Asia

Empowering Filipinas for Development

published by GABRIELA National Women's Coalition, available from GABRIELA, P.O. Box 4386, Manila, Philippines

A compilation of speeches delivered by various authors during the GABRIELA National Consultation on "Filipino Women, Debt and Development" which convened on November 1987.

It also includes other selected articles on current Philippine development strategies as they affect women. This paper attempts to look at the issues of debt and development from the perspective of the Filipino women.

Technology and Gender: Women's Work in Asia

edited by Cecilia Ng, published by Women's Studies Unit, Department of Extension Education, Centre for Extension and Continuing Education, Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia and the Malaysian Social Science Association

The impact of technological innovation on women's work is a phenomenon only recently studied and understood, particularly with reference to the developing societies. This volume of theoretical essays and case studies on technological change and working women in Asia looks at the different consequences on women compared to men and attempts to highlight the gender differences and issues so that women can equally benefit from the fruits of development.

Peasant women in the field, rural women workers in the handicrafts industry, female production operators in the high-tech semiconductor assembly factories and part-time keying-in typists in the banking and finance sectors are some of the areas covered.

This book is a contribution to the critical questions surrounding technology, gender and development. This is especially so given the pivotal role women play in nation-building and their participation is crucial if technology is to be relevant and appropriate to our lives and environment. It should be of interest to social scientists, technologists, policy-planners and development workers, (from the back cover)

Labour Pains and Labour Power: Women and Childbearing in India

by Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, Andrew Lyon, published by Manohar, 1 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002, India and Zed Books Ltd., 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9BU and 171 First Avenue, New Jersey 07716, USA

'What else is a woman for but to have children?'

'Women become old bearing children. They can't keep their strength. Their spirit drains away.'

'If it were under anyone's control, no girls would ever be born!'

'I don't want more children, but where is men's consideration? And what can we women do?'

These are three voices of women reflecting on their experiences of childbearing.

Agrarian relations in north India cannot be understood if women and their activities —including biological reproduction — continue to be marginalized. The private act of childbearing cannot be divorced from its social and economic context, for women's experiences of work and childbearing are deeply influenced by class and household politics.

By skillfully interweaving analysis with the villagers' own voices, the authors, who lived in two north Indian villages  for many months and talked freely to the women and men, provide an accessible and exciting reassessment of women's roles in an agricultural society.

'This is a major contribution to our knowledge of health care systems in India, especially as they relate to women...[and] a significant contribution to our understanding of women's roles as differentiated by class. [It] looks at women's lives with care, a strong analytic framework, and enormous sensitivity...'(Prof Susan Wadley, Syracuse Univ.)

Latin America Sellers and Servants: Working Women in Lima, Peru

by Ximena Bunster and Elsa Chaney, published by Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 670 Amherst Road, Granby, Ma. 01033, USA

Using an innovative "talking pictures" technique, this book presents the lives of women street peddlers and domestic servants in Latin America from their own words.

Sellers and Servants is a welcome addition to research and neglected subject, that of poverty-stricken Peruvian women whose alternatives for subsistence are few and cruel: to be a servant or to peddle goods in the markets and streets of Lima.