Global Feminisms:  
Big Questions, Big Issues, Progress and Lack of Progress Since 1995

Fall 2001

BIG QUESTIONS

1. How are the roles of women changing around the world?
2. What are some of the milestones in the world of women?
3. What is the history of women's liberation movements?  Do certain time periods (e.g. the '70s) stand out more than others?
4. What are the geographical dynamics of women's liberation movements?
5. Who are the major agents of women's liberation?  What prompted the formation of the major organizations?
6. What does "liberation" mean?  How literal is it, how figurative?
7. The evolution of movements:  how do liberated women become liberators of other women?
8. How does inequality among women affect the struggle for women's rights?
9. What parallels can be drawn between racism and sexism?  How does women's liberation link to the U.S. civil rights movement as well as liberation movements in other countries?
10. How truly liberated are women today?  How much more is there to accomplish?
11. What will women's rights be like in the future?
12. How can we affect the economic, political, and social status of women globally?
13. Does the Western model of feminist empowerment apply to different cultures and societies around the world?
14. Is the Western-based notion of feminism a universal goal or is it simply a construct of an Enlightenment-based ideal of essential human rights?
15. Is female empowerment an issue of equality, opportunity, or both?  How do we define "equal opportunity"?
16. How have women gained or lost autonomy in:  education, political representation, employment, personal safety, religion, citizenship, property rights, health care, control over their own bodies?
17. Are grassroots feminist groups or state-sponsored feminist groups better able to advance the status of women?  How have the two factions combined to advance women's rights?
18. How can gender laws be enforced after they are initially created?
19. What impact does war have on gender/women?

BIG ISSUES

• Women as victims, women as agents:  Critique of the implied social contract in Amnesty International's 1995 report, Human Rights Are Women's Rights:

"Such a contract thus implies that the female citizen/resident/refugee, in her gender-specific relation to the state, is like a child:  necessarily and naturally weak, dependent, and requiring particular attention and protection . . ."

"Such a position, however, fails to recognize the extent to which women can and have defined their own political agenda and have entered into negotiation with the state, not as weak, dependent, and lesser individuals but rather as autonamous, self-determined, political actors..."

Global Feminisms Since 1945, pp. 278-9.

• Practical gender interests (food, water, housing, etc.) and strategic gender interests (transforming the organization of power)

"The transformation of practical gender interests into strategic gender interests requires not only women's recognition of their power to represent their own interests, but also that space exists within the prevailing political system to pressure the state into recognizing tose interests.  This is part of a complex political development whereby women not only recognize gender interests, but do so in relation to and in conjunction with other women, across class and ethnic boundaries."

Global Feminisms Since 1945, p. 86.

• Organization and Forming Productive Groups.  Examples:

• Demokratische Frauenbund Deutschlands (DFD) (Germany) - Problems:  Cultural barriers, lack of funding, East vs. West
• Federation of South African Women (South Africa) - Problems:  different struggles in different racial groups
• Independent Women's Union
• Women's Solidarity Movement (Vietnam)
• National Feminism Party (Egypt)
• Gay Liberation Front
• Committee for Homosexual Equality - Problems:  Must fight against gender bias, as well as bias against sexual preference
• Other problems:  being strong within a country but weak beyond; LACK OF FUNDING!!!
• Bringing it all together:  e.g., the Beijing Conference

• Sexuality and Gender:  double jeopardy

"The hippie movement was not much better when it came to gay men and lesbians.  Despite its credo of free love and peace towards all, the attitudes of many hippie men were inevitably unreconstructed and gay men got taunted while lesbians were expected to make exceptions....  The new grouping was to combine the Women's Movement's philosophy, that the personal is political, with the hippie movement's tactics...."

Global Feminisms Since 1945, p. 169

PROGRESS AND LACK OF PROGRESS SINCE 1995:  Some Examples

Progress

Afghanistan:  Women gained permission to work in hospitals, treating other women, and women can teach in home-based schools, educating girls, who are also allowed to attend mosque schools up to age 10. 

Botswana:  Citizenship granted to children born to women married to foreigners.

China:  The Ninth Five-Year Plan ('96-00) is a policy of guidance and support with great effort being made to enhance the skills of women workers to improve the labor market.  By 2000, the urban unemployment rate is approximately 4%.  This policy is supposed to have great impact on women's employment rates.

Ireland:  Second successive woman president.  Women's participation in the labor force is up to 40% and rising.

Italy:  A program has been set up to fight against the trafficking of women.

Malaysia:  Parliament passed a constitutional amendment to prevent gender discrimination, adding "sex" to a list that prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, descent, and place of birth.

Poland:  60% of university students were women in '98-99.

Tanzania:  Women can inherit clan land from their fathers.

United States:  NOW helps elect women's rights advocates in '98.

Zambia:  CEDAW used to find hotel discrimination illegal in court (women couldn't register without a man)--but discrimination continues.

Europe:  The European Union's executive commission called for stiffer laws to end sexual harassment in the workplace.

Internationally: 

• Laws have been passed to eradicate forced marriages, female circumcision, and honor killings. 
• Improved health care for women infected by HIV and AIDS. 
• Women's advocacy organizations lobbied successfully for the inclusion of rape as a crime against humanity in the statute for an international criminal court.  Yugoslavia has convicted people for genocidal rape. 
• World Conference Against Racism addressed the gender dimensions of racial discrimination drawing parallels between racism and sexism.

Lack of Progress

Afghanistan:  Under Taliban rule, more women than ever before have resorted to begging on the streets.  Women still face abuse including beatings, rape, forced marriage, and death.

Central America:  Sex tourism is on the rise.

Japan:  Wage discrimination and failure to promote women.

Pakistan:  Honor killings.  Men kill, rape, mistreat girls and women who they assume or suspect of having affairs.

Poland:  Average earnings of men are 24% higher than those of women (similar to the U.S. gender-wage gap).

South Africa:  Teenage girls are sexually abused by their male classmates and teachers daily.  The prevalence rate of HIV in girls (15-24) is almost twice that of boys the same age.

United States:  The U.S. is still unwilling to fulfill its commitments at Beijing.  Professional requirements of traditionally female occupations (e.g. nursing) have advanced but societal attitudes toward these professions have not.

Internationally:  There is still a lack of government participation when it comes to protecting and acknowledging women's rights.