Orientalism, Occidentalism and the Control of Women

Presently there is a worldwide concern for improving the status of women. Some of this concern has come from the West. However, the implementation of strategies to &dquo;improve&dquo; women’s lives has moved out from national policies to the agenda at the United Nations. A central dogmal in both non-Western and Western states is that Western economic development and industrialization will improve the condition of Third World women. There is also a widespread belief that women in the United States and Western European countries are better off vis-a-vis their menfolk than their sisters in societies that are not