This paper elaborates and renders explicit some of the views about political philosophical methodology that underlie the author’s arguments in Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. It shows how the author’s stances on autonomy, individualism, intersectionality, human rights, the coloniality of gender, and the oppression of genders besides man and woman grow out of a commitment to scrutinizing our normative views in light of transnational criticism and empirical information from the qualitative social sciences.

This paper clarifies and reflects on the four values that Serene Khader argues feminism can do without in Decolonizing Universalism: independence individualism, personhood individualism, Enlightenment freedom, and gender‐role eliminativism. Persuaded by her condemnation of the view Khader calls “headship complementarianism” and her defense of a different form of gender complementarianism, the paper leaves the question of gender role eliminativism aside. It starts by presenting some concerns about her treatment of Enlightenment freedom, independence individualism, and personhood individualism. It agrees that Enlightenment (...) freedom and independence individualism have no place in feminism. Contrary to Khader, however, it maintains that personhood individualism is necessarily a feminist value. It then shows why the value of women’s autonomy is more central to non‐imperialist feminism than Khader acknowledges. Ultimately, it agrees with Khader that feminism can be both universalist and non‐imperialist provided that these qualifications are adopted. (shrink)

Transnational feminism should have normative force and be anti‐imperialist. This article addresses the possibility of an anti‐imperialist transnational feminism in conversation with Serene Khader’s Decolonizing Universalism. Khader argues that the key to an anti‐imperialist feminism is separating universalism from the features that result in imperialism, such as ethnocentrism and justice monism. This article shares Khader’s commitment to anti‐imperialist feminism and further explores three relevant issues: human rights, the definition of feminism, and economic justice. It proposes a decolonizing view of rights (...) that advocates a critical examination of their uses, applications, and origins. It argues that transnational feminism should engage with issues of economic justice. And it proposes that feminism as an intersectional praxis should include normative dimensions in addition to antisexism, such as antiracism and economic justice. (shrink)