“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles I write this essay at the urging of a number of friends and with some trepidation, revisiting the themes and arguments of an essay written some sixteen years ago. This is a difficult essay to write, and I undertake it hesitantly and with humility—yet feeling that I must do so to take fuller responsibility for my ideas, and perhaps to explain whatever influence they have had on debates in feminist theory. “Under Western Eyes” (1986) was not only my very first “feminist stud- ies” publication; it remains the one that marks my presence in the inter- national feminist community.1 I had barely completed my Ph.D. when I wrote this essay; I am now a professor of women’s studies. The “under” of Western eyes is now much more an “inside” in terms of my own location in the U.S. academy.2 The site from which I wrote the essay consisted of a very vibrant, transnational women’s movement, while the site I write from today is quite different. RETRIEVED FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE.