MEETINGS AROUND THE WORLD
CONGRESS
The Second International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women will be held in Groningen, Netherlands, April 17-21, 1984.
It will focus on strategies for empowerment. Worldwide economic problems are currently endangering the gains women have made in the last decades.
Suggested areas for papers and poster sessions related to the general theme include the following:
Women and: Science and Technology; Medicine; Public leadership; Management; Changing Family Patterns; Work; Social Welfare; Law; Communication; Housing; Agriculture; The Arts; Philosophy; Religion; Education. Deadline for submission is August 1, 1983.
Proposals and any inquiries about the congress program should be addressed to Dr. C.E. Clason, Rijksuniversiteit, Sociologisch Instituut, Grote Markt
23, 9712 HR Groningen, Holland.
First Congress of the Feminist Party of Spain July 2-3,1983 Barcelona, Spain.
The Feminist Party of Spain, which was organized in May 1979, invites feminist groups to participate in their Congress, where many subjects of interest will be discussed. These include the economic and political situation in Spain and other internal party themes. There will also be reports on housework as a mode of production; the exploitation of sexuality, human reproduction, housework, production relations, the party's tactics, strategies and election programme; feminist democracy as an
alternative power.
For more information write to Partido Feminista de Espana, Ballon, 18, 3*, la Barcelona 10, tel. (93) 246 68 68
"The Changing Experience of Women"
This is the title of a course given as part of the Summer School of the Open University in Great Britain. The course analyses the position of women in Britain, both historically and in the present period. It is interdisciplinary and so covers a wide variety of topics — the role of women in the family and in the education system and how
they fare within the world of paid employment and the welfare state. Other areas of study include consideration of the role of biological factors in constituting gender relations and the nature of female sexuality.
The Summer School will be held at the University of East Anglia near Norwich during July and August. The course will be presented each year for 6 years. Applications for associate students closes on 11 October for 1984 (you're already too late for this year). For further information write to: The Associate Student Central Office, The Open University, P.O. Box 76, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AN, England.
August 1.1983 : Reaching rural women: A communication worlishop
This course will focus on the strategies and communication skills that may lead to more effective involvement of women in information networks that will help improve their lives. The threeweek program will cover such topics as: strategies for overcoming barriers to communicating effectively with rural women; what communication channels
and information networks are available to women or can be effectively established; and how can field workers' communication methods be improved for the benefit of women.
Applications and further information can be obtained from Dr. Royal D. Colle, International Communication Arts, Cornell University, 640Stewart Avenue, Ithaca, New York,
14580 USA. Telex: 937478.
Women and Health Course Kvindehc^jskolen, Visby, 6270 T^der, Derunark.
Organised by the Danish Feminist School, to be held from August 28th till September 24th 1983, on the lines of a similar course held in 1981. The programme will consist of a flexible schedule of exercises, meetings, workshops, sharing of skills, excursions, and free time. Discussions will be on subjects related to the theme, which could be nuclear radiation, arms, cancer, madness, alternative health life styles with the stress on sharing of experiences. The language of the course will be English.
Some free places are available for women with little money; also facilities for 8 children over 3, but not boys over 12. Fees: D.Kr. 2800. Deposit: 400, to be sent with registration slip.
Ovular Photography 2000 King Mountain Trail Sunny Valley, OR 97497-9799, USA. Contact: Ruth Mountaingrove
The fifth annual Ovular workshop Photography will be held from June 11-28, 1983 at Rootworks, Women's Land, in South Oregon.
This workshop will concentrate on
black and white with camera formats from 35mm to 6"x8". Women must have 6 months experience in a darkroom and with a camera. Added opportunity for those who wish to work on the draft of the 3rd Annual Edition of 'Blatant Image', a magazine of feminist photography.
Cost: U.S. $ 125.00. Includes vegetarian food, accomodation, use of dark room (chemicals provided).
Who's afraid of the stork? Conference on the place of birth in relation to the needs of child, mother and couple. Rome, Italy, 25-26 March 1983. Organised by the womens health cooperative DORIS (Documentazione, ricerca, salute) in association with the County Social Services Department.
Learning to listen to the rhythms of your own body and the instructions it gives you from within. Sheila Kitzinger, with 26 years of research behind her, held the packed audience spell-bound as she mimed the dynamics of birth to illustrate her theory that wavebreathing during birth is close to women's orgasmic beathing pattern.
That birth, too, should be a joyous and intimate moment to be shared with loved ones, not suffered in fear and pain under the distant rule of white-coated male "experts' who rob women of their self-confidence in what they would otherwise learn from their own bodies.
Smiling faces on slides taken at natural births showed that birth need not be violent, nor should pregnancy be treated as a disease. There are dangerous or difficuh births, which may still need hospitalisation, but the experience of the birth centres in America has shown that difficult births follow difficult pregnancies, that they are predictable and much more avoidable than had been thought, when the pregnancy is properly looked after.
Ruth Lubic spoke about the New York Maternity Centre, one of 95 such centres in America which are putting these ideas into practice and learning from their experiences.
Among the evils of the drug-oriented hospital approach to birth, Doris Hare from the Maternal and Child Health Association condemned particularly drug-induced birth and the use of the ultrascan during pregnancy, because it needs further testing
The larger the hospital, the higher the infant mortality rate, and the charge that this is because such hospitals serve the working classes has been disproved by the excellent record of the North Central Bronx hospital in New York, where natural birth is extensively practised with working class mothers, and which has an outstandingly low mortality rate. Birth centres find they can handle increasing numbers of pregnancies with safety, without the fear of medical emergencies increasing. They provide the alternative for women who are unable to find the birth care of their choice in traditional hospitals.
Experts from Italy were present, and it became clear that here, too, many people were dissatisfied with the present management of pregnancy and childbirth.
At the meeting, the Do.Ri.S. Cooperative presented a proposal to open a birth centre in Rome where natural birth would occur with the minimum of 'expert' interference. The mother gives birth in bed, with father beside her, and she can touch and hold her baby even before the umbilical cord is cut. Mothers who choose birth centres
would be screened carefully before admission, and difficult cases sent to hospital. Those who are accepted attend from the 24th week of pregnancy right through to the birth, and follow up for the first 6 weeks of the baby's life. All the family members get to know the centre staff over a period of time, before the big moment.
In terms of cost-effectiveness, birth centres are cheaper than either the hospital system (which costs 130% more, according to a survey carried out by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield medical insurance companies in the USA) or the home birth-by-midwife system. Their prices have actually gone down in America since inflation sent every other price soaring.
The DO.RI.S. Cooperative in Rome, who organised the conference, originated out of the womens liberation movement, studying and learning about their own bodies and psychology, learning new skills based on their experience. They now work in the areas of gynaecology, child birth preparation, pediatrics, psychology, acupuncture, homeopathy and Shiatsu massage. The proceedings of the conference will be available at DO.RI.S (Documentazione, Ricerca, Salute), Vicolo S. Francesco a Ripa 17, int. 4, Rome 00153, Italy.
Women Working Worldwide The International Division of Labour in the electronic, clothing and textile industries. London, England, April 24,1983. Organised by War on Want and Archway Development Education Centre. War on Want (01) 609 0211 or Christina or Nicky at ADEC (01) 341 4403.
The theme of the conference was women working worldwide for multinational electronic, clothing and textile companies. The conference included information sharing, workshops, films and a plenary session. Workshops have been based on such issues: homeworking, multi-national strategies, health and safety, trade unionism,
new technology. Free Trade Zones, Enterprise Zones, The sexual division of labour and automation.
Production and Reproduction: an international conference on women and work Turin, Italy. AprU 23-25,1983 Organizers: Turin members of the Union of Italian Women (UDI), the trade union women's caucus and collectives of the women's house.
The meeting aimed to analyse the women's movement's achievements so far and examine strategies in the light of the current economic crisis. Workshops covered the social services, self-management initiatives, self-employment, domestic work, sexism at work, sexual identity, women and power, new technologies and the production of culture. One central concern was women's cooperatives, which are many and varied in Italy, the Netherlands and France, but which face a hostile environment and little support from male-dominated cooperative movements. A coordination of Italian women's coops was created to collect information and discuss common problems, and they
hope to broaden this to cover European women. It was decided to hold a European tribunal to denounce abuses and discrimination against women in the labour market, to
coincide with the European Parliament elections in May 1984. Solidarity messages were sent to Comiso Women's Peace Camp and the Beakaert- Cockerill women.
ISIS Women's Cross Cultural Learning Exchange Programme
The first ISIS Women's Cross Cultural Learning Exchange Programme started on 18th April with 10 participants representing 7 different countries. Women from Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Mauritius, Philippines and Switzerland spent two weeks together at Geneva for the Orientation Course at ISIS, learning about the women's
movements and situation in each other's countries, visiting women's groups in Geneva and getting to know the work of ISIS. It was an exciting experience for both the
ISIS collective and the participants, many of whom were out of their countries for the first time. They have now left Geneva to work for 2 to 3 months with their receiving
groups and ISIS hopes to describe their experiences in the next bulletin
Visual Archives of the Memory (Archivi Visivi della Memoria) Fifth womens international film and video meeting. Florence, Italy, 29 April - 1 May 1983.
This conference included a video meeting, with interventions by the Simone de Beauvoir Centre in Paris, the Genoa group of visual communication, the Perugia Institute of history, Umbria, the Turin cinematographic archive of the Resistance, and representatives of Italian television and Licia Conte of 'ora D', the womens programme on Italian radio.
The theme of the film section was: 'Women and film in the '50s' and included Ida Lupino's independent films and the works of a little-known French woman, Nicole Vedrfes, as well as a round-table discussion between women from France, England, Italy, Germany and Israel, many of them directors. More recent films from France, Germany, Israel, England and Japan were also shown, as well as a first screening of Anna Stoppoloni's "Yelly Rose" from Italy
Existing As A Woman
This was the name of a European exhibition about women which opened in Milan on the 6th of April.
Dedicated to the participation of women in history, the exhibition brings together hundreds of documents, books, paintings, manuscripts, music, photographs, newspapers and handicrafts. Exhibits range from the first iron chastity belts used in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance Period to the first edition of the "Defence of Women's Rights' dated 1800, and manuscripts by English 18th century philosophers denouncing the marriage contract. One also finds the revolutionaries of the Paris Commune, peasant women during the first World War, the militant women journaUsts of 1900, "fascist women", the "partisans" of the Second World War Resistance, and the socialists of the beginning of the century. The exhibition has produced a catalogue with photographs of all these women forgotten by history, as a way of reevaluating "facts and faces".
Travelling Exhibition on the Value of Women's Work Inside and Outside Homes Worldwide Contact: Leticia Shahani, Assistant General Secretary of the United
Nations, Centre for Social Development & Humanitarian Affairs, Vienna International Centre, P.O. Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria.
As part of the activities to mark the end of the United Nations Women's Decade in 1985, it is proposed to have an exhibition on this theme with a view 1) to show the value of women's work unpaid in the home, as well as paid work outside, to their countries, to the world and to women themselves to encourage their self-confidence 2) to show the mutual interests of women "North and South" and 3) to show their technological contributions and skills and press for more and better training.
The exhibition will consist of visuals, mainly photographs, texts and a booklet and after the inaugural showing at the UN End of the Women's Decade World Conference will be available for booking worldwide.
Those interested and who could contribute material in the form of photographs, videofilm, bibliographies of work on methods of establishing values for unpaid work should write to the above address.