the intellectual people serve to concentrate on the western theme depending upon an obligatory muting of the oppressed people's objective. So, the researchers and theorists should pay proper attention to their work and to the way it is occupied in the representation processes. (Susan 1996)

The intellectual representation of lower category people as muting them is not just the work of ...