Networking
Women as Consumers
In Malaysia, the prices of basic goods like rice and sugar are set by the government. However, village stores frequently sell them at higher prices. Yet village women remained uninformed of lower prices due to illiteracy and to lack of access to the mass media. And, since they are conditioned to be shy and unassertive, they are not hkely to insist on lower prices even when they are aware of the law.
This typical scenario was reported by the International Organization of Consumers' Unions (lOCU), a global consumers' network. Over the past two years, the lOCU has worked to develop a particular focus on women as consumers. "The special significance of women as consumers is that they are often, though not officially, the family decision makers," write lOCU coordinators in their newsletter. Throughout the world, women purchase most of their families' essential goods, and as such are key targets of business' profit minded marketing strategies. Moreover, as child-rearers, they shape their children's attitudes on consumer practices, affecting such basic needs as nutrition, health care and education.
lOCU has been working to spread awareness about women as consumers through conferences and workshops. It held two workshops in Nairobi during the 1985 NGO Forum: one focusing on what the United Nations Guidelines on Consumers Protection, adopted in April 1985 meant for women, and the other identifying some of the priority concerns for women consumers (with harmful products, "dumping" practices, and the image of women in advertising and the mass media topping the list) and exploring how women's organizations can promote consumer education. More recently, the lOCU organized a regional conference in Uruguay for the consumer movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, with special workshops covering the marketing of dangerous contraceptives in the region.
The lOCU is presently collaborating with Isis International on a publication about women as consumers. The publication, part of the new Isis International Book Series, will take an in-depth look at different consumer issues concerning women and contain several case studies. It is scheduled to come out in 1987.
For more information about lOCU and its activities, contact:
lOCU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
P.O. Box 1045 10830 Penang
Malaysia
DAWN: Beyond Nairobi
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) was one of the more creative and powerful initiatives to come out of the NGO forum in Nairobi in 1985. The group, originally a loose formation of some forty women researchers, activists and policy planners mostly from developing countries, first came together in 1984 to develop a synthesis of conditions affecting women throughout the world and to shape a vision of the alternatives women aspire to and strategies for achieving them.
Through a collaborative process, the participants produced the pioneering book Development, Crisis and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives, which was widely discussed at Nairobi. [See Isis International Women's Journal no. 6, 1986, for a summary of the chapter on alternative visions and strategies.] They also conducted a series of workshops and panels at the NGO Forum, using the book as a framework for discussion.
In a report of a follow-up meeting held in February 1986, DAWN coordinators reflect on their impact at Nairobi: "In Nairobi, DAWN provided many Third World feminists with a platform on which to come together to express views with a single voice... There is now a strong basis for such South-South cooperation and analysis, which can strengthen as well as benefit from activities at the other levels."
The enthusiasm in Nairobi encouraged DAWN to continue the process. In the February follow-up meeting in Rio de Janeiro, the DAWN Advisory Committee of ten women looked at the future of the initiative and outlined a plan of action for the next two years. In reflecting on their character, and on the needs of the international women's movement, the participants settled on the following priorities:
• to continue elaborating a concept of development from a Third World perspective, with emphasis on long-term solutions;
• to "network" by promoting dialogue and cooperation among existing groups at the regional, national, and grassroots level;
• to improve strategies for translating research into policy recommendations and action, to realize the visions put forward;
• to improve the links between research and action on critical issues such as home-based women workers and small-scale producers
The coordinators reaffirmed that DAWN would give priority to Third World women, but would also weave in the analysis and experience of poor women in the North. The committee then chose six areas of activities that will be coordinated by representatives from the Third World: research, training, advocacy, publications, communications and international relations. Finally, DAWN reaffirmed that, although it would maintain relations and seek funds from governmental and inter-governmental organizations such as the United Nations, it would remain an autonomous organization.
On the question of DAWN's structure, it was decided that the secretariat would be moved from Bangalore, India to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the next two years. It was also decided that DAWN would not have a fixed membership, in order to give more flexibility to participation from women and groups.
For more information, contact:
Neuma Aguiar, General Coordinator
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
Institute Universitario de Pesquisa do
Rio de Janeiro
Rua Paulino Fernandes no. 32
Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Brazil
Tel. 246-1830
Women Popular Educators
La Red de Mujeres, or Women's Network of the Council for Adult Education in Latin America (CEAAL - Consejo de Educacion de Adultos de America Latina), is a regional network which links two very important social movements in Latin America: the grassroots women's movement and popular education. About five years old - the network was founded at a 1981 meeting of Latin American women educators - it lately has been making important strides in exploring the relation between these two connected, but in many ways separate, movements.
Popular education and the women's movement have developed differently in different parts of Latin America. Over the last two decades, popular education has become a powerful instrument for the empowerment of poor people, but oftentimes without taking women's perspectives into account. At the same time, the feminist movement has grown, though in some places led by middle class women without involving or responding to the situation of poor women. [See the article by Magaly Pineda in Isis International Women's Journal no. 6 for an excellent commentary on this issue.)
The Women's Network of CEAAL feels the need to confront head on the increasing tension between the two. The theme of its annual meeting in Uruguay in December 1986 was: What is the relationship between popular education and feminism? And work is now underway for collaboration between the network and Isis International on production of an issue of the journal on the theme. In the summer of 1987, the network will offer a month long training workshop in Ecuador for Latin America women educators.
To contact the network, write:
Rocio Rosero, CEAAL
Casilla 123-C, Sucursal 15
Quito, Ecuador
Arab Women Link Up
A new network has been launched by women in Arab countries. The Arab Women Solidarity Association was created in early 1986 to strengthen ties between Arab women involved in social, cultural and educational activities.
The networks' goals and activities are broad. It aims to promote the "active participation of women in the political, social and intellectual life" of their countries; to fight for "social justice within the family and in society"; and to encourage the development of "the identity and authentic personality of Arab women." To work for these goals, network coordinators have outlined a program of activities, including:
• helping to create institutes in the region that provide social and psychological guidance to Arab women;
• producing field studies and action research on working women in urban and rural areas, and helping to generate practical solutions to some of their problems;
• producing books, studies, periodicals and other materials by women in the scientific, cultural and literary fields.
Membership will also be open to men who support the network's goals, although they will not enjoy the same membership rights as women.
For more information, contact:
Arab Women Solidarity Association
25 Murad Street Giza
Cairo, Egypt
Tel: 723-976 or 738-350
New Directions for AAWORD
The Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), a regional network of feminist scholars and development professionals, has been "relaunched" to improve and expand its activities throughout Africa. The changes came out of a February 1986 annual meeting, in which the network undertook a thorough and critical evaluation of programs over the past three years.
While the results of the meeting were many and varied, covering both the structure of the network and its programs, several highlights are:
• improved follow-up on research themes directed at making policy recommendations in development and legal fields;
• creation of "national working groups" to document the experience of women in each country and to promote women's participation in formulating national policies;
• outreach to African countries where AAWORD has not yet developed contacts through visits by executive committee members;
• creation of networks by AAWORD members in Europe and the U.S. that could actively support the network's work;
• experimentation with various training programs for women, such as on the use of the computer for data and documentation;
• publication of a bi-annual journal starting August 1986, and wider distribution of the quarterly bilingual newsletter Echo.
The theme of the 1986 general assembly meeting was "The African Crisis and Women's Vision of the Way-Out."
For further information, contact:
AAWORD
BP. 3304 Dakar, Senegal
Source: Echo, vol. 1, no. 1, 1986
