Introduction

In the real world, inequalities are exploited by those better positioned in social, familial, political, and economic hierarchies such that the views of the less powerful go unheard. At the beginning of this book, I promised to present a Third World feminist theoretical and practical account of social criticism that resolves a problem in deliberative democratic theory, that meets and exceeds critical theory's standard of theory, that respects both sides of the relativist–essentialist schism in feminist theory, and that situates Third World feminism as the heir of feminism because Third World feminists listen to the otherwise silent sources in a given society and are critical of the inequalities that silence them. Third World feminist social criticism is critical where other theories are not.

In order to be critical, a theory of social criticism needs to be more than actionable, coherent, and self-reflective. It also needs to identify the critics' method, roles, and qualifications such that critics listen to otherwise silent or unheard voices and are critical of exclusive, elitist, or coercive social decision-making fora. Based on the activism of women around the world, I have offered Third World feminist social criticism as not only theoretically important to democratic theory, critical theory, and feminist theory, but also as the realizable complement to their theoretical ideals.