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Book: Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity

Chapter: 9. Reply to Russell T. McCutcheon: Navigating the Politics of Comparison

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.35646

Blurb:

In the main chapter of this section, I argued that many Western
feminist scholars are often quite willing to overlook the conservative
political interests of many international women’s groups
by calling such groups “feminist” so as to create the sense of
a diverse and multicultural feminist movement. Mine is not a
popular conclusion to reach, I note, since making such a statement
reveals a clear double standard that is still present in some
feminist activism. In response, Russell McCutcheon pondered
whether my unpopular argument was like another controversial
piece of scholarship from scholar Rebecca Tuvel, who infamously
claimed that if a transgender identity is possible, then
we must logically acknowledge the possibility of a transracial
identity as well. In the present chapter, I consider the nature of
McCutcheon’s comparison between my conclusion and Tuvel’s,
and maintain that their similarities reveal the enduring life of
certain unspoken biases in scholarship today

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