At the conference, Dorothy Ko asked how feminism can move beyond mere critiques of eurocentrism. Most of the posts thus far have tried to answer this question and address the problem of eurocentrism.  However, it seems that we are getting close to the view of cultural relativism that Abu-Lughod warns against: "When I talk about accepting difference, I am not implying that we should resign ourselves to being cultural relativists who respect whatever goes on elsewhere as "just their culture" "(787). This kind of cultural framing is dangerous because it obscures the real "political and historical explanations" and the "serious exploration of the roots and nature of human suffering" (784). Ironically, the desire to avoid a eurocentric approach actually reinforces (or, Abu-Lughod would say, it creates) a divide between the west and the non-west by ignoring the ways in which each region has affected and influenced the other. For example, explanations of the anti-American sentiment in countries like Afghanistan that focus on culture completely miss the history of American involvement that is behind these sentiments. As Abu-Lughod points out, "cultural relativism is an improvement on eurocentrism," but "the problem is that it is too late not to interfere. The forms of lives we find around the world are already products of long histories of interactions" (786-7). 

This kind of cultural relativism is also dangerous because it can lead to the approval of objectively oppressive practices. Abu-Lughod criticizes the ways the symbolic use of the burqa and the veil as representative of the oppression of women by the Taliban, but this does not negate the fact that women were in fact oppressed by the Taliban. Abu-Lughod makes the distinction explicit: she cites the "dreaful conditions under which the Taliban placed women." The problem is the "plaster[ing]" of "neat cultural icons...over messier historical and political narratives" (785). She explains that "we need to work against the reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women's unfreedom, even if we object to state impositions of this form, as in Iran or with the Taliban" (786). 

I think Abu-Lughod has the answer to Ko's question: "What I am advocating is the hard work involved in recognizing and respecting differences--precisely as products of different histories, as expressions of different circumstances, and as manifestations of differently structured desires." In order to truly achieve justice for women, we must acknowledge that "there might be different ideas about justice and that different women might want, or choose, different futures from what we envision as best" (787-8).