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Feminism is a much-contested word. It carries a wide array of meanings and aspirations. However, at the heart of feminism or feminist philosophy is the idea that human beings are born equal and therefore, must be treated equally. Understood this way, feminism is an ideology, a concept, a philosophy, and a theory supporting gender equality. As there are many different strands of feminism, they can be distinguished from each other given their objectives and the various means they employ to achieve them. For instance, Liberal Feminism asserts that all human beings are born equal and rational. Therefore, it is a grave injustice on the part of the patriarchal society to disregard women by labeling them as nonrational or irrational beings. Similarly, one can understand the other types of feminism and their fundamental goals, including Third World feminism.

To understand the meaning of Third World feminism, one needs to understand the usage of the term 'Third' in Third World feminism and the meaning of Third World. Third World feminism implies that there must be a First and a Second World. Let us go back a bit in history, especially to the Cold War period in global history, roughly from 1947 to 1991. The Cold War is a significant historical period of sociopolitical upheavals. The world witnessed the emergence of two major blocs, the Western and the Eastern, positioned against each other. While NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and its member countries represented the Western group led by the USA (United States of America), the Eastern group was headed by the former USSR and included many socialist countries. The countries following Western capitalism sided with the USA, and the other with the former USSR that followed Soviet socialism. These two blocs represented the two superpowers of that period and became known as the First World and Second World countries, respectively. However, apart from these two blocs, several countries, especially the newly freed ones, had ceased to be colonies of the western colonizers that did not side with either of the groups. These were the countries that, in due course of time, got the label of Third World countries. One of the most significant academic articles about the concept of three worlds is “Three worlds, one planet,” written by French demographer, economist, and public intellectual Alfred Sauvy that was published in the French newspaper L’Observateur in the year 1952. The publication of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth in 1961 is another milestone in concretizing the concept of the Third World. Fanon discusses the 'Third World … facing Europe as one colossal mass'. Gradually, the term gained recognition, became a crucial concept in the social sciences, and transitioned to politics during decolonization.

As mentioned before, the First World was comprised of capitalist, democratic countries with high levels of industrialization. These countries used high technology and modern machinery and had/ have hard currency, and controlled capital development and capital flow. The Second World countries mostly adhered to socialist ideologies and had/ have limited access to hard currency and limited capacity for modern machinery or technology. The Third World countries are the former colonies of Western imperial powers. These are industrially and technologically poorer countries belonging to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These overpopulated countries are also referred to as Developing World or Global south Low- and middle-income countries, and underdeveloped countries.

Many postcolonial and feminist scholars have tried to unravel the meaning of the Third World as they believe it is a hegemonic construct of the Western World to demean the non-western other. Feminist scholar Kum Kum Sangari states that Third World is “a term that both signifies and blurs the functioning of an economic, political, and imaginary geography able to unite vast and vastly differentiated areas of the world into a single ‘underdeveloped’ terrain”. She further states that this term not only designates specific geographical areas, but also imaginary spaces as it exists in our minds. She is critical of how ‘Third World’ is used by the West to lump together vastly different places indiscriminately. They are unable to justify the classification.

In her book ‘Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism’, Chandra Talpade Mohanty defines the Third World geographically as “The nation-states of Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-east Asia, China, South Africa, and Oceania constitute the parameters of the non-European third World. In addition, black, Latino, Asian, and indigenous peoples in the U.S., Europe, and Australia, some of whom have historical links with the geographically defined third worlds, also define themselves as third world peoples.”

According to feminist critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, it was in the year 1955 that the term “Third World” was initially coined by those emerging from the “old” world order. She states that “the initial attempt in the Bandung Conference (1955) to establish a third way — neither with the Eastern nor within the Western bloc — in the world system, in response to the seemingly new world order established after the Second World War, was not accompanied by a commensurate intellectual effort. The only idioms deployed for the nurturing of this nascent Third World in the cultural field belonged then to positions emerging from resistance within the supposedly ‘old’ world order — anti-imperialism and/or nationalism.”

These and many other feminists speaking from the standpoint of the Third World share the view that western feminists homogenise women in the Third World countries and portray them as universal dependents and less feminists by labelling them as passive, mute, illiterate, custom bound and are victims of tradition and male violence. They are Illiterate, custom bound, and in need of help. The Western feminist discourse thus produces a monolithic category of Third World women who lack agency. This kind of universalization of the term “Third World Women” by Western feminists has been widely critiqued as it portrays a Third World woman as a “colonial object” that is produced by the “hegemonic First World intellectual practices”. This 'othering' of the Third World women has been possible because the First World women have successfully self-portrayed themselves as modern, educated, independent, agentive, empowered, liberated, and in control of their own lives. Unfortunately, such a division of women is not complementary but destructive to the lives of average Third World women, also referred to as ‘women of colour’ as they have skin colour other than White. Third World woman is thus an ideological construct of the First World Women with colonial undertones to assert their supremacy in the feminist movement.

Different worlds, different women, different feminisms?

If the world is categorized into two or more parts, so are the women. So, should feminism also be characterized as First, Second, and Third World feminisms?

As a concept, feminism insists on the idea that everyone, including women, should be treated as human beings. It attempts to explain gender inequalities and set forth agendas for overcoming them. It strives to bring gender equity in society by revealing the historical reality that women have been subordinate to men for ages. It is context-specific, and as such, there cannot be a universal definition of feminism that can be applied at all places and at all times. As has been stated by bell hooks, a prominent African American feminist, “Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression.”

As a movement, feminism has passed through a few waves or stages: first, second, third, and fourth wherein women have utilized several strategies to do justice to their sex. Prominent among these strategies are social movements, political activism, and intellectual and scholarly expressions.

Third World feminism emerged as a critique of Western Feminism, also referred to as First World feminism. The basic tenets and conclusions of Western feminism only apply to women in developed industrialized countries as they value gender over other important analytical categories such as race, class, or position in national structures. Defining Third World feminism, though is not a simple task.

The chief protagonists of Third World feminism are Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Uma Narayan, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Chela Sandoval, Gloria Anzaldua, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Leila Ahmed, Nawal el Saadawi and Patricia Hill Collins. These feminists have looked at Third World women from their perspectives and provided their views. As Chandra Mohanty says- "Any discussion of the intellectual and political construction of "Third World feminisms" must address itself to two simultaneous projects: the internal critique of hegemonic "Western" feminisms and the formulation of autonomous feminist concerns and strategies that are geographically, historically, and culturally grounded. The first project is one of deconstructing and dismantling; the second is one of building and constructing. While these projects appear contradictory, the one working negatively and the other positively, unless these two tasks are addressed simultaneously, Third World feminisms run the risk of marginalization and ghettoization from both mainstream (right and left) and Western feminist discourses." 

Similarly, Uma Narayan, an Indian feminist scholar, states that "Calling myself a "Third-World feminist" is problematic only when the term is understood narrowly, to refer exclusively to feminists living and functioning within Third-World countries, as it sometimes is. Nevertheless, like many terms, "Third-World feminist" has several current usages. Some feminists of communities of color in Western contexts have also applied the term "Third World" to themselves, their communities, and their politics, to call political attention to similarities in the locations of, and problems faced by, their communities and communities in Third World countries. As a feminist of color living in the United States, I continue to be a “Third World feminist” in this broader sense of the term.”

Looking into the defining features of Third World feminism, one can say that it is a reaction to the universalizing traits of Western feminism. However, a more profound insight makes it clear that Third World feminism is grounded in its social, cultural, and national specificities, to name a few. Whereas First World/Werstern/White feminism emphasises on sex inequality which constitutes the major problem faced by women and focuses mainly on women's roles in the workplace, equal wages, education, property rights, custody rights and issues of sexual violence, Third World feminism is based on the conceptualization of women as the subject of struggles. Here, the situation of women is perceived not only as the result of unequal gender relations but as the consequence of a wide range of oppressive situations that transcend gender categories and are also related to race, class, and citizenship intersections. TWF gives more importance to basic needs as fundamental rights. E.g., It prioritizes the right to food over the right to vote. For a vast majority of women in the Third World, injustice because of class, race, and nationality divisions is closely related to the oppressive situations that they experience as women. Third World feminism rejects the notion of a single and uniform feminist movement, acknowledging the heterogeneity that derives from diverse sources of oppression.

Third World feminists have time and again raised concerns with West-imposed terminologies. For instance, Alice Walker, a black feminist, coined the term 'Womanism' as a response to the White western feminists’ use of the term ‘feminism’ as she was convinced that the word feminism does not acknowledge the emotions and needs of Black women. Walker defines a womanist as a black feminist or feminist of colour.

Buchi Emecheta, an acclaimed African writer, prefers to call herself a feminist with a small "f" to distance herself from the mainstream feminist movement in the West. The small 'f' represents a symbolic modification of Western Feminism to include African values.

Third World feminism has faith in community life. Third World people believe that an individual is not a single entity as against the individualism of the West. Selfhood is complete only with the recognition of personhood. An individual is surrounded by a web of relationships. These social relations are the starting point in Third World societies. Rene Descartes is often called the first modern philosopher, and his famous saying, "I think, therefore I am," laid the groundwork for how we conceptualize our sense of self. However, what if there is an entirely different way to think about personal identity — a non-Western philosophy that rejects this emphasis on individuality? The African humanist philosophy ‘UBUNTU', which believes in the idea that our relationships with other people shape our sense of self, is a classic example of people believing in community life. Simply stated, it is a way of living that begins with the premise that "I am" only because "we are," which is very similar to our Indian philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam’, i.e., the whole world is family.

Third World feminism is opposed to any form of universalism. It believes in the diversity of human categories and experiences and against the grand narratives of Western Feminism by which an average Third World woman is categorized as naïve, illiterate, weak, subordinate, and a victim of tradition, to name a few. The idea of a universal and homogeneous human nature excludes and marginalizes the differences and distinctive characteristics of Third World societies. Third World feminism also reiterates the idea that men and women are complementary- Many Third World women feel that they have much more in common with the Third World men than White Western women regarding oppression. Negative baggage carried out by western feminists about 'Men are our enemies, they are against us,' and western feminists are man-haters is ruled out by the Third World feminists.

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