The Challenge of Local Feminism edited by Amrita Basu

The Challenge of Local Feminism provides a comprehensive overview of the beginnings, growth, progress, and dilemmas of women's movements worldwide. Unlike most of the literature on feminism and women's movements, which focus on the industrialized Western world, this volume devotes greater attention to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The book challenges die assumptions that feminism can transcend national boundaries and, conversely, that women's movements are shaped and circumscribed by national levels of development. All the authors reject the idea that feminism is Western inspired and of middle-class origins. Instead they show how women's movements are rooted in the terrain from which they emerge. (USA and UK: Westview Press, 7995. 493p. ISBN 0-8733-2628-7)

Unspoken Rules: Sexual Orientation and Women's Human Rights edited by Rachel Rosenbloom

Prepared for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Unspoken Rules documents human rights violations against lesbians in 31 countries around the world. Many of the documented cases are horrendous: in India, two women commit suicide rather than allow their relationship to be broken up by their families; in Zimbabwe, a woman is raped repeatedly with the consent of her family for her to become pregnant, get married, and cease having relationships with women; in Germany, a court ruled that a woman's lesbianism makes her unfit to take custody of her child. Unspoken Rules is also about fighting back. It discusses strategies that lesbian activists and other human rights advocates have employed to challenge oppression and to promote lesbian rights as human rights. (USA: International Cay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 7995. 267p. ISBN 7-884955-02-9)

Tai aq-I-Taiwid: The Muslim Woman's Contractual Access to Divorce edited by Lucy Carroll and Harsh Kapoor

In the Quran, the Muslim holy book, there is a story where the Prophet Mohammed tells his wives that they are at liberty to live with him or separate from him as they choose. This is the basis of talaq-itafioid, which in modern times refers to the contractual delegation to the wife of the right to pronounce talaq (divorce) on behalf of her husband in regard to her own marriage. Talnq-itafwid has a long and well documented history in South Asia, though tlie practice is largely confined among rich families. In this volume. Women Living under Muslim Laws provides information about talaq-itafivid, and discusses how this process, which is recognized by Islam, can effectively equalize the access of both spouses to divorce. (France and Bangladesh: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, 7996. 204p.)

Unveiling the Issues: Pakistani Women's Perspectives on Social, Political and Ideological Issues edited by NighatSaid Khan and Afiya Shehrbano Zia
(transcribed and translated by Naureen Amjad and Rubina Saigol)

Most of the articles in this volume are transcriptions from presentations made at the National Conference of Development Activists held in Lahore, Pakistan in April 1995. The conference was organized to prepare a common position of Pakistan NGOs at the Beijing Conference. The issues and themes that were covered during the conference, which are also document ed in Unveiling the Issues, are wide ranging: global systems and their impact on Pakistan, human rights, militarization, violence against women, law, women's creative expression, women's movements and ideologies. (Pakistan: ASR Publications, 1995.194p.) Filipinas in Dialogue: Muslim- Christian Women's Response to Contemporary Challenges edited by Erlinda H. Bragado In 1994, women educators and policymakers from the Philippines' Muslim and Christian communities met in a conference to discuss issues that concern both groups: education, contraception and migration. Aside from the proceedings of the conference, Filipinas in Dialogue also provides an overview of the history of the movement towards Muslim- Christian dialogue, as well as poems and articles written by women about female figures (real and mythical) in both Philippine Christian and Muslim histories and traditions. (Philippines: DLSU Press, 2995.219p. ISBN 972-555- 100-9)

Integrating Alternative Development Efforts in Asia edited by Dessa Quesada

Everywhere in the world, particularly in Asia, communities of ordinary people are proving through collective action and concrete achievements that there are other paths to development. These efforts and initiatives include organic farming, environmental conservation, direct consumer-producer linkages, import substitution for food crops, and integrated regional socioeconomic planning.

Integrating Alternative Development Efforts in Asia is the report of the workshop of the same title, which was held in India from 1-4 March 1996. Aside from the edited transcription of the workshop proceedings, this report also carries country reports of representatives from the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nepal, Japan, Hong Kong and India. The reports discuss the successes and achievements of communities charting new paths to development, (japan: PP2I Rural Urban Alternatives and japan Committee for Negros Campaign, 2997. I9lp.)

By Women, For Women: A Study of Women's Organizations in Thailand by Darunee Tantiwiramanond and Shashi Ranjan Pandey

This book describes Thai women's socio-cultural makeup and status. It portrays the historical growth of the women's movement in Thailand, what issues different women's groups focus on, the groups' ideologies, strategies and differences, and their local and international links. It includes a discussion of selected women's non governmental organizations and their collective impact on society- Policy lessons and development planning that considers women are recommended. (Thailand: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 7997. 2S6p. ISBN 9S2-3035-66-S)

An Introduction to Women in International Law by Emelina O. Quintillan and Jose M. Tiongco

This slim volume is a valuable resource not only for women engaged in the international arena of the women's movement, but also for all women interested in understanding the various international instruments affecting women, and how these instrumentalities can effectively be used in promoting the status of women. Particularly instructive are the discussions about the difference between a Convention and a Law, as well as the process of making a convention. There is also a glossary of technical terms commonly used in legal documents. Finally, there are the summaries of inter national instruments on women s legal rights, education, health, work, sexual oppression, prostitution, slavery, refugees and migrant workers. (Philippines: PILIPINA Legal Resources Center, 7997. 33p-)

Women for Peace edited by Stasa Zajovic

Women for Peace bears witness to the anti-war attitudes and activities of women from the former Yugoslavia. Reprinted in four languages —Serbocroatian, Spanish, English and Italian, this anthology consists of 12 thematic sections which record the main concerns of activists of the organization Women in Black during the period between March 1993 and March 1994.

Though women are "the most visible" victims of war, they are not helpless beings and background players as most war reports present them. Rather, women are shown as active players in the search for peaceful resolutions to a war that has brought so much suffering and destruction. By showing the plight of war refugees through their testimonies, Women for Peace puts forward the view that the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia is a war against the civilian population, and a destructive force directed primarily against "the feminine symbolic order." (Belgrade: Women in Black, 1994.229p.)

Gender and Peace: A Two-Part Public Forum

For five days in May 1995, 14 women peace activists from Northern Ireland, South Africa, Nicaragua, Israel, Sri Lanka, Canada, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, and the Philippines gathered in Manila to exchange their views and feelings about their work as women peace activists. The issues and themes that were explored during that meeting included histories of the violent conflicts and the work of peace making in the women's respective countries and regions, women's experiences in situations of armed conflict, and questions and proposals for enhancing women's role and capacity in peacemaking and peacekeeping. On the fifth day of the Manila gathering, the activists shared their insights and reflections with other women and peace advocates and the general public during a whole day forum.

Gender and Peace is the result of that public forum. It has the papers and country reports that were read by the women peace activists, an edited transcription of the fruitful exchange between the women and those who attended the forum. (Philippines: Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute, 1995. 178p.)

Women and War by Jean Bethke Elshtain

First published in 1987, Women and War is now staple reading not only for feminists engaged in issues of armed conflicts and conflict resolution, but also for peace activists in general. Elshtain does not tackle war as a theme based on origins and standard histories. Instead, the author, a political theorist and feminist, is concerned about what people make of the legacy of war stories, about what she referred to as "representations of war (that) remain resonant and resilient." In looking at the intersection of war and women, Elshtain examines the diverse discourses, political claims and social identities women sustain in war.

The book has two main parts. The chapters in the first part track the shifting construction of war as sanctioned violence, how society — specifically Western society — shapes and reshapes the self-understanding and action of women and men in diverse times and places. Meanwhile, the second part examines the traditional dichotomy whereby women are seen as life-givers and men, life-takers. Here, Elshtain challenges the just warrior/beautiful soul formulation, the supposed symbiosis between fighter (man) and victim (woman) presumed in the language and discourse of war and peace. (USA: BasicBooks, 1987. 2S8p. ISBN 0-465-09216-0) 

A World or Widows by Margaret Owen

A World of Widows provides a global overview of the status of widowhood. Neglected by social policy researchers, international human rights activists and the women's movement, the status of the world's widows — legal, social, cultural and economic — is an urgent issue, given the extent and severity of the discrimination against them. (UK and USA: Zed Books. 1996. 2 J4p. ISBN 1-85649-420-0)

Widowhood, Inheritance Laws, Customs and Practices in Southern Africa edited by Welshman Ncube and Julie Stewart

Inheritance is a key issue around which many women's groups in Southern Africa are organizing. In Zambia, when a woman's husband dies, relatives of the deceased man help themselves to the property of the couple. In Zimbabwe, customary law does not allow a widow to inherit from her dead husband; instead, the eldest male child inherits and sometimes the relatives of the deceased divide the property among themselves. In Lesotho and Swaziland, widows are among the poorest of the poor, and inheritance law and practice have a lot to do with this. The book Widowhood, Inheritance Laws, Customs and Practices in Southern Africa is a regional report on the in- Women inheritance research project carried out in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, Mozambique, Lesotho and Botswana in 1992-1993 by the research wing of Women and Law in Southern Africa, a regional organization with research and action programs aimed at improving the legal position of women. Each of the project's national teams has written a chapter building on aspects of their country research and report but looking at it from a regional perspective and incorporating data and ideas from tine other five countries. (Zimbabwe: Woman and Law in Southern Africa Research Project, 1995.172p. ISBN 0-7974-1581-5)

Widows in Rural Bangladesh: Issues and Concerns edited by Ishrat Shamim and Khaleda Salahuddin

Widows in Bangladesh, like in most other countries, face legal and religious discrimination, customary and traditional barriers to inheritance and property ownership, as well as restrictive rules to remarriage and degrading, and harmful mourning rites. Widows are not only among the most oppressed of women. Often, they also lack access to adequate food, shelter, clothing, and basic social services.

This book is based on research undertaken by Ishrat Shamim and Khaleda Salahuddin for the Centre for Women and Children Studies, an organization formed to help improve the situation of women and children in Bangladesh. Shamim and Salahuddin conducted baseline studies of the socioeconomic status of Bangladeshi widows in four rural villages. In their concluding chapter, the researchers referred to widow hood as "a state of social death," and called for changes in policies and laws to favor widows as well as changes in people's attitudes to widows and widowhood. (Bangladesh: Centre for Women and Children Studies, 1995. 75p.)

Asian Women in Migration edited by Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni

Asian Women in Migration gathers a selection of papers presented during an international conference on women and migration organized in 1995 by the Scalabrini Migration Center in Manila. The volume is organized around five themes; theoretical framework, overview of female labor migration in Asia, issues dealing with migration for domestic work, issues dealing with migration due to intermarriage, and issues dealing with protection available to migrant women. (Philippines: Scalabrini Migration Center, 1996.191p. ISBN 971-8789-06-5)

Living and Working with Migrants in Asia edited by Mayan Villalba and Raynah Braganza Passanha

Fifty advocates of migrant workers' rights from South, South east and East Asia met on 14-20 May 1994 to discuss ways of responding to issues of legal and illegal migration in the region. Living and Working with Migrants in Asia is the official report of that conference. Aside from a summary of proceedings, the report also includes discussions about the situation of migrant workers in 12 Asian countries, and the results of workshops on issues such as legal and illegal status of migrant workers, women and migration, and trafficking of persons. (Hong Kong: Asian Migrant Centre, 1995.118p. ISBN 962- 7834-03-3)

Research Issues in Women's Mental Health edited by Rose Sorger

This thin volume is the result of the Research Issues in Women's Mental Health Forum held in Melbourne, Australia in 1994. Organized by the Health sharing Women's Health Resource Service, the forum raised significant issues of a personal and professional nature particularly for those women who use, work, and conduct research in a range of mainstream and community-based services. Among the issues raised during the forum which can be gleaned from the papers in this volume, are the need for collaborative multidisciplinary research models that fully include consumers; the need to develop funding agencies' appreciation of the needs of both researchers and end users; recognition of the critical research role of women experience mental illness; and the need to enhance implementation and evaluation of mental health policy and service delivery. (Australia Health sharing Women's Resource Service, 1995. 108p. ISBN 0- 646-24944-4)

Men, Women and Madness: Understanding Gender and Mental Disorder by Joan Busfield

Women are frequently assumed to be more prone to mental disorder than men. Yet evidence shows a much more complex gendered landscape of mental disorder, with men and women manifesting different types of problems. Men, Women and Madness seeks to explore and understand this complex patterning. The first part surveys the gendered landscape and ideas about gender relations in some detail and the gendered nature of these constructions. Central to the argument are two claims: first, that mental disorder (a category whose boundaries are contested) is best understood as a territory that demarcates disturbances of reason and rationality and, second, that this category is permeated by gender, along with other social characteristics.

The second part of the book focuses on different explanations (biological, psychological and social) of why people become mentally disturbed. It argues that there is no evidence of a greater biological vulnerability to mental disorder on the part of women or that women have to cope with more "stressful" events in their lives than men do. Busfield proposes that feminist psychologies, with their focus on the social processes involved in becoming a man or woman, offer a potentially more fruitful foundation for understanding the gendered nature of differences between men and women in mental functioning and behavior, and consequently in patterns of mental disorder. (London: Mai-Millan Press Lid., 1996.285p. ISBN 0-333-46370-6)

Womenagerie and Other Tales from the Front by Jessica Zafra

Zafra, known for her ascerbic and darkly humorous commentaries on life in the urban jungle writes a column fora major Manila daily and hosts a weekly radio talk show. No mean feat for a young woman (twenty something) and self confessed nervous wreck. Touted as the Filipino youth's spokesperson, Zafra is also a serious literary writer; she is a three-time winner of the Palanca, the Philippine's premier award for creative writers and has one book of short stories and a collection of her newspaper column. Twisted tucked under her belt. In Womenagerie and Other Tales from the Front, Zafra collects her columns in Woman Today magazine written before mainstream fame caught up on her. (Philippines: Anvil Books, 1996. 181p. ISBN 971-27-0475-0)

A Book of Women Poets edited by Aliki Barnstone and Willis Barnstone
Edited by the daughter and father team of Aliki and Willis Barnstone

A Book of Women Poets is a formidable collection of more than 500 poems by 297 poets across civilizations and cultures, from antiquity (2300 be.) to contemporary times. First published in 1980, this 1992 edition has been expanded to include new writers from the United States. The selection of which poet to include in this anthology was a process not without its difficulties. But as the Barnstones wrote in their introduction, their objective was to "show the variety of good poetry from different languages and period." The anthology covers relatively known poets like Enheduanna, Sappho, Yu Hsuan-chi, Li Ch'ingchao, Al-Khansa, Mira Bai, Marie de France, Louise Labe, Sor Juana Ines dela Cruz, Aime Bradstreet and Emily Dickenson; as well as lesser known writers. (USA: Schockcn Books, 1992. 822p. ISBN 0-8052-0997-2)

Possession by A.S. Byatt

On surface. Possession has a seemingly simple enough plot: Roland and Maud, two late 20th century scholars, are tracking down the life and works of Victorian poets Ash and Cristabel. As Roland and Maud uncover the secret shared by Ash and Cristabel, the two modern day biographers begin to form their own passionate conspiracy. Possession, however, is not your run-of-the mill love story.

Byatt, the 1990 Booker Prize winner, weaves a thoughtprovoking story bristling with layered meanings and symmetries, reinvented myths and legends, and clever references to theories in literary criticism and gender studies. She mediates on the nature of possession through the weaving of the complex relationship between the two pairs: one dead, the other alive; one in pursuit of the life-stories of the other. Mostly though. Possession is a true feast for those who love reading. (United Kingdom: Vintage, 1991.51 Ip. ISBN 0-09-980040-3)

Daughters of the Revolution: Classic Essays by Women edited by James Lester

Daughters of the Revolution contains 24 essays that illustrate the significant contribution that women have made to the development of the essay as a genre. Organized chronologically, these essays explore diverse topics ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft's declaration of the rights of woman and Virginia Woolf's call for women to speak openly and honestly; to Gloria Steinem's reminiscence of her relationship with her mother and Bell Hook's sobering argument about the integral connections between race and sex. (USA: NTC Publishing Group, 1996. 213p. ISBN 0-8U2-5880 -6)

2 from WABA

Bong Mother-Friendly by Penny van Esterik and Lakshmi Menon

In 1993, World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) launched the Mother-Friendly Workplace Initiative, a global campaign to raise awareness about breastfeeding and the rights and needs of working women who are breastfeeding. One of the outcomes of this worldwide campaign is Being Mother-Friendly, a practical guide book that provides information and advice on how women can continue breastfeeding while resuming work.

This slim guidebook is packed with information such as the global situation of women and work, advantages of breastfeeding, experiences of mother-friendly workplace initiatives in various countries, and maternity legislation and other policies protecting working breastfeeding women. (Malaysia: World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, 1996. 84p. ISBN 983-99192-0-2)

Nurturing the Future: Our First Five Years by Sarah Amin

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action was founded in 1991 to monitor and push for the implementation of the Inocenti Declaration which called on all governments to create an enabling environment for all women to practice exclusive breastfeeding. From six founding international organizations, WABA has grown to include among its partners and movers scientists, policymakers, educators, grassroots activists, mother support groups, health care professionals and development workers. Nurturing the Future is about WABA's first five years which saw many successes in its various initiatives and campaigns around such issues and themes as the baby friendly hospital (1992), the mother-friendly workplace (1993), protection of infant health (1994), women's empowerment (1995), and community responsibility (1996). (Malaysia: World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action. 1996. IWp. ISBN 983-99192-2-9)

 

All the lilies that appear here are available at the Isis Resource Center and Library. For information about the publishers and how copies can be borrowed or bought, write, fax or E-mail Isis International-Manila.