Print Media
AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist
By Huda Shaarawi, translated by Margot Badran, Virago Press, 41 William IV St, London WC2N 4DB, 1986. 155 pp. Price £6.95 (in UK).
This book documents a period of intense change for Egyptian women, and gives a privileged view, from the inside, of lives which have remained largely closed to outsiders.
Huda Shaarawi came from the last generation of upper-class Egyptian women to spend their childhood and married life in the harem. She was daring enough to insist on her need for independence and to take progressive steps towards this end. Starting with a seven-year separation from her husband, she eventually traveled not only in Egypt, but also in Europe and began what grew into a movement for women's rights. She got involved in the struggle for Egyptian ' independence and in 1923 carried out the daring act of removing her veil publicly.
This series of memoirs, containing all the freshness of first hand experience, captures the strong atmosphere of the period and the powerful personality of the freedom seeking Huda.
Women in nineteenth-century Egypt
By Judith E. Tucker, Cambridge University Press, 1985 Trumpington ST, Cambridge CB2IRP. 1985. 251 pp.
A historical study of Middle Eastern women based on primary research. This book provides an account of the very active economic, social and political roles of nineteenth-century women, from the peasant and street pedlar to the slave of the harim. The women's own accounts of their activities and problems, as recorded in court documents, give the material an immediate and lively tone.
The varied effects of capitalist transformation on women, and particularly on their family life, are studied in detail. The effects of the Egyptian process of state formation and colonial rule are discussed: the growth of the state apparatus, its social services and repressive means, brought new kinds of intervention into women's lives.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Invisible Hands: Women in Home-based Production
Edited by Andrea Menefee Singh and Anita Kelles-Vitanen, Sage Publications, 32 M-Block Market, Greater Kailash 1, New Delhi 110 048, 1987. 269 pp. Price £17.
This collection of original articles examines women's home-based production in diverse cultural, occupational and national settings in India. Various papers look at cottage industries such as beedi-rolling, electronics, crafts, garment and dairy production and petty trading. Other papers examine the problems of Bangladeshi women in livestock production and of Sri Lankan workers engaged in manufacturing coir products.
Among the issues tackled by the articles in this volume are the visibility of home-based work, its nature and context; the legal aspects; and future strategies for the ideology of this type of work. In addition, various authors explore ways and means of uniting home based workers and giving them greater bargaining power, of making the public aware of this kind of hidden labor, and of developing alternatives to existing putting-out systems.
A Time to Build: People's Housing in Asia
By Jorge Anzorena and Wendy Poussard, Plough Publications, 48 Princess Margaret Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 1985. 63 pp. Price US$4.00.
This book is intended to encourage professional people who wish to use their skills in the service of the poor. It presents some insights from people who have tried to work in this way, 26 examines some of the problems and difficulties and formulates some "radical rules" for professionals.
It does not attempt to explain the practical processes involved, but to document instances where poor people, with the help of professionals, successfully overcame their housing problems amidst conditions of great poverty.
A Special Caste? Tamil Women of Sri Lanka
By Else Skjonsbeig, Zed Press, 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9DN 1982, 143 pp. Plica £5.50.
In the Hindu parts of South Asia, many women labor under the burden of a triple oppression - gender, class and caste. The author of the present study attempts to portray this situation through the use of descriptive analysis, statistical tables, case studies and drawings.
The final effect is a horrifying one. Through the clinical prose and short, matter-of-fact sentences, a pathetic picture of human misery emerges. The chapter-headings are value-free enough - work and working conditions, the distribution of property, education and what it means, health, food and other good things, participation in public life, rites of passage, rules and relationships... But as the exploration of these different aspects of life gets underway, we witness a layering of different systems of oppression and suffering.
A penetrating and moving book in a clean, persuasive style.
Indo-Fijian Women: Past and Present
By Shireen Lateef, in Manushi No 39, available from Manushi C/202, Lajpat Nagar 1, New Delhi 110024, India.
An article which describes this small population of women. Taking a historical perspective, the author traces the development of this very strong but oppressed group, correcting some common misconceptions about female indentured laborers.
A Day in the Life of a Tamil Woman
By six a. m. she is already up, has washed , and gone to the field to do her toilet. This is the timetable for the rest of her day:
6.00 She sweeps the kitchen and makes breakfast.
6.20 The whole family eat bread and drink tea.
6.35 Yogamma goes to look for a cup that has been lost.
7.00 She washes up after last night's dinner.
7.25 She helps her older girls to get dressed and off to school.
7.40 She washes her infant and prepares herself for going out.
8.00 She is at the Thoppukadu health centre to get milk powder which is distributed to underweight infants. The child is fed here.
9.30 She is back home, where she sweeps the kitchen (which is a separate building), livmg quarters and the yard.
11.10 She washes herself, hands and feet.
11.25 She comforts her baby, who is crying.
11.35 She goes to get water which, because the village wells have dried up, is brought to Main Street in a tanker lorry. She goes twice. The water is rationed because of the drought. She is entitled to only two pots or 36 litres of water.
11.55 She goes with a neighbour to an uncultivated area to pick green leaves.
12.30 She starts making lunch: fish and "spinach ".
13.35 She washes up and sweeps the kitchen.
14.00 She pounds chillies for the dinner.
15.00 She prepares her baby and herself for going to the health centre again.
15.10 She goes to the health centre to get milk powder for the afternoon feed and feeds the baby.
15.30 She is back home again. She leaves the baby with her elder daughter and collects dirty clothes.
15.40 She goes to the well where she washes clothes, helped by her second daughter.
16.40 She arrives back home and spreads out the clothes to dry.
16.50 She lights the fire, makes tea for her father-in-law. and drinks tea herself.
17.00 She goes to Main Street to see if she can find some cheap vegetables to buy.
17.30 She goes to the well to get water (not drinking water). The pot she carries weighs 18 kg when full.
17.55 She cleans the lamp, fills it with oil and lights it.
18.10 She cooks dinner: rice and fish.
18.55 She cooks milk porridge for her baby.
19.00 She gives her children dinner.
19.20 She puts the children to bed.
19.30 She sits outside the house and makes a basket from palmyra leaves, chatting with her neighbours while she works. The basket she will try and sell.
20.30 She serves dinner for the husband and father-in-law.
20.45 She eats dinner herself and washes up.
21.00 She rests.
21.30 She goes to sleep.
Timetable of Her Husband's Day
He gets up shortly after 6.00 a.m.
6.20 He eats breakfast which is served by his wife.
7.00 He goes to work at Kayts.
8.00 He starts his job building fences, ploughing, watering, building houses, or whatever work he may be put to.
12.00 He goes home.
12.30 He goes to the men's well to wash himself
13.15 He eats the lunch prepared by his wife.
13.30 He rests.
14.00 He returns to Kayts.
14.30 He resumes work.
17.00 He leaves when the working day is over and goes home in the company of friends.
17.30 He drinks tea at home.
17.35 He goes to Main Street to be with friends, play cards and chat.
20.30 He eats dinner.
20.45 He chats, listens to the radio or rests until bedtime.
by Else Skjorsberg
From: A Special Caste: Tamil Women of Sri Lanka
Better Life Technologies for the Poor
By F.A. Ryan, CARITAS INDIA. CBCI Centre, Ashok Place, Gole Dakhana, New Delhi - 110001, 1987. 100 pp. Price 10 rupees.
A cheaply published book which offers a host of simple suggestions for improving the life of rural peoples. Based on Indian experiences, it focuses on domestic improvements e.g. food preservation, dye-making, rat-trap creation, etc. Basic diagrams illustrate the processes being described.
CANADA AND THE USA
The Threshing Floor: Short Stories
By Barbara Burford, Firebrand Books, 141 The Commons, Ithaca, New York 14850, 1987. 210 pp.
A volume about self-discovery. In the major long story of the book, the protagonist sets about recovery from the death of her lover, journeying through a series of entangled relationships and discovering that, in the security of her previous love, she had not fully understood her own involvement in the lives of many people around her.
It describes, in loving detail, a life devoted to art, craft, friendship and love.
In other stories in the volume, the author explores more bitter experiences in the lives of women: betrayal, oppression and loneliness. But the final effect is always positive.
My Story's On: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives
Edited by Paula Ross, Common Differences Press, Berkely, California, 1985. 220 pp.
A moving collection of short first person accounts of lives of working class women in the USA. Through its pages, the strength, tenacity and, humor of immigrant women, blacks, lesbians, chicanes, refugees emerge.
Many of the accounts are gruesome, with, accounts of brutal cruelty by soldiers, callousness of authorities and exploitation of employers. The range is tremendous, from an account of the most horrible rape scenes in war-torn San Salvador, to a tart and flippant recounting of a day in the life of a bored secretary. But throughout the poetry and prose is the ring of the human voice confronting horror and, often in its very survival, triumphing.
On every page, the writing is excellent. The styles vary from simple and graphic to lyrical and expansive, to bitter and ironic, to reflective and celebratory. But always the editing is first-class; the selections are excellent and the pieces tight and well-controlled.
A book which widens the reader's experience, strengthens her faith in the human spirit and deepens her pride in women's capacities.
Conserves
Preparing the plums for preserves,
my hands turn old:
become the hungry fingers
of my family's women
who rushed through pushcarts, Russian markets
not enough kopecks
not enough bread
not enough
not enough
to quiet crying mouths
They spent their lives
holding palms against hunger,
ordinary female labor
too common to praise.
I have the time
to look at each fruit.
The thick rose liquid
dusky as a rare compliment
blushing their creased cheeks
sighs into jars.
I hold the jam up to the light,
feeling their work m my bones:
Sadie, Bessie, Regina. Anna, Julia, Jennie, Rose
This sweetness is for you.
by Marcy Alancraig
From: Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Lives
Affliction
Affliction
Is ice
On a summer pond.
And the pond
Not dead.
But subtly robbed
Of pondness.
by Murielle Minard
from: With Wings: An Anthology of literature by
and about Women with Disabilities
With Wings: An Anthology of Literature by and about Women with Disabilities
By Marsha Saxton and Florence Howe (eds), The Feminist Press, The City University of New York, 311 East 94 St, New York, New York 10128, 1987. 168 pp.
A variety of women have contributed to this book - young, old, black, white, heterosexual, lesbian, rich, poor. Through personal accounts, fiction and poetry, women describe the physical experience of disability; explore the effects of disability on their relationships with family, friends and lovers; and reach for transcendence of the societal and internal barriers of being female and disabled.
While dispelling myths and stereotypes, the collection celebrates the strengths and talents of disabled women and girls, offering a personal look at the fierce rage and pain of physical and social devaluation and the triumph of empowerment. Thirty writers, both well-known and previously unpublished, capture the human striving for dignity, self expression, love and independence in the day- to-day reality of disabled women's lives.
EUROPE
Gender and Expertise
By Maureen McNeil, Free Association Books, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ 1987. 260 pp.
This collection of essays takes varying perspectives on the title topic. Divided under the headings: Women's Nature and Rationality; Education; Technology; Work; and Biographies, it attempts to analyze the phenomenon of expertise and explore the ways in which power is gendered and mediated in practice by notions of science, of technology and of nature itself.
Articles look at the gendered construction of jobs, housework and domestic technology, at famous women in medicine and science, at the arguments generated on issues of women and technology and women and biology. It also includes an extensive critical bibliography on the subject of gender and expertise.
Women in Ireland: Voices of Change
By Jenny Beale, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987.219 pp. '
An analysis of the changing experiences of Irish women over the past 25 years it is illustrated with in depth interviews of 27 women, ranging in age from 14 to 87. Nuns and mothers, farmers' wives and schoolgirls talk about many aspects of their lives: work, sexuality. childhood and the differences between themselves and* their mothers and daughters.
Analyzing this deeply conservative society with its strong traditional links with the catholic church, Jenny Beale examines the conflict between progressive and traditional forces, looks at the barriers to further change for women and asks whether women in Ireland can hope to achieve real equality.
Action Guide On Implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes
Commonwealth Secretariat, Marlborough House, Pall Mall, London SWIY 5HX.
This guide focuses on the following key issues:
- What specific measures are likely to ensure implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes or effect being given to its principles and aims?
- What precise legal instruments are best suited to this task?
- How can effective and enforceable action be best assured?
- What constitutes inappropriate practices in the promotion and distribution of breastmilk substitutes?
- How would alleged breaches of the Code, or irregularities in its pursuance, be dealt with?
- What measures, other than legislative, can be adopted in the implementation of the Code, its principles and aims?
Tanta
hovering on the perifery of my life
like a shadow with eyes of agony
my great aunt (my grandmother's sister)
nameless in our minds except for the Yiddish tanta
tanta for aunt
this poem is for tanta
because she never had anything else
because when she and my grandmother came
to this country from a small farm in Riga
in Latvia in Russia
working in sweatshops in lower Manhattan
struggling like flowers
in a terrible transplanting
something happened to tanta
to the flower that was my aunt
a man unlike all the other men she knew
he was born in America
spoke without accent
dressed like the fashion
and tanta was moved that such a man
would court her and was touched
that his parents plied her with gifts
and American dinners and it seemed
there was nothing they would not do
except to tell her
that his mind was something
soft and woolly unravelling a little each year
and his aging parents
Tying his shoes zipping his fly
now sought him a wife
so they could die in peace.
all of this the flower
that was my aunt learned after the wedding
at first she thought that she might help
but in time abandoned hope
and knew it was wrong
to wish for children
born of such a marriage
but still she longed
for something that she could love
and make smell good when no child came
she presumed that god knew better than she
at last she went to her family
to talk about divorce and was told
that a divorce would defile
the memory of parents recently slaughtered
in Russia and would make her a fallen woman
so she went home to her madman,
and by the time I came to know her
there was in her face what people said
was also a kind of madness
but thinking about it now I wonder
if it was not a grief so terrible
that people chose to give it another name.
she outlived her husband by several years
she outlived her hopes by many
this poem is for tanta
who lived with a madman and who died
just as women began to understand
that such yokes are not important to bear
and this poem is for tanta
because she never had anything else.
by Gail Golden
From: Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Lives
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Women in Peru: Voices from a Decade
By the Ecumenical Committee on the Andes, (publ), 198 Broadway 302 New York. NY 10038, 1986. 54 pp.
Though short and cheaply published in black and white, this is a valuable book. Very clearly organized and printed, it presents the current condition of Peruvian women within the historical, geographical and cultural context.
The publication is divided into the traditional themes: background, work, health, violence, the law, education, etc. But the subject headings, like the rest of the text, live through the expressions of the people being described. Throughout the prose, snatches of human conversation are threaded, often italicized and sometimes in bold type. This creates a freshness and liveliness in what could have otherwise been sterile description.
The people are everywhere in this publication, in case studies, in photographs and in substantial quotations. Yet other sources are evident too, through official statistics, graphs, maps and charts.
A joy to handle, this small book was evidently a labor of love.
"I began to work at the factory because what my husband earns wasn't enough to support our five children in school. I work at the machine where we add salt to the canned fish. We also have to add tomato sauce or hot sauce; when I have to use hot sauce they give it to me already mixed and I have to add it by hand; it's terrible to have my hand burning for so many hours.
When I get home I have to stick my hand in cold water for several hours; that's the only way to stop the pain, the first few days I wanted to scream with pain.
They won't let me leave the machine even to go to the bathroom. When I have to work a double shift I don't get a chance to eat because I'm the only one at the machine, and once the machine is on it doesn't stop until all the fish is processed.
Working at night is horrible. It's very cold because we work standing in water and fish guts. The women who clean the fish are wet from head to foot; their hands are all cut up from the fish bones and they're all white and wrinkled from being in water all day. They promised us gloves and boots a long time ago, but they never gave them to us. "
Testimony of a factory worker,
from: Women in Peru
Hopeful Openings: A Study of Five Women's Development Organisations in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Sally W. Yudelman, Kumarian Press, 630 Oakwood Avenue, No 119, West Hartford Connecticut 06110, 1987. 127 pp.
This study takes each of the organizations apart with a scalpel and a microscope. Analyzing the historical details, the social and cultural forces at work and the effects of individual personalities, the writer goes through a tremendous quantity of information.
The organizations examined exist in very different circumstances and this makes the task of analysis difficult. But Ms Yudelman finds a path through this welter of detail and comes up with concrete conclusions about the nature of organizations and their possibilities.
Women's Organizations in Bolivia
April 1987 issue of Bolivia Bulletin, published by the Centra de Documentation y Informacion, Casilla 20194, La Paz, Bolivia.
" 'Ours are the politics of the empty saucepan,' declared one leader, as hundreds of mothers and their children left their homes, stormed government offices and went on hunger strike to press for improved food supplies in March 1985... The term 'housewife' has acquired special significance in Bolivia in past decades. The Housewives' Committees of the mines and shanty towns are made up of women who have taken their domestic problems out onto the street and made the personal political in a very real sense..."
The spirit of these 'housewives' is well-documented in this brief newsletter. Apart from the general description of this vibrant population, there are specific articles on rural women, miners, factory employees and shanty-town dwellers.
INTERNATIONAL
Adverse Effects: Women and the Pharmaceutical Industry Edited by Kathleen McDonnell, The Women's Press, 229 College Street, No 204 Toronto, Canada M5T 1R4, 1986. 217 pp.
This book confronts an area of serious concern in a comprehensive, deeply probing way. Divided into three parts: Women as Drug Consumers, Pharmaceuticals and Family Planning and Taking Back Control, it contains articles written by women from all over the globe.
In-depth pieces on specific forms of drug-therapy, such as the use of depo-provera, are fully illustrated with statistics and charts. Experiences in places like India and the Philippines provide data for the analysis of the international scene. The final section looks at new movements on the part of women to explore traditional health care strategies and develop links for cross fertilization of ideas.
Empowering Women Through Education
By Nelly Stromquist, in International Aid in Adult Education: Working Papers from the Kungalv Seminar, available from the International Council for Adult Education, 29 Prince Arthur Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 1B2, 1986.
An incisive paper which evaluates the activities of non- governmental and governmental attempts to empower women in the last decade. Its analysis is critical and powerful, arguing that education projects have improved women's abilities at performing traditional reproductive functions, but have not assisted in the emancipatory sphere. It concludes with concrete advice as to how interventionist agencies might repair this problem.
Appropriate Technology Sourcebook: A guide to practical books for village and small community technology
By Ken Danow and Mike Saxenian, A Volunteers in Asia Publication, Box 4543, Stanford, California 94305, USA, 1986 (revised edition) 800 pp. Price US$9.00 plus postage for groups in developing countries.
This 800-page publication provides a comprehensive guide to printed material on technological devices created for less- developed situations.
Very clearly organized and referenced, it lists hundreds of publications which describe new and old methods of overcoming practical problems connected with agriculture, energy, health- care, construction, small enterprises and cooperatives, communications and disaster management.
Clearly, the authors have ransacked the literature on the subject, exploring not only the books prepared in far-flung areas of the globe, but hundreds of leaflets, manuals and conference reports. Most importantly, they not only evaluate and give hints and guidelines for the use of the equipment listed, but also provide addresses and prices for every publication.
Women in the World: An International Atlas
By Joni Seager and Ann Olson, Pluto Press, The Works, 105A Torriano Ave, London SWIO 9PG , 1986. 128 pp. Price £7.95.
An extremely valuable contribution to the store of information on women's lives internationally. This publication creates an avalanche of statistics on an incredible range of subjects in a highly-accessible form. Using maps, charts, graphs and drawings in excellent color and with first-rate design, the book offers, in concise, visual form, details on topics such as politics, economics, culture. social structure, employment, health, the media, agriculture... the list is endless.
A gold-mine for researchers and educators, this "atlas" provides a worldview on the nitty-gritty aspects of human life, e.g., number of hours spent by men for every 100 hours spent by women on certain activities like leisure, as well as the well established indicators such as numbers of women holding positions in trades unions etc. In this way, it offers a very balanced perspective on the realities of women's existence at this point in human history.
Insomniac's Prayer
I lie with my body knotted into a fist
clenching against itself,
arms doubled against my ribs
knees crooking into a gnarl,
legs, side by side, martialed.
My sleep is a war against waking up,
my waking up is a slow ravelling again into dark
when dreams jump out of my skull
like pictures in a child's pop-up book
onto paper if my luck can catch them
before they dribble away into dingy dawns.
Who will unsnarl my body
into gestures of love?
Who will give my heart room
to fly free in its rickety cage?
Whose subtlety whisper apart my legs.
thrusting quick like a snake's tongue?
Who will nudge the dreams back into my head,
back into my bones, where rhyming with one another
like wind chimes,
they will make music whenever I move?
by Vassar Miller
From: With Wings: An Anthology of Literature by
and about Women with Disabilities
Audiovisual Resources
In this issue we focus on a series of to promote discussion on subjects packages of films and videos such as Women and Mental Health, produced by:
CiRCleS Women's Film and Video thematic basis, each package Distribution Ltd, 113 Roman Road, integrates various styles and London E2 OHU. Tel (01) 981 6828
These packages were made in order to promote discussion on subjects such as Women and Mental Health. Women and Work Black Women and Representation. Designed on a Thematic basis , each packages integrates various style and techniques and comes complete with contextualizing program notes.
Hang On a Minute
Available on 16mm or VHS.
Thirteen 'one minute' films made specifically for television and intended to be shown 'in between' programs - unexpectedly- and repeated several times during and evening, rather as advertisements are shown. Commercial breaks - with a difference.
The films grew out of a series of short poems, written by Lis Rhodes, reflecting on the traditional patterns of oppression in women's lives and the many forms that resistance takes: covering areas such as pornography, violence, nuclear issues, law, media, language and madness.
Lindsay Cooper has set the poems to music and, using both instrumental and vocal experimentation locates the strength of the poetry.
A limited edition of loose leaf books with words and images from the films is also available.
Who's Calling Us Crazy?
4 films on women and mental health
Arrows This Isn't Wonderland The Words/Wounds of Silence First Communion
Total running time: 2hrs 20mins, available on VHS
These films take a critical look at the concept of normality by re-examining society's definition of madness and different aspects of mental illness from a woman's point of view.
Both The Words/Wounds of Silence and This Isn't Wonderland examine social conditions which make it difficult for women to express themselves or be themselves. This Isn't Wonderland relates cases of mental breakdown to the repression of our needs and desires and the isolation many housewives experience. The Words/ Wounds... looks at the creative work of several
women who have, at one time or another, undergone hospitalisation women who have found a way to express parts of themselves which were previously silenced.
In Arrows a woman regards herself critically in a mirror. In taking the camera into her own hands, the filmmaker examines the look of the spectator and the objectification of women's bodies, in order to discuss her personal experience of anorexia.
First Communion is based on a young girl's experience of incest which is related, through a montage and voices, to Catholicism and the notion of women's 'inherited evil' from Eve.
Black Women and Invisibility
Four films about black women filmmakers.
Hairpiece Syvilla Four Women Illusions
Total running time: Ihr 20mins, available on 16mm and VHS.
'Some of us are brave, all of us are strong'... but how many of us do you see?
While mainstream film and television continues to distort, deform and marginalize images of black women, a very different and vibrant film culture is being forged by independent black film- makers ' internationally. The emergent black independent film movement has amongst its ranks many exciting women film-makers. Motivated by a desire to correct age old distortions perpetuated by media racism, black women are fast learning the craft of film- making and challenging well worn racist and sexist stereotypes in an attempt to re-present the wealth and creativity not often associated with black people, let alone black women.
These four films by Ayoka Chenzira and Julie Dash combine animation, humor, drama and dance and are suitable for a wide range of audiences.
AU Work and No Pay
Four films on domestic labor
And What Does Your Mother Do? Clotheslines The Hired Hands A Question of Choice
Total running time: 1hr 20mins, available on 16mm.
So what does a housewife do? The roles are many and varied; from the highly skilled to the menial; from accountancy to cooking. The work is necessary and invaluable but nevertheless domestic work is rewarded not even by low pay but by no pay.
This video package of four films focuses on society's refusal to recognize domestic labor as 'real work'.
And What Does Your Mother Do? is a short but effective comedy based on a day in the life of a Columbican housewife. Clotheslines also uses humor to explore one specific area of women's work which is constantly on public display, yet generally unacknowledged: washing. The Hired Hands takes a look at the job of a secretary. A Question of Choice examines the experiences of women working as school cleaners and cooks. The wages they receive are too low to pay national insurance contributions and therefore, too low to claim sick pay; like the housewife, the paid cleaner has to work in sickness and in health.
Jobs for the Girls
Four films on women and work
Bread and Dripping To Be a Woman Coalmining Women Carmen Carrascal
Total running time 1hr 45mins, available on 16 mm and VHS.
The four films in this package are about women's employment and unemployment and about the massive and undervalued contribution women make to the labor force. Women's struggle for equal opportunity and equal recognition in the world of waged work is given a historical and geographical perspective.
Coal mining women is about the prejudice aimed at women miners; To Be a Woman argues the case of equal pay for equal work; Bread and Dripping looks at the economic depression of the 1930s, when women were forced into prostitution in order to support themselves and their families. Carmen Carrascal is the story of one rural craftswoman from Columbia whom struggles to have her daughters educated to read and write.
The Decade for Women: Where to Now?
Four films from the UN Decade
The Impossible Decade Seeds of Resistance Polygamy-Senegalese Style Away from the Sidewalk
Total running time 2 hrs 40 mins, available on VHS.
The four videos in this package have been selected from a series of programs commissioned by the United Nations. Using a mixture of archive material, interviews and comment from different parts of the world, the videos give an international perspective to women's resistance and strength, and stress the importance of global as well as national links in the struggle to gain equality.
Maya Deren: 1917 - 1961
This package may include only a trilogy on the life of Maya Deren or the trilogy plus two dance films.
The trilogy consists of:
Meshes of the Afternoon At Land Ritual in Transfigured Time
The dance films are entitled:
A Study in Choreography for the Camera Meditation on Violence
Total running time: trilogy 40mins; whole program 50mins available on 16mm and VHS
Maya Deren was founder of the independent film movement in America, working outside the commercial film industry in the 1940s, at a time when there was no strong women's movement. Despite her wide influence - through her writings as well as her films - she is largely unknown today.