Anthropology is a science that is in constant transformation. New possibilities for objects, strategies and anthropological methodologies are present in the multiple forms of representation of the other. We started the 21st century with a series of questions about anthropological doing itself. This text aims to discuss the anthropological knowledge produced from multiple approaches and representation of the other, having as theoretical support the theories of Marilyn Strathern,¹ Saba Mahmood² and Lila Abu-Lughod³ starting from their feminist approaches and how these influence or can influence anthropological debates. Anthropology can walk in the opposite direction, it can show that feminism can be an extension, but not a barrier to understanding the ability to listen to “others”. The feminist debate brings to anthropology the capacity of a plural, non-universal, non-homogeneous movement of dispute over power, knowledge and gender. But walking with dialogue between transformative proposals of the discipline itself and feminist theories.

Keywords: anthropology, feminisms, ethnographies of others

Anthropology is a science that is in constant transformation. New possibilities of objects, strategies and anthropological methodologies are present in the multiple possibilities of representing the other. We started the 21st century with many questions about the object of anthropological study itself. The crisis of the social and human sciences itself, arising from the crisis of capitalism, brought new interpretations of the so-called objects of study.

Consolidated and universalized epistemologies have been the target of criticism and reflection, moving towards other directions of thinking about “others and others”. An example of this are the feminist theories that have been revisited and contested, because their universal character does not apply to all human groups and does not include all the experiences of women.

This text aims to discuss the anthropological knowledge produced from multiple approaches and representation of the other, having as theoretical support the feminist theories of Marilyn Strathern,¹ Saba Mahmood² and Lila Abu-Lughod,³ bringing to the center of the discussion are her feminist approaches and how these influence or can influence anthropological debates. We understand that for Anthropology to become a science of multiple interpretations, with many objects of two studies and theories, it has undergone and is undergoing transformation influenced by dichotomous thoughts and theories.

The paradigm adversity between the social and human sciences and the close relationship between them has put their objects of study and scientific methods in check. At the same time as the growth of a globalizing perspective of the sciences, it narrowed the spaces between peoples, shortened the idea of time, and accelerated migratory movements, universalized industry, technology and mass culture. The “anthropology crisis” has broken with the logic of research between different civilizations and cultures, enabling a rapprochement between the human and social sciences, and with new ways of thinking and representing the “others” and “others”. “The fragmentation and loss of universalism of what we could call theoretical schools, that is, organized sets of concepts,

Anthropology, which has always been structured between the “I” and the “other”, finds within this crisis of new concepts of thinking the human being, women, with new ideas of identities, equalities and differences, bringing together knowledge and strategies of doing anthropology.

In this way, the ethnographies of Marilyn Strathern,¹ Saba Mahmood² and Lila Abu-Lughod³ bring reflections on the field of anthropology and ways of thinking about “others”. In “The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia”, Strathern¹ is an original work in which the author explores “orthodox” anthropological analysis as a narrative literary form. Strathern's¹ Melanesian ethnography was influenced by the thinking of Roy Wagner. Thus, according to the author, “anthropological analysis manages to approach its object of investigation and replicate the understanding of the investigated subjects, through a form of understanding, of knowledge, which is distinctly its own.”¹ The author's line of arguments is presented in a contrast between western concepts of individual, society and commodity. Thus, hegemonic anthropological theories are presented in debates with feminist theories. These theories universalized in the West, according to the author, are not applied in the interpretation of Melanesia, however they can serve as an “exogenous critical counterpoint to the discipline”. A critique of gender issues carried out throughout her ethnography, incorporate social concerns about the fundamental symbolism to understand Melanesia.

Saba Mahmood² in “Feminist Theory, agency and the liberatory subject: some reflections on Islamic revivalism in Egypt”, presents the intersection between the themes of gender and religion present in Islamic movements in the city of Cairo. The author goes on to contest the universalism of ideas that the secularism of the secular state – separating religion and the state – would contain the conflicts present in Muslim countries. The existing tensions between religion and politics serve as arguments for the author, this relationship makes the state regulate the life of religious institutions. Throughout her writing Mahmood² defends a separation of the notion of agency and resistance as a necessary way to think in ways other than universalizing western theories, such as liberal feminist theories and secular theories, for understanding the movement of women in mosques. The ethnography made by the author among the Islamic feminine pietist movement in Egypt, she suggests that agency is not synonymous with resistance, but the former can be understood through a paradox of subjectivation, but it is also the capacity for a specific relationship of subordination.² It is necessary to establish the difference between agency and resistance. Her ethnographies expand the possibilities of reflections and interpretations of feminist theories and the concepts of agency and resistance. But it is also the capacity for a specific relationship of subordination.² It is necessary to establish the difference between agency and resistance. Her ethnographies expand the possibilities of reflections and interpretations of feminist theories and the concepts of agency and resistance. But it is also the capacity for a specific relationship of subordination.² It is necessary to establish the difference between agency and resistance. Her ethnographies expand the possibilities of reflections and interpretations of feminist theories and the concepts of agency and resistance.

Lila Abu-Lughod³ in her ethnography “Do Muslim women really need salvation? Really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its Others”, explores the ethics of the current "War on Terrorism", asking whether anthropology, the discipline dedicated to understanding cultural difference and dealing with it, can provide us with critical support for the justifications made about intervention in Afghanistan in terms of liberating or saving Afghan women . Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others”.³

Abu-Lughod³ discusses how Muslim women are perceived, seen and treated in the Western eyes, drawing attention to how we establish strict social rules, and it is necessary to understand the historical and cultural contexts that formed these Muslim nations. Starting from the problem of ethics that runs through the current “War on Terrorism”, justified as an attempt to liberate Muslim women who, the author says that all of this has become an obsession with the suffering of these women, stating that there are other interests of political-economic nature Westerners, and especially Americans.                                                           

Abu- Lughod³ contests Western conceptions about societies. Using the women's agenda as a justification to put these interests into practice. Thus, anthropology as a discipline that seeks to “understand and manage cultural differences”, despite the critical position of being an accomplice of this discipline “in the reification of cultural difference”.

The three authors, in their own way, present paths for anthropology that go beyond the interpretation of Western hegemonic feminism. And here we present the ethnographies of these authors, their arguments, theories and possibilities for new ways of thinking about anthropology.

The place of the feminist debate in Marilyn strathern

The Gender of the Gift and the gender aesthetics of the Melanesian person Strathern¹ presents the concept of gift in opposition to the Western concept of merchandise, but as a gender aesthetic. Leading from her writing questioning studies by other anthropologists on Melanesia, she tells us that the exchange of gifts was interpreted as a form of sociability and a mode of social interaction. “The concept of "gift" has long been one of anthropology's entry points into the study of Melanesian societies and cultures.¹ In the traditional conception, the exchange of gifts “is taken as an act evident in itself, a transaction that mobilizes items of various kinds, including men or women, as possessions or resources at the disposal of the negotiator”.¹ In these conventional studies, the exchange of gifts has been considered as a transaction of items, which circulate of different types. In this line of thought, behavior is thought of as categorically neutral. “Behavior is assumed to be categorically neutral, power residing in control of the event or resources, as in the way in which "men" control "women".¹ Like this, the author explores the concepts and relations of the feminist perspective, stating that it is necessary to contextualize these western theories and confections. Anthropology needs to think about the feminist debate in other contexts, when it starts to represent the other.

According to Strathern,¹ gender is defined as a category of people, events, artifacts, etc. that are grounded as sexual imagery. In Melanesia, asking about the gender of the gift is “asking about the situation of exchanging gifts in relation to the form assumed by domination in these societies. It is also to ask about the "genre" of analytic concepts, about worlds sanctioned by hypotheses specific”.¹ These categories do not specifically refer to the notion of men and women, and not only to sexual roles or gender identity, moreover, they are based on the principles of construction of socially established relationships. Thus, the Melanesians represent the ways of the “masculine” and “feminine” based on how they make things and people known. In this context, sociability and gender relations are understood jointly, not separately. Strathern's argument¹ reveals that gifts can include people that male and female identities in Melanesians differ from the West, actions are gendered, and behaviors are not neutral, as other anthropologists have described gift exchanges among Melanesians. “To ask about the gender of the gift is, therefore, ask about the status of exchanging gifts in relation to the form assumed by domination in these societies”.¹ This male and female ability to transact with some items is related to the power that gender categories can confer on people. According to Strathern

The difference between Western and Melanesian sociability (us/them) means that one cannot simply extend Western feminist perceptions to the Melanesian case; the difference between anthropological/feminist viewpoints means that the knowledge that anthropologists build about Melanesia should not be taken for granted; the gift/commodity difference is expanded as a metaphorical basis on which difference itself can be apprehended and utilized for both anthropological and feminist purposes, yet remains rooted in Western metaphysics.¹

The strategies presented by Strathern¹ in emphasizing that ethnography must have theories to achieve its objective and analysis, stating that its interest is related to the ability to clarify “elucidating a general context for those contexts themselves: the peculiar nature of Melanesian sociality (. ..). Evidence necessarily depends on specifics, but its use is synthetic”.¹ Western thought has sought to find solutions to metaphysical problems by trying to analyze other societies based on their own concepts, including using the concept of society and individual, “if we reflect on this, it is to imagine that those who do not participate in this tradition will somehow focus their philosophical energies on such questions as the "relationship" between society and the individual.

Thinking about the comparative method, Strathern¹ states that the concept of “society” is not present among Melanesians. It is necessary to show the origin of the terms or categories of the notion of individual and society. "The idea of 'society' seems a good starting point, simply because it itself, as a metaphor for organization, organizes much of the way anthropologists think."¹ Given these considerations, comparative anthropology in Melanesia according to Strathern¹ should be avoided with universal concepts, introducing a critique of the feminist debate to Western culture.

Melanesia is seen by the West from a unifying force relationship, which acts in the connection between individuals, “We need to stop thinking that at the heart of these cultures there is an antinomy between society and the individual”.¹ The author's description of the Melanesian person and sociability is that these two categories are linked to the exchange of gifts. Thus, he starts to use the different concepts between states of the person and of social life. The complexity of this description consists in a movement of sociability towards the other.

Social life consists in a constant movement from one state to another, from one type of sociability to another, from one unit to that unit divided or constituted as a pair with respect to another. This shifts across numerous cultural forms, from the way in which crops are seen as something that grows in the soil to a dichotomy between the political and domestic domains.¹

To talk about the gift in Strathern¹ is to evoke “constantly the possibility that the description might look very different if, instead, we were talking about commodities”.¹ Seeking to avoid transferring the concepts of goods to the Melanesian reality, she emphasizes the need to think about an anthropology capable of creating a world parallel to the ethnographic/observable field. It is possible to constitute an analysis of Melanesia without transposing Western meanings between society and the individual, male and female, gender and merchandise, exchange and gift.

By considering the feminine issues not as a universal value, she claims that the feminist debate has been radical as it universalizes concepts and categories. “One cannot speak of “feminism” as a unitary phenomenon. More properly, however, than replicating here the complexity and variation of the writings that fall under this label, I present a brief comment on this very complexity.^1. Universalizing categories makes the oppression debate be seen without the plurality of systems and differentiations compounded in existing relationships. The divergence between feminist positions lies in the debate itself. Thinking about concepts holistically. Marxist, socialist, and qui feminists broaden on their own the need to broaden feminist debates to other categories such as lesbian, black, white, indigenous, Muslim, Arab, Christian, Islamic feminists reveal the need to broaden categories and concepts beyond from the west. For Strathern¹ “feminist scholars apply their knowledge to concepts and ideas whose origins are located: in a world of conflict, in which people are induced to act by categories such as “women” and “man-woman relationships”.¹ Feminism is/should be plural. Any anthropological writing is not impartial, the feminist debate within a multifaceted spectrum of possibilities to represent the other,

Reflections on Saba Mahmood and women in mosques beyond feminist theories

How to look at Melanesian, Muslim and Egyptian women without transferring our concepts and interpretations of them? Anthropology can walk along with other sciences, reflecting on the categories of religion, feminism and secularism, is what Saba Mahmood² proposes. The author in her Cairotic ethnography of the women's mosque movement in Egypt, which is part of the Islamic revivalism in Cairo. Aiming to reflect on the challenges that the concepts of women's participation in the Islamist movement put into question, feminist theories and the concept of western gender. So she focused her“analysis specifically in the conceptions of self, moral agency and embodiment that establish the practices of this non-liberal movement and, thus, try to understand the ethical projects that motivate it.²

According to Mahmood² the “Islamic revivalism” concept that refers to the comprehensive form of religious terms that has developed in the center of Muslim societies, from the 1970s, specifically in Egypt. This term does not relate only to the activities of political groups, but with its ethnography, it was able to perceive that it extends to the feminine pietist movement of women in the mosques in Cairo. Composed of women “of diverse socioeconomic status, who gather in mosques to teach each other about Islamic scriptures, social practices and about forms of bodily behavior considered appropriate for the cultivation of the virtuous ideal being.”²

Challenging traditional ideas of secularism, she argues that the state should regulate the life of religious institutions. It also presents the need to distinguish the differences between the notion of agency and resistance, so that we can think about “the forms of will and politics that do not fit secular and liberal feminist norms”.²

Anthropology can walk along with feminist issues, religious traditions and secularism, going beyond issues involving the historical and cultural context as a feminist analysis. The debate between the traditional feminist debates about Islamic religious traditions has been directed with the Western eye, however contemporary Islamic movements make the feminism of Islamic women assume a central importance in the pietist revival of Islamic women in mosques. "The women's mosque movement has produced changes in many aspects of the social behavior of Egyptians today, including the way they dress and speak, the type of understanding considered appropriate for adults and children, where to invest money."²

The notion of human agency in hegemonic feminist theory has situated the subject's moral and political autonomy in power relations. Mahmood² argues that despite “the important contributions provided by this proposal, this model of agency limits our ability to understand and interrogate the lives of women whose sense of self, aspirations and projects have been shaped within illiberal traditions.”² Covering the redefinitions of agency, it strengthens the idea of disconnection between the concepts of agencies and resistance so that analytical perspectives can be developed for understanding non-liberal projects of liberatory policies. Throughout her ethnography, she analyzes two distinct forms of agency.

Mahmood's ethnography² makes us think about the debate of a wave of equality or diversity feminism, but also going beyond this perspective of how colonialism and all its issues remain alive in control in a universal way in understanding and representation of the “others”. Western feminists have universalized the desire to be free from subordinate relationships, “and for women, from the structures of male domination, a desire that is central to liberal and progressive thought and presupposed by the concept of resistance that it itself authorizes.² In this way, to think that female agency is consubstantial to resistance in the face of domination relations that moves towards the naturalization of freedom as a social ideal, is seen by Mahmood² “as a simultaneously analytical and politically prescriptive project.”²

The women's pietist movement in Cairo's mosques reveals the possibilities of a debate in the field of religion, human rights, gender issues and Islam. Expanding epistemological issues to other analytical frameworks beyond the western one. Feminism as a movement that intends to be broad and intersectional should consider other projects and desires of women who move beyond the liberal movements.

The plurality of Islamic feminism has sought to refer to the possibilities of emancipation within its internal practices. Is it if the western feminist movement able to fight for the universality of gender equality? Is there a form of universality within this perspective? The diversity and pluriethnic characteristics of Islamic societies and women make us think about universalizing and Islamic values of equality, about individual rights and gender equality. “The discussions

Feminists about individual freedom are largely due to the distinction advocated by liberalism between positive and negative freedom”² from the Western perspective of the concept of modernity. Ethnocentric postures have been present in radical and liberal feminist discourses.

The ethnography of Saba Mahmood² makes us think that the concepts of individual, person, struggle, agency and resistance are present in all societies. The women's movement from the mosques in the city of Cairo through agency are not passive, but struggle within a context of commitment and achievements. When the author brings up the theme of religion, discipline, secularity, Islam and the post-colonial context, she makes a pertinent dialogue between the liberal ideas of Western feminists. The shyness of the women in the mosques is a movement, an action. The use of the veil is a game revealed in the regulation of the female body, the use of the veil is performative.

The headscarf debate is just one part of a wider debate within Egyptian society, where political differences between Islamists and secularists, and even between Islamists of different persuasions, are expressed through arguments about ritual and performative behavior.²

According to Mahmood² docility is not abandonment of the agency of the women of the mosques, it is a sense of struggle, an “agency”. It is the ability of women to carry out in a specific way the conduct of your body and being. Agency is not synonymous with resistance to domination relations.

Lila Abu-Lughod - Muslim women and the western look

When Lila Abu-Lughod³ asks whether “anthropology, the discipline dedicated to understanding cultural difference and dealing with it, can provide us with critical support for the justifications made about intervention in Afghanistan in terms of liberating or saving Afghan women”³ outlines anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. She discusses how Muslim women are perceived, seen and treated in the western eyes, calling attention to how we establish rigid social rules, being necessary to understand the historical and cultural heritage that formed these Muslim nations.                   

Starting from the issue of ethics that crosses the current “War on Terrorism", justified as an attempt deliberation of the women Muslim which Abu-Lughod³ says that all this turned into an obsession for the suffering of these women, stating that there are other interests of a western political-economic nature, and mainly, American ones.

Abu-Lughod³ challenges Western conceptions of societies. Using the women's agenda as a justification to put these interests into practice. Thus, anthropology as a discipline that seeks to “understand and manage cultural differences”, despite the critical position of being an accomplice of this discipline “in the reification of cultural difference”.

Aiming to understand events such as September 11, 2001, and how US interventions in Afghan territory, in which Western discourse only and partially uses cultural resources, states that it is necessary to “understand how the Afghan issue reduces the debate on issues about some aspects of women's lives and religiosity, ignoring local history, the development of oppressive regimes, and even the involvement of the United States with them.”³

Exploring women's issues and cultural relativism and the problems of “difference” underlies her arguments, according to Abu-Lughod: In other words, the question is why knowing about the region's "culture" and particularly its religious beliefs and treatment of women was more urgent than exploring the history and development of repressive regimes in the region and the role of the United States. In this story. Such a cultural framework, it seemed to me, precluded serious exploration of the roots and nature of human suffering in this part of the world. Instead of political and historical explanations, experts were asked for cultural explanations. Instead of questions that perhaps led to the exploration of global interconnections, we were offered ones that served to artificially divide the world into separate spheres – recreating an imaginary geography of the West as opposed to the East, us as opposed to Muslims, cultures in which first ladies give speeches as opposed to cultures in which women are restrained and silent in burqas.”³

Abu-Lughod³is concerned with interconnecting a theoretical body composed of analyses, she discusses the diverse impacts generated by colonialism in different regions of the world. From political, economic, social and epistemic impacts. Thus, it is necessary to think of new epistemologies capable of understanding other realities, going beyond hegemonic knowledge. Abu-Lughod³ discusses the use of the burqa by Afghan women.

Discussion of culture, veiling, and how to navigate the uncertain terrain of cultural difference should shed a distinct light on Laura Bush's self-congratulation over the rejoicing of Afghan women liberated by US troops. It is deeply problematic to construct the Afghan woman as someone in need of saving. When someone is saved, it is assumed that the person is being saved from something. You're also saving her for something. What violence is associated with this transformation, and what assumptions are being made about the superiority of what you are saving her for? Projects to save other women depend on, and reinforce, a sense of superiority on the part of Westerners, a form of arrogance that deserves to be challenged. All one has to do to envision the condescending quality of the rhetoric of saving women is to imagine using it today in the United States in relation to disadvantaged groups such as African-American women or working-class women. We now understand that they suffer structural violence. We have become politicized about race and social class, but not about culture.”³

Using the concepts of Papanek, Spivak and sociologist Marnia Lazreg,⁴ the author presents a way of interpretation beyond the exported concepts from the west. The concept of “portable seclusion” Hanna Papanek, quoted per Abu-Lughod,³ the burqa already seen as libertarian, in the sense that it allowed to the women occupy “spaces” masculine” without who disrespected their Principles basic morals. From the same way, Western societies also have dress codes crossed by moral, economic and                cultural.

Like Spivak in Can the Subaltern Speak? The author brings the concept of subalternity and the need to rethink the “salvationist” role of the West. Spivak (2010) discussed the impossibility of subalterns performing the speech act because whenever they seek to do so, they are mediated by another person who presents himself or herself as the vector of another's claim. Sociologist Marnia Lazreg with the concept of “colonial appropriation of female voices”, presented by Abu-Lughod (2012) offers some vivid examples of how French colonialism won women to its cause in the Algeria.                                                                                                                                 

According to Abu-Lughod,³ the use of burqa, or others shapes in dress equally views as oppressive, must be understood in your totality as a geographically located historic-cultural product. Despite the anthropology have academically surpassed the ethnocentrism, no if you can extend this overcoming at all society, seen that the construction of identities always give by opposition, and the status quo sustained for the colonialism western cultural             he has ethnicity, color, social class, gender, sexuality and language.              

When Abu-Lughod³ makes us reflect on the possibilities of intersectional feminism, as a branch of feminism that takes into account that gender does not the only form of oppression, and therefore upper-middle-class white women have needs and claims different from those of black women living in the peripheries. In order to understand and serve all women, and thus aim for a truly egalitarian world, we must take these differences into account, otherwise feminism will be doomed to become an elitist current that ignores the vast majority of women.

Feminism in the Middle East has different claims from Western ones and it is precisely when it comes to the Eastern world that we often make several mistakes. The burqa issue is a prime example. In general, we Christian Westerners see the burqa as a symbol of oppression and control over the woman's body, confining her to a standardized and mandatory garment, which restricts the way these women see themselves and are seen in public spaces, public. However, what do these women think? I am not here to condemn or defend the burqa, but to remember that this decision is up to those who live in this reality. As hard as it is for us to believe that someone uses this piece willingly, we must not forget that we are not part of that cultural context and therefore this decision is not up to us. The concept of “Islamic” feminism cannot be seen as equal to Western. “One of the things we have to be most careful about when thinking about Third World feminists and feminism in different parts of the Muslim world is how not to fall into polarizations that place feminism on the side of the West.”³

By treating Muslim women as victims unable to see their own oppression, in addition to acting with the arrogance typical of white Westerners, we take away these women's agency. We ignore their struggles, their achievements, and their daily work and treat them as people incapable of making their own decisions who need someone to think for them and show them what they really should do. In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Salvation?

Lila Abu-Lughod³ brings in her text fundamental discussions on the subject of human rights, highlighting the ways in which the West has been treating the East, with a focus on ways of approaching the theme related to Muslim women in the Western media and politics. She complains about the generalist treatment with which Eastern themes are treated, in order to create a single and repulsive image of the population and its customs. She highlights how these discourses carry with them colonialist ideas, which erase the imperialist actions (mainly, but not exclusively, of the USA) that structured and consolidated violent forms of organization. She was thinking about the creation and constant reinforcement of a western imaginary that is the opposite of the eastern one, the first being governed by political and historical issues and the second by culture. Such a construction strengthens the occupation and irrationality of a people who cannot organize themselves without external interference, without rationality or intelligence. Denouncing selective concerns about women, taking the focus away from the defense of basic rights to highlight superficial issues (such as the use or prohibition of clothing or objects). Finally, it brings the very important question: How to deal with difference without accepting the passivity of cultural relativism?

Anthropology can walk in the opposite direction, it can show that feminism can be an extension, but not a barrier to understanding the ability to listen to “others”. The feminist debate brings to anthropology the capacity of a plural, non-universal, homogeneous movement of power struggle. But walking with dialogue between transformative proposals of the discipline itself and feminist theories. The works Strathern, Mahmood² and Abu-Lughod³ bring consistency for the bosom of the movement, their ways of thinking and doing anthropology make us think in other ways of gender, feminism and doing anthropological sciences.

Western anthropology has created the world in its understanding of the other, in its interpretations far from the language of the “native” community, it is necessary to create problematic constructions beyond Salvationist thoughts.

Abu-Lughod³ recalls that this idea that we need to save Islamic women often has a racist background: we need to save Muslim women from Muslim men, as if non-Muslim men did not commit violence on a daily basis. The misogyny that moves a man who forbids his girlfriend to wear certain clothes is the same that moves the man who forces his wife to wear a burqa. The problem will not be solved by abolishing a religion or a piece of clothing, but by abolishing misogyny. This is the fight we have in common and not the clothing war.

When Strathern observes the Hagen people on the analysis of gender relations. In this society, the Western logic of the relationship between nature and culture does not appear in the understanding among the Hagen people. The lives of men among the Hagen people are based, like clans, on the mobilization of political groups. Individual and collective prestige is gained through exchanges with other groups, celebration, and warfare. Domestic activities are carried out by women, this relationship of sexual division of labor prevents women from living collective public life. Men also have full control of politics. Male domination appears among cults created by men to maintain their superior social status.

Thus, anthropology as a science that represents the “others” also needs to find itself as sciences that do not need to denounce or judge, or universalize the place of “others” in the world in a universal way. It is necessary to understand the differences of people, of agencies, the differences of debates within what Mahmood² brings to the center of post-structuralism. It is not necessary to frame categories, concepts and social norms, it is necessary to think and reframe the dimensions of human action.

I need to listen to Middle Eastern women, Asian women, transgender women, and Muslim women, women who work in sex, in short, everyone, and listen to their needs, even when they seem to make no sense to us. By ignoring the experiences of peripheral, non-white, non-cis women, we are overlooking real issues. And worse, we distance feminism from those who are its reason for existing women.⁴

None.

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

None.

1. Strathern Marilyn. The gender of the gift: problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia. 2006;19–80.
2. Mahmood S. Feminist theory, agency and the liberatory subject: some reflections on Islamic revivalism in Egypt. Etnográfica. 2006;10(1):121–158.
3. Abu Lughod Lila. Do Muslim women really need saving? Really need saving? Anthropological reflections on and cultural relativism and its Others. Florianópolis. 2012;20(2):256.
4. Maria Cristina Castilho. Sociology: Introduction to the science of society. 2005.