Abstracts Womens Studies

This bridge called my back and The third woman: the politics of third-world women's anthologies

by Paul Bradley

This dissertation is a study of This Bridge Called My Back and The Third Woman. Both texts are anthologies of third-world women's writings. First editions were published in 1980 and 1981 respectively. In my analysis of the texts I explore how each text came into being and the issues of agency involved in their production. This Bridge Called My Back was organised by third-world women as a positive step in overcoming their exclusion from the feminist movement. Its aim was to forge links with women of color [sic]. By contrast, The Third Woman was organised by a white academic at the request of a publishing company and in this regard it may be considered an example of the hegemonic practice of white feminism that This Bridge Called My Back addresses. The thematic content of the various pieces of writing in both texts is largely feminist in its outlook. The writers explore the issue of how third-world women are marginalised through sexism, racism and classism. The writers anthologised in This Bridge Called My Back specifically try to overcome this by taking a subject position that defies the Western practice of totalising.