Centre for Critical Discourse (CCD) presents feminism as philosophical perspectives and movements in Bangladesh through the interactive dialogue-centred theory and praxis seminar titled as, “Different Philosophical Perspectives of Feminist Movements in Bangladesh: A Dialogue between Theory and Praxis”. The framework of the seminar is an integration of academic dialogue, documentary practice, and artistic expression. Bringing together theoretical perspectives and community narratives from the praxis.
In theory, Liberal feminist movements that emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, earlier feminism is in alignment with liberal political thoughts of improving the access of women in the existing structure. Industrial revolution and capitalism kept the burden of productive labor increasing and women were bound to the unpaid domestic works. So, the liberal narratives of access to education, legal rights, and political participation could not deconstruct the deeply rooted structure-driven inequalities the majority of women faced. Eventually, Radical critiques of women’s oppression expanded and shaped its responses to Radical, Anarchist, Ecofeminist, Socialist, and Marxist perspectives on feminism. The multi-dimensional seminar examines the theories’ pragmatism of organizing movements for the communities in the margins. Rising from the ground narratives and discourse, the seminar highlights the pragmatic gaps of the philosophical discourse to be applied with the grounded realities, positioning feminism as a potential praxis for evolving alternative feminist discourses. Historical evolution of feminism reflects ongoing tensions between reform and revolution, identity and materiality. While the dominant academics mostly focus on the identity, sexuality, or cultural dimensions, alternative feminist perspectives criticize systems of capitalism and production and its relation with oppression.
In praxis, feminism can transform patriarchal knowledge systems within universities and pedagogy in relation to progressing the labor movements among factory workers and advocating for fair prices for agricultural products produced through the labor of rural women. The critical and transformative praxis also foregrounds and collaborates the Proletarian class struggle with gender struggles. Feminist movements can claim the freedom of knowledge for collective social transformation in critical discourse and alternative analytical perspectives can come forward upholding the living experiences of working-class women and women from the margins. If any synthesized feminist theory must emerge from Bangladesh and remain accountable to our historical dialects, its evidential conflicts with dominant narratives would preserve the class realities and narratives of many.
Academically feminism encompasses a wide range of struggles and multidimensional philosophical perspectives. Still, the alternative and multidimensional understanding is often absent in its dominant narratives and shaped by misconceptions. As every philosophical perspective is shaped by its historical context and material conditions, imperial domination can continue in disguise of academic readings. Without the critical analysis of class relations, class struggle, and material conditions of labor exploitation in Bangladesh, alternative feminism cannot be seen in preventive discourse and protective movements. Centre for Critical Discourse examines all of the perspectives and its capacity of restructuring social, political, and economic systems. Armchair academic scholars are boundaried and limited within dominant theories with no ground evidence or no actions towards movement. The seminar examines freedom from systemic inequalities in multidimensional perspectives within contributions, conflicts, and limitations. Understanding freedom and narratives on the systemic class struggle and patriarchy can contribute beyond any singular and partial insights and shape the narrative ground. The agenda of the seminar is to understand these feminist philosophical trends, engaging with contexts of Bangladesh, without isolating one “correct” feminism, but to critically synthesize a restructuring of the alternative discourses and revolutionary ground in theory and praxis.
