Rethinking Gender from the South

518 Feminist Studies 40, no. 3. © 2014 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Raewyn Connell Rethinking Gender from the South Dilemmas of Feminism Going Global From the time of the first UN World Conference on Women, in Mexico City in 1975, the hegemony of the global North in feminism was contested. That historical moment, as Chilla Bulbeck explained in One World Women’s Movement, posed the questions of global solidarity and global inequality at the same time, launching a debate in which ambiguities in the global project of feminism quickly became evident.1 The debate has continued, though on changing terms. It’s now a familiar story. Within the North, Black feminists challenged the universal­ ized models of women’s oppression put forward by White…