ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates aspects of the discursive environment of postfeminism as it is articulated through and mobilized by imperial feminist and neo-Orientalist assemblages in the context of the War on Terror. These formations are held as analytically separate for heuristic purposes, but are in fact coexistent, and in places coextensive, if not commensurate in their reach or implication. That is to say that the selective incorporation of elements of liberal feminist critique in the hegemonic common sense of our contemporary moment provides the evidence of global gender inequality, which facilitates privileged women's participation in the public sphere, on behalf of Other women, which is to say, as representative women. Rescue is always a fantasy, with heroes, villains, and victims, and our work as transnational feminists will be unconscious of its own violent and narcissistic economy precisely to the extent that we prefer that fantasy to engaging with women on their own terms.
