The North-South Debate: Moving Beyond Dichotomies
Recession was knocking at the doors of the world’s biggest economy before September 11, 2001. The Japanese government and the governments of the European Union were already in trouble and looking for the political and economic alliances that would bring them back in shape.
The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) was just one more stage on which the geopolitical and economic inequalities between the North and the South played out. After September 11, the recipe for the new world disorder has been perfected: the struggle for absolute control of resources and power—in all its forms—within patriarchal systems. Combine with this basic ingredient high levels of insecurity among both the privileged and the non-privileged; a philosophy that pretends to erase inequality by acknowledging “diversity;” the lack of ethical leadership; racist, sexist and classist neoliberal globalisation; the years of impunity of dictatorships and marauding governments; and all kinds of fundamentalism. Mix these all carefully and the result is a planet full of war and a devastated ecosystem.
The adaptations of this recipe to specific settings are more complicated. The global women’s movement, and other groups in civil society, cannot fall back on old paradigms to respond to the emerging challenges. We need to develop new ideas, strategies and methodologies to challenge the dominant configurations of power, instead of making it with token alterations of these arrangements, as many liberal feminists who don’t understand the indivisibility of rights would like to do.
There are signs that this new world juncture is bringing civil society together to exchange ideas and establish the connections between the different issues in new ways. Recognition of the need for internationally accepted standards of justice and the rule of law is growing, as illustrated by the rapid pace of ratification of the International Criminal Court and the work of the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
This energy can generate new debates and approaches to political action that cross the conventional boundaries of activism. To bring this about, however, we need to re-examine our roles and responsibilities as political actors. For example, women in the North can make connections between their oppression at home and the oppression perpetrated or supported by their own governments elsewhere, and develop strategies to hold their governments accountable for both. Women in the North, particularly the U.S., can do more to hold their governments accountable for their foreign policy—including military and economic policy—and not to limit their activism to “women-specific” issues like women in peace negotiations in Afghanistan, and to address the interrelationship of women’s human rights with military and economic policy.
In rethinking our roles as activists, we have to acknowledge that the North-South division within the global women’s movement itself determines women’s access to power and resources. Despite their government’s determination to undermine the WCAR, for example, it was easier for women from the U.S. to get funding to attend the Conference than the women from the South, including women from Africa. There were more U.S.-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Durban than any other group.
Meanwhile, women in the South are still fighting for basic rights (from water to access to information) within countries that often depend economically and politically on the hegemonic states, multinational corporations and financial institutions based in the North including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The women’s movement in the South has a specific agenda regarding the condition of women in this part of the world, and it is important that there be spaces for women’s organisations in the developing world to analyse and expose the issues that disproportionately affect them, especially after September 11.
The global women’s movement should find ways to move beyond the North-South dichotomy, by negotiating over power and resources, by taking responsibility and being accountable for the actions of the various women’s formations in this movement, by recognising our distinct and multiple oppressions, and by finding common ground on which to build concrete alliances. Moving forward along these lines will require that we shed our dualistic approaches without losing sight of the bipolar realities of the global order.
Finding the Overlaps
Our negotiations can use the perspective of intersectionality as a tool for identifying our multiple identities in different contexts and how our identities simultaneously interact and become oppressive or empowering. In doing so, we will reaffirm the bases of our exclusions or inclusions, or discover new ones. The realities of a “North in the South” and a “South in North,” for example, could also be examined under a new optic. As more women’s identities are represented from all regions, we will come to better understand how we can work together and build collective identities.
While the intersectionality perspective allows us to make all women’s realities visible, it can also push us into the trap of identity politics and suppress the collective or common identities essential to political action. The experience of the WCAR suggests that identity politics could collapse into a competition among victims for the status of the most oppressed. This undermines possibilities for political action and takes the focus off the power relations that structure oppression. But if we begin rethinking how we see our identities, we can avoid this trap.
We should explore how political action can co-exist with the subjective dimension of voicing our victimisations by recognising how privilege and oppression co-exist in each of us. My own reality as a white Costa Rican woman illustrates this co-existence. Our national economy is hostage to the U.S. Costa Rica, like many other Latin American countries, has no power to influence economic or political decision-making at the global level. Control over our resources is increasingly determined by external capital. Although this country is far more developed than others in Central America, we still lack the basic infrastructure that is the norm in the U.S. Within my own society, I have race and class privilege as a white lawyer from a family of professionals. That identity shifts, however, when I am in the U.S. where being Spanish-speaking and Latina become the bases for covert and overt discrimination.
Pressing Questions
We can begin the process of exploring new approaches by asking questions such as, how do we deal honestly with our diversity and very real power differences? How can we acknowledge power differences without fragmenting the women’s movement? Can we make alliances within which we can negotiate North-South power disparities and power differences within our own regional, national and local contexts? Can we agree on a shared basis for political action? Is it important to have an ethical framework within which to develop our political goals? How do we include and recognise more women’s voices? How can we use the human rights framework at this juncture to fight our specific oppressions without breaking the principle of indivisibility of rights? These are few of the questions that should be debated collectively. The process will be as important as the answers in opening the space for political action.
More than ever, we need common political action among women of the South and the North to protect all our rights in a world economy of fear and repression. For example, this is an opportunity for the global women’s movement to examine the repressive anti-terrorist measures legitimated by Resolution 1373 (2001) of the Security Council. The resolution commits UN member States to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, as well as criminalise the provision or collection of funds for such acts. The resolution also empowers a government to freeze the funds, assets and resources of those who commit terrorist acts, whether by their direct participation or by providing assistance to terrorists.
The world economy has specific North-South dimensions that have consequences for our activism. The conditions in the global South are deteriorating on a different scale and with a different intensity than in the North. Our task in the global South is to determine our strategies within the global context and link our struggles on specific issues, like religious fundamentalism, to the struggles of women in other regions.
We need for women in the North, who are in a better position than women in the South to be heard by their governments, to put their efforts into affecting their governments’ foreign policies as part of their strategies for dealing with their own oppressions. In order to build our identities as political actors, we need to move beyond one-size-fits-all answers to North-South distinctions.
The Problematique of South South
It is important to raise the question of South-South within the
current debate on diversity/specificity, intersectionality, multiple identities—and within the quest for equity and social justice. Such a discussion could highlight the critical issues facing the international women’s movement.
It might be worthwhile to recall some of the debates that took place within Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) at the time of its founding in 1984, and during its first post-Nairobi meeting in Rio in September-October 1985. DAWN is a network of women scholars and activists from the economic South who engage in feminist research and analysis of the global environment, and are committed to working for economic justice, gender justice and democracy. DAWN works globally and regionally in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific on the themes of the political economy of globalisation; political restructuring and social transformation; and sexual and reproductive health and rights, in partnership with other global non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and networks.
The premise for a DAWN was the argument that women living in developing countries (as differentiated from women from developing countries living in developed countries) need to contextualise their perspective on the efforts being made at the global level, including by the United Nations (UN), on gendering development. Such act of location seemed important because it drew attention to the broader political, social, cultural and economic environment. Crucial to understanding women’s situation, specifically to analysing its roots and links to development impulses, and to mapping the road ahead, is the ability to locate the journey in the overall context. It was through such reasoning that the first meeting of persons that formed the core of the DAWN group came to flag what they considered at the time the major concerns stemming from the geopolitics of their particular locations. For example, for Latin America, the major concern was the debt crisis (today this is a concern of all nations in the developing world), for Africa, the food crisis; for the Pacific, militarisation; and for South Asia, acute poverty.
At the DAWN meeting in Rio, the issue of inclusion—the coming to terms that there is a South in the North, that there are indigenous people and people of colour who feel an identity with women from the Third World, and that there are women from the geographical South living in the North but speaking as people of the South—was tackled. When the larger group argued that the spirit should be one of inclusion, and not exclusion, we lost one of our founding members, Marie Angelique Savane, who is also one of the founders of Association of African Women for Research and Development or AAWORD (which was one of the pillars that propped the beginnings of DAWN). Savane found the decision a betrayal of the initial ideology or purpose for which DAWN was created.
A similar perception emerged during the attempts at analysis by the members of the South Commission between 1987 and 1990.1 Those members of the Commission who lived in countries of the South were often irritated and impatient, if not openly in conflict, with those originally from the South but were already living in Northern countries. Said one of those living in the South to another who lived in London, “You pick up your news from The London Times (or from The New York Times) and your perception of both our problems and of global ‘leadership,’ intellectual and economic, is from The London Times or The New York Times. We do not even know the names of the people that you mention as powerful and important, because they are senators or ministers on the U.S. or British cabinet. You have to live in our countries and read our newspapers and our daily debates, and travel on our roads to be able to highlight a view from the South.”
These stories are told and retold mainly to reveal that the debate is an old one that gets more complex and interesting because in the affirmation of diversity, women of colour and women of other ethnic identities find the need to differentiate. There have been many definitions of the South—that South is not a “place” but a set of characteristics; that what defines the boundaries are social exclusion, poverty, discrimination and oppression, not location.
Specific Characteristics
One of the other reasons—in terms of visually striking features or characteristics of South countries—that make a compelling argument for identity based on geographical location within the South, and multiple identities within that geographical location, whether these are derived from race, caste, class or religion—is the type of poverty one suffers, and the support systems for the poor. Amartya Sen has shown in more than one paper that there can be acute poverty—and disparities—even in advanced political economies. He illustrates this by presenting poverty indicators of Afro-Americans in Chicago, next to indicators in Bangladesh, and revealing their closeness.2 In another article, he shows that the child-sex ratio, one of the best indicators of female oppression, is the same in one diagonally split region of India—the North and Southeast of India, as in Europe.3 This begs the question that because the child-sex ratio of this part of India is the same as in Europe, then this is a good child-sex ratio?
Such illustrations of similarity, however, conceal that the poor in Chicago, whose outcome indicators are similar to the poor in Bangladesh, still have a social-security floor, social insurance, or some basic social welfare entitlements. The poor in Bangladesh, on the other hand, could easily die of starvation, lack of clean water, or various forms of pestilence and disease, as they have in the past and continue to do so. In other words, unprotected death is a real, proximate and completely tangible phenomena among the poor in most of the poor countries, but not so for the poor in the advanced countries.4
Except for countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, and perhaps pockets of South Africa and Latin America, most of the countries in South Asia and Africa do not have regular power or water supply, sanitation or drainage, not only in the rural areas, but even in their cities. There is an inadequacy of infrastructure and basic amenities.
Thus, inequality and poverty, which admittedly exist everywhere, take a different characteristic in the South. The inequality in South countries has a kind of vividness, cruelty and deprivation that offers no reprieve—it has no cushion, no safety net, no umbrella. In turn, this characteristic leads not only to forms of political and cultural difference, but also antagonisms, survival strategies that are even self-destructive, political and social instabilities, and further fragmentation that allows the use of identity as a means to stake some claims in parched territory. These realities and the politics that emerge from them make the South-South an exclusive identity crucial to overpowering both external and internal pressure.
Another affirmation of diversity comes from those who propose that feminism was born in many cultures in many ways, and cannot be considered a prerogative of the Anglo-Saxon intellectual heritage. Thus, there is description of many indigenous feminisms as well as of terms such as “local” feminisms.5 There are also demands for accommodating tradition and culture, in the Human Rights Conventions, or cultural relativism.6
The Basis of Unity
But whether in the midst of the affirmation of difference, in the midst of celebrating diversity, is it not as important to find unity—unity around not merely the physical difference of male and female, and therefore the lived experience of the different biological histories, but also unity of ideology? Is it not possible to suggest that feminism stands for something—say, for equality, for social justice, or to put it in reverse, for the removal of inequality, discrimination and poverty?7 This kind of reasoning could be premised on the reality that one of the major experiences of women worldwide is discrimination, even if this is within other discriminations such as racism, casteism, and religious experience.8 If discrimination is the major experience and that discrimination based on gender is embedded within these discriminations, the removal of discrimination becomes a platform on which women can unite.
The universalisation of women’s rights, despite their specificities based on location, especially vis-à-vis the quest for sovereignty among the less developed countries, is crucial for women as most cultures and traditions have embedded gender-derived discrimination.9 Not only do the struggles for women’s rights need to unite women against discrimination, but these should ally themselves with the other movements fighting racism, casteism and other forms of discrimination. This could be one minimum of feminism. But feminism assumes a definitive shape if added to it is a celebration and affirmation of the feminine experience.10 If such a quest to find the core of what could be called feminism while allowing the periphery to be different is agreed upon, then one of the bases of “muting the difference” could be a common feminist objective and feminist analysis but different contexts of location and politics.
At the end of it all, sometimes clarity seems to come not so much from theory or analysis, not even from practices, but from action. In many parts of the world, poor women have given an answer to the question of unity within diversity to claim power. They have engaged in successive collective action around a single objective, which they identified as the common enemy. Once this objective has been achieved or the enemy has been attacked, they fall back to their original identity, whether they believe this is predominantly based on ethnicity, religion, class or ideology.11 They have shown that it is possible to come together for a political assertion of resistance or attack without losing their other identities. In other words, one could have multiple identities yet put forth a single identity for a single purpose.
A lesson to be drawn from poor women’s actions is the importance of identifying a common purpose. The ideological imperative is defined by this purpose. An example is the the Anti-arrack struggle in Andhra Pradesh, India. Arrack is a locally brewed liquor that has been the bane of many women in tribal and rural areas. The poverty of the households in such areas is aggravated by the men’s squandering of their earnings on this liquor. With the liquor consumption come the associated problems of wife-battering, drunken and disorderly behavior, and increased crime. Pushed to the limits, the women of the District of Nellore fought back through collective agitation. The agitation spread like wildfire, convulsing the entire state of Andhra Pradesh for three years. The women reached the pinnacle of success when they forced the Telugu Desam Government of Andhra Pradesh to declare prohibition as a state policy. Caste and religion were notable by their absence to divide the movement, as arrack affected every woman’s home, without discrimination. The issue itself went beyond caste and religion, for there were as many Muslim and ‘backward’-class women as there were other religions and castes in the struggle.12
The September 11 attack and the America-led coalition’s campaign once again reveals the dangers of a unipolar world. Such an unresisted war—where there was strong American as well as world public opinion against so much bombing of an agonised country—could not have been during the Cold War era. However absent the Eastern Bloc, the United States continues.
It should also be recalled that during the Cold War era, there was a third force, the Non-Aligned Movement, which was a collection of countries from the developing world that had come out of colonisation, and were trying to establish an identity that is not linked either to the West or the East. The Non-Aligned Movement was able to create an identity for itself and become a bridge-builder. It was, in fact, a completely South-South initiative that supported post-colonial struggles and ideologies, and gave self-confidence to newly independent countries. It produced great leaders such as Nehru, Nasser, Nkrumah, Suharto, Shariar and Tito. Today it is withered and any attempts to replace it either through the Group 77 in the United Nations or the South Summit held in Cuba in 2000 have not yielded a force that can hold back the America-led campaign against Afghanistan. The Non-Aligned Movement leaders were Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. Their ideology was not religion-determined, but space- and history-determined. Today, the divide has become Anglo-Saxon or Eurocentric culture and an extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism as a response, vitiating the location and articulation of liberal and democratic Muslims.
There is a case for South-South Initiative, there is a case for exclusivity. There is a case for the layering of identity with the overarching layer of being South and within it, the separation based on certain vivid forms of discrimination such as discrimination based on colour or religion. But for the women’s struggle to have a politically meaningful impact, such identity has also to have another overarching shell or moral imperative, that is, feminism that crosses all the bounds of geopolitics and diversities.
Notes
1 Challenge to the South, Report of the South Commission, Oxford University Press, 1990.
2 Amartya Sen, “Gender and Cooperative Conflict,” in Persistent Inequalities, ed. Irene Tinker, Oxford University Press, 1990.
3 Amartya Sen, “The Economics of Life And Death,” Scientific American (May 1993): 18.
4 Amartya Sen, “Many Faces of Gender Inequality,” inaugural lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, April 2001.
5 Devaki Jain, Through the Looking Glass of Poverty, Cambridge: New Hall, October 2001.
6 Basu Amrita, The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective, Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.
7 See: Devaki Jain, “Democratising Culture,” in Culture, Democracy and Development in South Asia, ed. N.N. Vohra, New Delhi: Shipra, 2001; Helen E. Longino, “Feminist Standpoint Theory and the Problems of Knowledge,” Signs 19, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 201-212; Barbara M. Cooper, “The Politics of Difference and Women’s Associations in Niger: Of ‘Prostitutes,’ the Public and Politics,” Signs 20, no. 4 (Summer 1995): 851-912; and Christine Sylvester, “African and Western Feminisms: World Travelling the Tendencies and Possibilities,” Signs 20, no. 4 (Summer 1995): 941-969.
8 See: Susan Hekman, “Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited,” Signs 22, no. 2 (Winter 1997): 341-365; and Devaki Jain, “Minds, Bodies and Exemplars: Reflections at Beijing and Beyond,” New Delhi: British Council Division, British High Commission, 1996.
9 Devaki Jain, “Women And Child Rights in the Context Of Globalisation,” round table on Building Bridges For Equality—Mobilizing Actions for the Human Rights of Children and Women, New York, June 2001.
10 Indira Rajaraman, “Economics of Prohibition,” New Delhi, 1997 (mimeographed).
11 Devaki Jain, “For Women to Lead...Ideas and Experiences from Asia: A Study on Legal and Political Impediments to Gender Equality in Governance,” New Delhi: National Commission For Women, 1997; and Devaki Jain, “Feminism and Feminist Expression,” a panel presentation at the Asiatic Society, Bombay, October 1997.
12 Devaki Jain, “Removing Discrimination and Poverty: The Importance of Exemplars,” third convocation address at the University of Tirunelveli, India, October 1995; and “Reworking Gender Relations, Redefining Politics: Nellore Village Women against Arrack,” based on the report from Anveshi, Hyberabad Economic and Political Weekly, 16-23 January 1993.
The South Touching Base
Distances were broken—in more ways than one—when women leaders from different parts of the globe came together—in real time—via a Net “chat” to discuss who are the women from the South, how they are doing, and what ought to change in their lives.
As an information and communications organisation, Isis International-Manila has observed how electronic mailing lists or discussion groups are fast becoming a popular and accessible choice for “coming together.” These allow women to get informed and engage each other. But these electronic conferences are carried out over a period of days or weeks, and many women are unable to join such discussions regularly and promptly. Isis then invited several women who live in different time zones to a three-hour meeting via an online chat. No easy task, as the Isis staff who coordinated the event and its systems administrator will attest. On 30 October 2001, at 9:00 p.m., Manila time, these women connected to Isis to “chat” on the formation of the South-South Initiative (SSI) that took place at the 45th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) meeting in New York, one of the preparatory meetings to the World Conference on Racism and Xenophobia (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa. SSI was formed as a venue for the exchange of women’s groups on various issues of relevance to women in the South, including the substance of their participation in international fora and global women’s events. One activity of the SSI in preparation for the WCAR was an electronic mailing list to discuss the question of the universality and diversity of Southern women living in the South. An issue that surfaced while setting up the list was the criteria of participation. The decision to make this electronic conference a space for Southern women living or working in the South gave way to debates on whether claiming such a “tag” or identity would have adverse impact on the women’s movement as a whole.
The following are excerpts of the online chat of women as they took up the challenge and responded to the contentious question of whether there is a need for an SSI, and who qualifies to join it. What is the value of such formation (and identity) as SSI? What are the pitfalls?
As you read the transcript below, keep in mind that the chat was a first time for most of the women who participated, as well as for Isis International-Manila itself. In about four instances, Women in Action had to slightly adjust the sequencing of discussants’ contributions or responses for a smoother flow.
Participants:
<susanna1911> Susanna George, Director of Isis International-Manila
<nicola_joseph> Nicola Joseph, communications expert working with refugee and migrant communities in Australia
<Yvonneus2001> Yvonne Underhill-Sem, a member of the Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN) who is now based in Hamburg, Germany
<anaelena_obando> Ana Elena Obando, a Costa Rica-based women’s/human rights advocate and lawyer
<lynne_muthoni> Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki, Director of FEMNET, which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and is active in the African women’s movement
<roxanna_carillo> Roxanna Carillo, researcher and activist in the women’s movement working with the New York office of UNIFEM
<wamboi_muchina> Pauline Muchina, a graduate student from New York involved in the ecumenical movement through the World Council of Churches based in New York, USA
<luz_martinez64> Luz Maria Martinez, a staff of Isis International-Manila who served as moderator of the chat
Teresita Elegado (Conference Coordinator, Isis International-Manila)
Luz: Hello, everyone. How are all of you doing?
Muthoni: Fine. And yourself?
Ana Elena: Doing pretty good, just waking up... thanks. (7:00 a.m. in Costa Rica)
Muthoni: Yes, it’s a bit difficult coordinating people all over the world for this.
Yvonne: All is good here—and good to be in ‘touch.’
Nicola: Wish I was there... It is already midnight here in Sydney.
Susanna: Greetings, everyone!!! I am so excited that this is happening... There is a whole team of us here in Isis.
Luz: We just got word that Roxanna will be a little late. In the meantime, can we please begin introductions. I am your moderator for the night (or morning). I am a Mexican with a Puerto Rican stepfather, who migrated to the U.S., was raised there, and is now married to a Filipino and residing in Manila. Been with Isis for 8 years.
Susanna: All right, me next... I am Susanna George, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Verghese, immigrants from Kerala, India to Malaysia. So my identity is that of an immigrant’s child. I feel like a Malaysian mostly, but also like a fringe dweller that belongs nowhere. I have been in Isis for the past three years, and am now learning how to speak English with a Filipino accent!!
Nicola: I am Nicola Joseph... Arab born in Australia, WAS married to a South African/Namibian... one daughter... I work in radio, mostly community, grassroots stuff. I am sitting in Sydney in a suburb where you would have a hard time finding a white person... although this is changing. Most of my work is in the local area with migrants, refugees, etc.
Yvonne: Me... born in Cook Islands to mother from [the] same and Nuie—another island country, and father from New Zealand (NZ). Migrated with family to NZ when [it was] time for school. Also schooled in Hawaii where I first met Asian folk. Lived in Papua New Guinea where my partner is from. Since then, lived in Samoa and now in Germany as a ‘tied’ migrant with three kids. Been actively involved with Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) for last the few years... new job with the General Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) shortly.
Muthoni: I’m Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki, a mixed-race Kenyan with a Scottish Canadian mother and Gikuyu father... Was born and brought up in Nairobi, Kenya, spent seven years in Canada also doing community media/radio work with immigrant and refugee women, came back here six years ago. Work in communications, gender and human rights. Also write political analyses and attempt to write creatively. Now working with the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), a regional women’s umbrella organisation based in Nairobi.
Ana Elena: I am Ana Elena Obando, a Latin American from Costa Rica, living here, a country with no army—pretty weird these days. I work as an independent consultant and part of the movement here. I work in Latin America and other regions doing human rights (work).
Luz: Thank you. We will now begin with a brief background on SSI.
The SSI was created at the 45th CSW Session in 2001. Women from the three Southern regions of Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean came together to define their agenda for the CSW and the WCAR process. It was clear at the time among those women present that they wanted to take the lead in putting their own issues forward, and they agreed to start by looking at their commonalities as Southern women. Some of these commonalities include: colonial histories, impact of economic globalisation, cultural and social homogenisation, the situations of migrants, trafficked women and indigenous peoples. Muthoni, you were at the 45th CSW. Can you recall other points [on] the formation of SSI? Note: when you are done with your statement, please put an E at the end to let us know you are finished.
Muthoni: Well, I think it was clear that we shared some frustrations with the overall process of women’s organising for the WCAR. I, for one, and some of my colleagues were excited to begin discussions with other women from the South... because we have our own histories of encounters/migrations to address among ourselves. So, there was a proactive side to it, too. The decision was to see what we could do collectively to prepare for the WCAR as a stepping stone to better and more effective Southern women’s engagement with the CSW and other UN processes. It was a bit of an experiment really. E
Susanna: I agree with Muthoni, there was excitement in the conversations that the group of women from the South had in New York. [But] I recall two critiques being raised about the formation of SSI. First, that black women in the North had in fact been discussing the issue of race, class and gender for a long time. And second, that women from the South in the North should be included in the discussion of women in the South (the geographic and political) because there were many commonalities between us. E
Muthoni: I’ll just add that my network and the other regional women’s networks have spent probably the last two years trying to improve the coordination of African women’s participation in the CSW, trying to make sure we play leadership roles that are recognised, trying to demonstrate the incredible competencies we do have. For us, the idea of an SSI was a natural extension of this work. [About] the two criticisms of the SSI that Susanna’s just reminded us of, I’d say that yes, of course women of colour in the North have been discussing identity politics for a long time and they’ve made impact domestically. But women of colour in the South haven’t really discussed identity in the same way and we’re concerned about impact internationally. Obviously, there are linkages to be made between women of colour in the North and in the South. But I strongly feel that the discussion needs to begin among ourselves first. E
Yvonne: Was there any discussion in those early conversations about why the special space needed? I recall how our discussion [in Geneva at the 2nd Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) Meeting for the WCAR] about everyday events such as “showering” (as in bathing where the water source makes the experience of showering different for women in the South and in the North). This led to many more expressions of commonality that centered on our bodies. This was another dimension to the long-standing tensions between women in the North and South. ... sorry, I forgot to put the E.
Luz: There have been counterarguments to the SSI Initiative. For instance, some of our colleagues in the women’s movement are saying that the SSI is taking away the global nature of the women’s movement. What do you think of this?
Susanna: I agree with Luz that the other point of tension in relation to the SSI’s meeting separately from the Women’s Caucus at the 2nd Prep Com was that it was drawing away from the collective strength of a united women’s voice. There was concern over the definition of the SSI as a space for women from the South located in the South, rather than a space that include women from the South located in the North. E
Ana Elena: It is a fact that the North-South division within our movement determines the access to power and resources and, as women from the South, we are still fighting for basic rights within countries that often depend economically and politically on the hegemonic countries. The global nature of the (women’s) movement [is] not in question [when] we create spaces for discussing our issues as women from the South. However, criteria should be discussed. It should be based on our political action and we should discuss how we deal with diversity and very real power differences. Can we agree on a basis for political action? Can we make alliances within which we can negotiate power disparities? E
Yvonne: I think we need to recognise that the political terrain is really ever changing and political action also needs to change. In effect, this means dealing with differences with respect by [recognising] that there are many ways to participate in ‘global movements’ - and the SSI is one. E
Nicola: I agree that women in the North have discussed race, class and gender at length.., and continue to do so on a daily basis... in a very different manner to the discussions I have encountered in the South. At the same time, I find it astonishing that women in the North would suggest that the SSI was taking away the global nature of the women’s movement... after years of doing exactly that to the South. I need to clarify my position here because as a woman from the South living in the North, I regard myself as being entirely positioned in the North, although I am engaged in a daily battle to resist this. I can understand why women in my position might feel the need to connect with women from the South. But we cannot deny the reality of our position in the North. The lines between North and South, of course, are blurred. With refugees in particular, I think the position is quite different, especially in Australia! But if we are talking about power structures, I am clearly placed in the North. Down under. Sorry I forgot the E.
Susanna: I recall a point made by Catherine Albisa, a Latina based in New York, about how the representation of the North in the women’s movement in itself was one that excluded the voices of the smaller grassroots organisations. Meaning, those who accessed the global women’s movement in the North were those with resources and power within the North. I think that this resonates with the point that Ana Elena is making about power differences. The same might also be said for those in the South able to access the global women’s space. E
Muthoni: For me it’s the old question of content and process. The content is usually fine. But the process of its articulation and the strategising to ensure that we move beyond articulation is exclusionary. Not necessarily by intent. But definitely in result. E
Ana Elena: Can you [further] explain that, Muthoni?
Muthoni: Well, coming back to the document that the SSI put together, the content, like Susanna mentioned, was also articulated in some of the ‘global’ women’s documents. But not necessarily by us in a collective sense (beyond the tokenistic one African, one Asian, one Latin American and so on). Which is really not necessary or acceptable anymore. We do have structures of representation (as imperfect as they are, and I’m the first to admit that they are imperfect...but no more than anybody else’s is). And, I think it is incumbent on us to improve them, but also for women in the North to respect them. It’s not necessarily that our ‘issues’ get left out. It’s that we don’t feel we share in articulating them and/or strategising around them. E
Yvonne: I agree with Muthoni and this was very apparent in Geneva, for me, over the ownership of the concept of ‘intersectionality.’ E
Luz: Yvonne, for the sake of others in the group, can you please expound on the concept of “intersectionality”?
Yvonne: Gee, that’s a little hard but will try—other contributions are most welcome... Off the top of my head, the concept of intersectionality tries to articulate the idea that there are some key axes of oppression that have a compounding effect on other oppressions. Gender and race are two of them. Am sorry to rush here but I have to sign off to pick up my son from school. Will be back in about an hour... E
Muthoni: I think I would add that there’s a generational dimension to this. We all have tendencies to build up and work with our own ‘networks’ of women that we trust. And yes, on Yvonne’s comment on ownership of the notion of ‘intersectionality,’ I must admit I was a bit shocked, too. The concept clearly arises from and builds on the work of many women of colour in the North and in the South who have very clearly expressed how class, race, sexuality compound discrimination. Treating this huge legacy of work as though it didn’t exist, as though the concept is new just because it’s now placed in a human rights context was rather incredible.
Ana Elena: So, I think we should look at those obstacles to articulation or strategising that [Muthoni] mentioned, and discuss amongst us what will be our own strategies and how can we strategise together. E
Muthoni: I think Susanna raises something that’s fundamental to why we need to work together as women from the South. Women from the North can represent the objective global reality because they have access to information and knowledge from all our subjective regional realities (I’m being a bit ironic). We have so much to do just dealing with our own stuff that we don’t have time (or resources) to sit and learn about women in Brazil or China or whatever. And, we don’t have the same kind of current migration patterns—meaning that we can learn from the women around us that we work with. Our old migration patterns have left deep resentments that we need to address (for example, between Asian and African Kenyans). But we have to start making the effort. And that is why the SSI is so important. E
Nicola: It is true that women in my position are marginalised. That’s why the Australian reps to many conferences are white (with one Asian, one black, etc. [thrown] in). This is our problem in the North which probably requires our own initiative. At the same time, a strong and collaborative voice from the South will help us in our daily battles in the North... I can’t keep up with you girls. E
Luz: Has the SSI shown any distinct elements? How are the SSI issues of race and gender different from the Southern women who are based in the North and dealing with these same issues?
Ana Elena: It is true that “intersectionality” is not a new concept but power differences make it appear as if it belongs to some region. Our negotiations can draw on the “intersectionality” perspective as a methodology for identifying all our multiple identities and how our identities simultaneously interact and become oppressive or empowering. As well as the basis for exclusions or inclusions... Sorry, I was writing this... I will get focused on the last question now. E
Susanna: Ana Elena, I don’t think it’s merely a question of power differences. It is really a reflection of our colonial heritage. If you look at it with the most cynical eye, subjects, objects have for centuries been transported from the South to the North as artifacts to be examined. This still goes on, where people from the South are invited to the North to bear witness to their Southern realities... E
Susanna: As Muthoni so rightly notes, people of the South rarely presume to be able to represent any reality other than their own. But you will find China, India, Middle East “experts” in the North. And they have lived in these countries for some years. And speak the language perhaps. But I, for one, would never presume to be able to speak as an expert of the USA, even if I have spoken their language since the age of four and have lived in their midst for six years. E
Ana Elena: Susanna, when I talk about power differences or—better said—disparities, I am also considering former and new colonialism as part of it. Sorry if it was not understood...Can I add [that] I think your last point is only a reflection of the macro politics North-South. In the South, we are so busy surviving that we do not have time to own issues. Plus, we do not have the resources to be experts on the world, as some in the North are. E
Messenger: Pauline has joined the conference.
Susanna: I remember attending a meeting in January organised by the Asia-Pacific Forum on Women in Law and Development (APWLD) to prepare women to do lobbying on race and gender issues at the WCAR. There were several women who said that there was no racism in their own countries, but they wanted to do advocacy work in the WCAR process because there was racism out there. Their women were facing [racism] in other countries. It was only through the WCAR process that we, as women of the South, started to actually get to [see] where racism is located in our own societies. And a BIG HELLO TO PAULINE!!!
Pauline: I am sorry I am having difficulties joining in. I am in New York and I am doing great.
Luz: Pauline, we have been discussing the formation of the SSI and issues that have led to such an initiative, and some of the counter arguments such as the SSI is taking away the global nature of the women’s movement.
Pauline: Women in the South have never been a priority in many discussions happening in the world.
Muthoni: I just want to say that the argument (that the SSI is taking away the global nature of the women’s movement) is a very old and tired argument. It’s what [was] used in the North on women of colour... and I really don’t think we should waste our time re-visiting it. E
Ana Elena: I agree with [Muthoni]. E
Pauline: I think that the creation of the SSI is the same as the creation of the women’s movement. It was argued that there was no need for creating a separate movement because it would divide the society. The same thing seems to be said of the SSI.
Nicola: Well, in many ways we (Southern women based in the North) do face some of the same problems that you have mentioned. For one, there is a cultural fundamentalism which women face and which I have encountered in my battles—especially with men of colour, a clinging to the roots as they face white supremacy. Working with young girls from these communities has really shown me the importance of strong feminist perspectives, which come from women living in the South. It is a much more effective tool than using only examples of women of colour living in the North. E
Muthoni: That’s so true. We’ve received several requests from different African countries about how to deal with the incorporation of Sharia into statutory law, for example. The only examples that are useful are from Arab feminists. Which is another reason why we need to talk more to one another. E
Luz: Going back to Ana Elena’s point... How do we get our share of the resources that are available to Northern women?
Messenger: Roxanna Carillo has joined the conference.
Pauline: Hi, Roxanna! Lynne, what problem do we have to address?
Ana Elena: Hi Roxanna, you’re just in time. We are talking about access to resources. We should probably negotiate with the Northern organisations that they should not compete by taking resources that will be more useful for work in the South. The North should work harder within their countries against the foreign policy of their governments killing the rest of the world. That will be a good help to the South. E
Roxanna: Hi friends, this is so new to me that I don’t know where to write my reply! Let’s see how it goes.
Nicola: That’s a good question. I am in the North and I haven’t worked out how to ensure that resources are spread amongst people of colour in the North. They hold on tightly to them. So, I agree with Pauline and Muthoni. Claiming the space, even in the form of SSI, is an important step. And exclusion is an essential strategy, unfortunately, to send a wake up call to women of the North. Those of us who don’t need waking up should understand why you are leaving us out. Hi Roxanna! E
Muthoni: I agree with Ana Elena that work on Northern foreign policy is critical. Especially given the current situation. E
Roxanna: Regarding the question of resources, how do you think this should be put on the feminist agenda?
Ana Elena: We should start discussing how the North-South division determines access to power and resources. And the feminist agenda should address how then do we deal with diversity and very real power differences. And if we can make alliances within which we can negotiate North-South power disparities and power differences in our own regional, national and local contexts. The need for space for women of the South to further discuss and share their issues with other women of the South is already clear, I think. E
Pauline: I think it is about time that we women in the South put forth what kind of partnership we expect from the women in the North. For us to do this, as Susanna has reminded us, we must strengthen our own coalition. That is why I think that what we are doing now—talking to one another—is important. Roxanna, the resource question should be addressed to our partners in the North, but also across regions in the South. I agree with Ana Elena, too, that the issues of power distribution must be addressed before we can move forward. E
Muthoni: Again, I would say the onus is partly on us. We have to be clear what our priorities are, collectively, within and amongst our respective regions. And we have to facilitate reaching that clarity ourselves. Then, we can make the kind of demands that Pauline’s mentioning. The onus necessarily shifts to Northern women to respond in good faith. E
Pauline: For example, who decides what should be in an agenda of an international meeting to address the women’s movement? Shouldn’t we as women from the South be given the opportunity to state what are our priorities, without someone else telling us what should be our concerns?
Ana Elena: More than demands, we should think about what are the spaces for common political action among women from the South and the North and what are the South-South spaces for political action, etc. E
Muthoni: To come back to Ana Elena’s and Roxanna’s questions, we all work on different things and on different international processes. So, the point isn’t just to determine which spaces we will organise in what ways. I think the point is to try—no matter where we are or what we’re engaging—to plan ahead for these dynamics.
Roxanna: I agree with Ana Elena completely. If we want to be politically effective, we need to understand what are the spaces to discuss North-South relations, and when the political situation demands that we have a South-South understanding before we engage in a global conversation. I still have a problem about the vagueness of our understanding of the South and North identities. E
Luz: When will the contributions of Northern women, other than resources, be useful to the development of a feminist South-South analysis?
Muthoni: In response to Luz’s question.., I think, for example, the need for Northern women to work... on their foreign policies. That’s not about resources. That’s about taking responsibility for our respective positioning. And that’s always useful. E
Susanna: Yes, I agree with Ana Elena. It is more than what we demand from women in the North. It is about deciding which are the points of collaboration and joint political action, and which might be the points of departure. I mean, if women from the South genuinely had time to speak to each other, we may decide that what we need to do is more intra-regional dialogue before we can reach out inter-regionally. We may also decide that we need to simultaneously do more intra-regional leveling off, or within regions, then break down into further sub-regions and clusters... E
Nicola: I am sorry I am having difficulty here... because the messages are not coming, and then they all bounce in at once. I think setting the agenda for conferences is an extremely good point. I would like to add that new models for the delivery of aid from the North need to be mapped out, with emphasis on practical and useful infrastructure. I believe that this change will come from women of the South. E
Pauline: Speaking of political space, I think we have had those in international [and] regional meetings. I do agree that we have to be intentional. For example, during the CSW, how do we work together? Are we proposing to have an SSI caucus?
Muthoni: Yes. And hopefully, we’ll do it better this year. E
Pauline: I also think that politically, we can begin to lobby international and regional organisations to put aside resources to facilitate SSI. Roxanna, I am not sure I understand the strict identities of the North and South. I believe that there are people who live and work in the countries of the North that [are from the countries of the South or are treated as such]. We must not leave them out.
Ana Elena: The experience of the WCAR suggests that identity politics can undermine the possibilities for political action and take the focus off the power relations that structure oppression in all its forms. It is also true that we can use the “intersectionality” perspective as a methodology for identifying our multiple identities, but not for it to be the basis of our political action... Because it will collapse at some point. Perhaps if we begin rethinking how we see our identities, we can avoid this trap. SSI can coexist with many other actions and spaces. E
Ana Elena: The SSI will exist as long as it is able to really discuss core issues related to power differences. Let’s include more voices and let’s establish a permanent virtual connection for discussing issues in depth.
Pauline: I am assuming that we are also talking about staying in other networks that we belong to, e.g., the Women’s Caucus. We must make our voices heard in these forums. Sometimes, people get away with stuff because we let them. E
Luz: We seem to be in agreement that an SSI is needed but the suggestion that the points to be discussed should be concrete. Any suggestions on this?
Muthoni: There are two strands to our working together. One is deconstructing our history as southern women and what it means (more ideological), and the other is practical engagement on issues of common concern. Doha’s coming up, for example, (The WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha, Quatar.) This so-called ‘war against terrorism,’ which is profoundly affecting our region is [another] example, and I think it’s extremely important that we find a way to act collectively on it.
Susanna: Ana Elena is suggesting that we look at the question of power differences, and Muthoni is suggesting that we look at practical engagement on common concerns as well as an ideological effort to understand the historical questions underlying the South. E
Muthoni: I think we could have three points to discuss. The first is ideological (power differences and what they mean, and how to address them better); the second, practical urgent actions (like the implications of September 11); and the third, practical ongoing engagement in specific international processes (like the CSW). E
Roxanna: One of the issues to be discussed at the next CSW is poverty. What are the plans to [ensure] a meaningful discussion that involves both North and South perspectives of the various issues that are connected to poverty? I like the suggestion to focus on practical issues and from there explore issues such as power differences, rather that have an entirely ideological discussion. E
Luz: Thank you all for being so diligent in following this conversation for the past three hours. We will be taking excerpts from this discussion which we will publish in the next issue of Women in Action, which is on South-South movements.
Ana Elena: Thanks to Isis. Nice chatting to all of you. Hugs. E.
Susanna: Thank you all for this. It was very interesting and take care. E
Roxanna: Thanks to all of you. It was great, this instant communication. We should explore it again.
Muthoni: Thank you all for making me think about things again. Special thanks to all the Isis women, especially the silent Teresita for getting us all online. Going home. Take care and bye.
Susanna: Okay, I’ll be clicking out now. Thank you... [names of all the participants and Isis staff involved].
Luz: Pauline and Nicola, are you still there?
Nicola: I appear to have lost contact, although I am still connected. Good night all!
Women in Paradoxical Places: 'Out of Place' in the South and the North
Throughout the 1990s, extremely difficult negotiations took place in the global struggle for the recognition of the fundamental nature of women’s rights.
The combined and courageous efforts of feminist advocates at United Nations conferences, along with other groups, were eventually rewarded with the recognition of the indivisibility and universality of human rights, as adopted in Vienna, and that women’s rights are human rights, as articulated in Cairo and Beijing (Sen and Batliwala 2000, Sen and Correa 1999). The struggle now is to defend these rights because however admirable these gains are, they exist within the paradoxical spaces created by economic globalisation and religious fundamentalism (Sen and Madunaga 2001). This is evident in the tragic 11 September 2001 attacks in two key spots of the United States that fanatical religious fundamentalism was able to attack.
The shadows of these two forces—globalisation and fundamentalism—extend far into the lives of many women who occupy both the centre and the margins—the centre in some ways and the margins in others. For example, the women may be considered occupying the centre because as smaller interdependent markets become amorphous global markets, especially for women in the South, many aspects of their lives have been significantly altered by the flow of goods, services and people across borders. Plastic bowls, metal plates and cutlery, cotton fabric, salt, soap, paracetamol and pencils are no longer exceptional commodities even in small village trade stores in “remote” Pacific Islands. Undoubtedly, the easier access to such goods and services contribute to making domestic life easier—when there is cash to buy them.
Although there maybe no TV, Internet, electricity or running water, not so scarce are carefully wrapped bibles and prayer books. Add to this the folklore that helps explain how and why people are behaving, dying or living in ways that go against common understanding. One also has to reckon with the inequitable clan exchanges that have longer-term effects than commerce, the trespassing of ‘traditional taboos’ such as marrying within clans or having children more often than every two years. All of these, and more, are the range of possible reasons that might explain away daily life.
Everyday Contradictions
Such “inconsistencies” that are the stuff of women’s daily lives can be likened to their occupying “paradoxical spaces.” We must continue to understand the ways by which economic globalisation and religious fundamentalism continue to thrive in order to reverse them, just as we must also understand how these two forces are co-opting the institutions and practices that have been available to women in negotiating their paradoxes. We must be prepared for this task if we are to discern the role that women’s agency plays in feminist-led transformative development.
Many women successfully negotiate their way through these paradoxical spaces as they struggle daily to provide for their families and themselves. A poor woman might decide to sell nutritious garden produce for an ailing child craving for the taste of rice. A Christian mother of seven may secretly seek ‘traditional’ contraceptives to prevent further pregnancies while still subordinating herself to her husband, as the church teaches. A young mother of three may regularly attend church services with her husband, a ‘reformed’ wife-beater, for a glance at her lover. Each of these scenarios shows how women, in dealing with the complex power relations they live with, are exercising an agency that keeps them going.
This negotiation happens in many ways in different places and over time. And it is this diversity that creates the political tensions in a global arena between women from the South and women from the North. The recognition of shared biology does not necessarily provide the coherence for women as a political lobby. We are as often divided by our biology as we are by our politics and religions. A pure essentialist approach that considers that women everywhere share an essential essence, a common biology that forms the bedrock upon which all women’s issues rest, has been abandoned because it assumes that ‘bodies’ are the same everywhere. (Yet the bodies of some women to this day remain excluded.)
Moreover, women are differently embodied—not just in relation to men, but also in relation to other women. Many women do not have children—some by choice, some because they suffered such sexual violence that they are unable and/or unwilling to have children. Thus, although similarly embodied, women experience their sexual and racial body in vastly different ways.
Pitfalls of Oversimplification
There has long been recognition that there are major distinctions between women in the North and women in the South on the basis of the legacies of colonialism and neocolonialism, their post-colonial present, or their class, race and geographical location. What is becoming more difficult to reconcile are the differences even in our experiences of sexuality and reproduction. This makes the struggle for universality in women’s human rights more difficult but also more critical. If we are not vigilant about accepting such differences, then we risk opening up the women’s movement to more pervasive forms of patriarchy, especially those embedded in religious fundamentalism and economic globalisation.
A response to essentialist approaches to women’s politics is the position that everything is socially constructed and therefore variable, though not unchangeable. Although often dismissed as a mere theory that undermines the solidarity politics of the women’s movement, a social constructivist approach allows us to sharpen our analysis of power relations and the possibilities for transformative change. It enables us to ask two important questions: On what basis are we allies with whomever, and at which particular points in time? While the structures of patriarchal fundamentalism and capitalist greed are becoming easier to identify, in many places, the power these have consolidated spreads through an array of power relations to create the complex political context within which women’s movements navigate. The racial, economic and ideological warps of this context are held together by a variety of wefts so that the fabric is inevitably uneven in texture and color.
Identity Choices
One’s personal location has become an important warp in this fabric. This does not refer to a simple geographical location—such as a country in the Northern hemisphere—but a relational location such as as being from ‘the South’ in relation to being in ‘the North.’ This identification may be based on birth, citizenship or residence, but it is not necessarily hinged on a particular country. The intensification of population movements in a regime of globalisation means personal identities are even more complex for a growing number of people, especially women. The issue then becomes a personal one of knowing which particular places impassion you. Where are the struggles that are your struggles, regardless of your geographical location?
In my case, I was born in the South, with Southern ancestry, but I am a tied migrant living in the North, married with three children, with a partner also from the South who took on a job with an international agency. I yearn to return to familiar Southern places, despite the good plumbing we have, the relatively safe streets, and the access to far more (processed) food. I remain ‘out of place’ in the North and ‘out of place’ in the South. The happenings on my street bear little resemblance to the happenings on my streets in the South. More than this, my concern about poor child-care facilities here pales in significance when I learn that another young mother in the village died of childbirth last month. I still feel impassioned by a place far away. Being in the North has paradoxically sharpened the distinctions I make about the ‘North’ and the ‘South.’ My politics has no bearing on physical geography, it is a politics of identity and relative location.
For women to enjoy gender justice, economic justice, and democracy, an enabling political and economic environment is imperative. In the North, there are the possibilities for many to achieve this—they are able to vote, move freely in the streets, and claim some state welfare support. In the South, totally different strategies are needed to even begin to build such an environment. Moreover, this must be done while still dealing with situations where one’s livelihood is always threatened and preventable diseases ravage communities; where unwritten rules restrict the freedom of women to talk and meet; where one’s own body is constantly vulnerable to illness, malnutrition and violence. Few Southern Governments are the open champions of a gender-just national or global order although they are very much in favor of a particular form of an economically just global order.
The Better Option
But, however much we criticise our governments and cultures privately and publicly, the dilemma is that public critique creates a space for the global fundamentalist forces of religion and tradition to offer their interpretations. This is one of the ways that democratic space concedes to the structures of economic globalisation and religious fundamentalism.
Navigating between capitalist agenda and religious fundamentalism is the unenviable position of all civil society groups. But because of the diversity of women’s lives, politisation among feminist civil society groups has to make room for both strategic and coalitional politics. While this diversity could turn out fragmentary, such fragmentation should be seen as a symptom, and not necessarily a problem, of feminist work. We need to be able to work with and despite the fragmentary politics of the women’s movement. But it is also important that we have a clear understanding of how new political dimensions are embedded with differing histories.
We must be able to practice inclusive politics with those who share the same goal of change for the benefit of women. At the same time, however, greater respect for the diversity enshrined in the framework of the universality of women’s human rights is in order. This respect comes from accepting our differences, not merely tolerating what one ultimately believes is wrong. It is possible to respect the sensitivities speaking out against practices that ‘oppress’ women in the name of tradition, culture, history or religion. Taking the cues from women who struggle with these paradoxes on a daily basis will not only strengthen our analysis but also help create the non-judgmental spaces for women to hear other voices. We all need such challenges so that we see the many particularities that shape the general, but our differences should be revealed in ways that do not belittle and disempower. Such challenges to the ability we have developed in naming and describing our indictments may be uncomfortable and painful, but this is much more worthwhile to withstand than the effects of strengthening religious fundamentalism or rampaging economic globalisation.
References
Antrobus, Peggy. “Local Realities and Global Action: Women Responding to Globalisation.” A presentation sponsored by Development Studies, Women’s Studies and The Coady International Institute, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, September 17, 2001.
Sen, Gita and Sonia Onufer Correa. “Gender Justice and Economic Justice: Reflections on the Five-Year Reviews of the UN Conferences of the 1990s.” A paper produced for UNIFEM and published in DAWN Informs, April 2000, pp. 5-7.
Sen, Gita and Srilatha Batliwala. “Empowering Women for Reproductive Rights.” In Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Processes: Moving Beyond Cairo, ed. Harriet Pressar and Gita Sen, pp. 15-36. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
(This opinion piece benefits greatly from many and ongoing discussions I have had with my DAWN colleagues and especially by a paper written by Gita Sen and Bene Madunagu, and a paper by Peggy Antrobus after 11 September 2001. However, I take full responsibility for what is penned here.)
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