Theme 4. Making Development Central To The Women's Movement

DISCUSSION POINTS

  1. Bridging the gap between 'development issues' and 'women's issues'
    • What initiatives have been carried out to try and bridge this gap?
    • What were the problems encountered?
    • How could these be overcome?
    • How can changes be supported? From within the movement? From outside?
  2. Bringing a global perspective to the women's movement
    • What initiatives have been carried out to try and do this?
    • What were the problems encountered?
    • How could these be overcome?
    • How could initiatives for change be supported? From within the movement? From outside?

 

LINKS WITH OTHER WORKSHOPS

  • Networking (5)

 

INTRODUCTIONS TO WORKSHOP 4

MAKING DEVELOPMENT CENTRAL TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

Anita Anand (India)

If we look at the issues that women's movements have been organizing around, certainly within this century, I would say that planned development should be a central concern of the women's movement. In most societies, even in societies that are developed, the issues that women are concerned about, whether it's day-care, work, equal wages for equal work etc..., have arisen out of development to some extent. It is very important for the women's movement to be concerned about development.

What is a women's issue? We women in the women's movement and certainly in the development movement, should raise this question as often as we can. It is very important because to me there exists no development issue that is not relevant to women.

As feminists, as people in the women's movement or as people interested in developmental work, we very often have done a great injustice to ourselves by saying that some issues are not women's issues. Not only have we done injustice to ourselves, but we have also given men and the people in the mainstream development movement an opportunity to say 'NO', that day-care, abortion and etc... are not development issues. I don't agree with that because they affect the economy, the politics and the society. They are development issues. For me, there is no division between a women's issue and a development issue and I would urge us to narrow the barriers between them. I also feel that the concept of feminism is so central to most women's movements, that I find it very difficult to see how women's movements can ignore development. If feminism, as I understand it, is the movement that believes in the eradication of all forms of repression, then development is a central concern to the women's movement. To me, the crux of feminism is development and vice versa.

The other reason why development should be a central concern to the women's movement is because development helps us to look at issues at a macro-level. Once again, if we look at issues that most women's groups and women's movements in different parts of the world organize around, then we notice that they are mostly issues very very close to us. This is where the strength of the women's movement originates. Day-care, abortion, fighting for equal wages, for food, for water and health care etc. are primary concerns to us. These seem distant from the World Bank, the UN or the international economy etc... However, we have to be aware that macro-issues are also micro-issues and vice versa. If we try to organize at one level without taking into consideration what's happening at the other level, then it is bound to be a failure, which is in fact the failure of development. It would strengthen the women's movement considerably as far as SISTERHOOD IS GLOBAL.

I also feel that there is a tendency for the women’s movement to negate development because women are so overwhelmed by the different agendas in our lives. We simply take development as one more thing we have to do. I think that the trick of a good organizer, or a good feminist, is to try and look for a local issue we are organizing around and identify it as a development issue. We have to be very sophisticated in arguing our cases for development.

 

Magaly Pineda (Dominican Republic)

I felt that the way in which the questions under this theme were originally formulated seemed as if they were made by observers from outside the women's movement. Because of this I suggested to Isis International that it was important to emphasize the global perspective of the feminist movement and to analyze why this global perspective has not been developed. I thought it important that this perspective be analyzed by a woman from inside the movement where development is considered central to the feminist movement.

I see growth of the feminist movement as a global response of women to the subordination that we suffer and undergo. This global perspective will permit us to visualize the points of support and coincidence between the processes that affect women in developing countries and in industrialized countries – from which the concept of development arises and where development was conceived as the way in which our countries could be integrated into the logic of the capitalist market, forgetting and harming the development of many areas in developed countries.

If a global perspective is developed in which women from developed countries start to establish and find in their own countries underdeveloped areas, if they find the South in the North, and start working with the working class, domestic workers, immigrants, ethnic groups, they will find that they will know and be closer to the common problems of women in the Third World. These problems refer to the possibilities of access to health facilities, job opportunities, etc. that are the same problems that we find among women from industrialized countries, but especially from the poorer minorities. It is important for women of industrialized countries to be acquainted with their own poor realities so that global feminism will be a truly uniting perspective.

 

REPORT OF WORKSHOP 4

MAKING DEVELOPMENT CENTRAL TO THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

Rapporteur: Ellen Clark

General Points

The following points were raised in general discussion:

  • Women are already working at development, for example through day care, health care, etc. However, there is need for a stronger international perspective in the development work that women do at local and national level.
  • There are differences of perspective on feminism between the First World and the Third World. However, dialogue and understanding now seem to be better than they were in Mexico City or Copenhagen.
  • We should remember that the concept of development applies to all parts of the world and that women in both the First World and the Third World must consider their positions and roles in relation to developments taking place at both national and international levels.
  • Greater links must be forged between the micro and the macro levels. As one participant put it, "women's experience in the 'private family' must be directed to the 'public family'".

Points for Action

Participants then proposed a series of points on which joint action should be taken, giving illustrations of the work they were already undertaking on the issues:

  • Women's double or triple day (Molly, Canada)
  • Violence against women (Ellen, Switzerland)
  • Equalising the work load between men and women (Anita, India)
  • The Global Assembly line, for example women's role in the electronics industry (Saralee, US, in relation to the AFSC campaign on these issues)
  • The marketing and distribution practices of multinationals, especially in the field of pharmaceuticals e.g. Depo Provera.

Strategies

The group then outlined a series of principles to be taken into consideration when formulating strategies:

  • The importance of women's full participation in development planning.
  • The need to find common interests shared by First World and Third World women on which joint action can take place.
  • Emphasis on decentralised decision-making.
  • Promotion of solidarity between South and North by recognizing that there is a Third World in the First World.
  • Increasing networking potential by forging new links, strengthening existing links and ensuring that concrete action is promoted through networks.
  • Increasing opportunities for women from different parts of the world and with different backgrounds to exchange views and learn more about each other's problems and the actions they are taking to solve these problems.
  • Building a truly worldwide women's movement.
  • Increasing youth participation in all activities related to women and development.