Duggan/ Mohanty

Through this week's readings, I found myself grappling with material and ideas on which I had not previously been well-informed, and as a result, I was faced with an eye-opening perspective. The overall expression of the texts seemed to me to mark a shift from our previous weeks. Duggan's The Twilight of Equality? gave a thorough introduction to neoliberalism, a term which I was only vaguely familiar with. After her extrapolation, especially through her demonstration of its effects in various political arenas, I gained a much better understanding of the concept. Chapters 2 and 3 were particularly outstanding in my mind, because of Duggan's analysis of how neoliberalist tactics and policies are implemented throughout all realms of social and cultural groups, all leading to the same effect: the transfer of economic power to the few elite. I had never heard of the Women's Studies controversy at SUNY New Paltz, but its relevance to feminist scholarship is undeniable. Similar rhetoric could be- and is- used today to justify the curtailing of funds to academic programs deemed unfit and irrelevant to scholarship, for the ultimate purpose of the channeling of funds to the support of some idealisms over others. I was also fascinated by Duggan's analysis of how tactics used by neoliberalist politicians were made relevant to the gay rights movement, in that they attempted to separate cultural and economic spheres. She writes on page 70, "Developing analyses of neoliberalism must ask how the many local alliances, cultural projects, nationalist agendas, and economic policies work together, unevenly and often unpredictably, rife with conflict and contradiction, to redistribute the world’s resources upward". This is her recurring point; all political and economic spheres must be analyzed as a whole. Her description of the compartmentalization of these areas as being part of a neoliberalist agenda adds a new dimension to the progressive left point of view, since one of its goals is the integration of these arenas.

Perhaps most startling to me was not merely Duggan's text, but rather Mohanty's analysis of neoliberalism's direct influence on the academy. She presents several statistics which she hopes will stir pressing emotion and a call to action on behalf of all of those involved in academia, such as pointing out in chapter seven that "there has been no change since 1977 in the percent of women professors that have tenure, and full professors across all schools and disciplines are 79 percent male, and almost 90 percent white". Her further analysis of the stagnancy in diversity and funds allotted to women and people of color is, in addition to depressing, also telling of the neoliberal structures at work. These statistics prove that individuals belonging to marginalized groups experience greater obstacles in an academic realm. Mohanty also points out that feminist scholarship and points of view are not valued in other areas of the academy, and without programs centered on women's and ethnic studies, these progressivist viewpoints are not valued.

Both Mohanty and Duggan recognize that the politics of neoliberalism act as somewhat of a smokescreen, distracting citizens from issues by presenting ideas of personal responsibility and values as being the center of success, and the adherence to these ideals as a key element in prosperity. This, of course, then places the blame on those who cannot succeed within systems that disadvantage them, allowing for those in higher economic positions to be hailed as morally upright and prosperous.