February 15, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
In Porto Alegre, She is on Her Way
Part 4: Where were the women at the Foro?
by Stephanie Hiller
Women were everywhere at the Forum, speaking powerfully from the podium and representing thousands of delegations addressing matters concerning land, water, human rights, justice, and how to achieve the peace.
But feminist groups there to address women's issues felt ignored, invisible, and underrepresented.
What was the problem here?
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Your mouth, fundamental against fundamentalisms |
The preconference meeting of feminist delegations was held in the old Hotel Umbu downtown, a place that had seen a better era no doubt but still retained something essentially Brazilian amid the worn upholstery and dull paint. The Articulacion Feminista Marcosur, a campaign in the states of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile against fundamentalisms, organized this meeting (The local host was Articulacion de Mujeres Brasileras). We met in a large conference room where we were greeted by a giant poster: the face of a lovely Latina woman with a big black rectangle blocking her mouth. This powerful image was their icon. At the women's march at the opening of the forum, women and men wore paper masks over their lower faces, printed with the words: "It's your mouth. Use it." The meeting began with an excellent video on Marcosur's participation in last year's forum.
The Charter of Principles that defines the intentions of the forum alludes frequently to the importance of justice and equal rights. "The World Social Forum. . . upholds respect for Human Rights. . . and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another," (Charter of Principles, 10) And again, "As a forum for debate, the World Social Form is a movement of ideas. . . to solve the problems of exclusion and social inequality that the process of capitalist globalization with its racist, sexist and environmentally destructive dimensions is creating internationally and within countries." (Charter, 11)
Unfortunately the women's experience was that women's issues did not receive enough space in the Forum and women were generally underrepresented among the featured speakers and, more importantly, on the International Council (IC) responsible for organizing and coordinating events. Of 150 members, said the representatives from Marcosur, only two were women.
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"We want to become visible. This is the core," said Lilian Celiberti of Marcosur. |
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Lilian Celiberti |
"Our unique responsibility is to guarantee transparency, democracy, plurality and diversity and include those that haven't been consulted." Those not included, as usual, were the women.
Another issue was the IC's impulse to make a declaration against the impending US war against Iraq, but this was challenged because the statement needs to come from the organizations that participate in WSF, not just the IC. Another concern had to do with the responsibility of organizations to fund their participation.
Most pressing was IC's debate about limiting the number of representatives to elected delegates, due to the growing numbers of attendees. Currently registration is open, and the size of the group continues to grow, from 15,000 the first year to 70,000 this year. (Estimates are as high as 100,000 this year.) India supports making this change, which others feel will change the character of the forum. And since India will, in fact, host the forum next year (its first time outside Porto Allegre), this question is critical. Certainly the impact of huge and growing numbers of delegates on city services, is something to be considered -- something that raises larger questions about how to have a better world when population continues to rise. And whereas everything seems possible in Brazil, India is a poorer country with quite another culture.
From this introduction, the discussion moved on to questions of strategy, or, more accurately, to a series of critiques and complaints about lack of inclusion, with frequent resort to deconstructionist jargon about "the debate," "the space" and, of course, gender.
I grew frustrated and even a little bored. The simultaneous translation delivered via headsets was, some women said, less than adequate, and it was all I had, that and the heat, which was thick with humidity despite air conditioning, pressing down upon my desire for real talk about real issues. We were talking about strategy in a vacuum. What was our purpose at the forum and in our separate organizations? How are we going to stop the spread of fundamentalism? What can we do now to stop war? How do we find more funding for international women's efforts to bring peace and security to this aching world?
I was letting my frustration get the better of me. In the afternoon, when we broke into groups for discussion and strategizing, I had to say something. I ended up sounding (so I'm told) like the typical American woman, the one who walks into a meeting room with a plan and starts telling others how to implement it.
I said that I felt that if we focused our attention on opposing the war with a strong unified voice, that would give us the energy we needed to become a stronger presence in the forum as a whole.
This may be correct, but it was a huge leap with no preparation whatsoever, neither political nor philosophical. And besides, we all felt we couldn't stop the war. So what was the point of it, actually?
The first response, from a woman representing another feminist group (I suffer for loss of my notes here -- my notebook was lost the day after the forum) said that as a Canadian, she felt a lack of inclusion in this "American" issue.
I was floored. This is an issue, I said, that threatens the entire world.
Although I had everyone's attention, I had completely forgotten protocol. As the Canadian woman now reminded me, we had yet to go round with introductions and so forth.
We did that. The atmosphere in our circle was charged with unspoken feelings, and when it came round to me, I spoke some more.
When it came time for reports from the groups, Angela Miles, representing our group, gave a very tactful report of the proceedings, more in line with the specific questions we'd been asked to address, and deftly wound up with the introduction of the petition she'd composed with Moema Vizzer, a Brazilian feminist also representing the gift economy, the preceding night at the convent.
I recognized immediately, though with some remorse, that this was excellent political strategy. And with Angela's dogged persistence throughout the forum and afterwards, collecting signatures from all sorts of women's groups, many women's groups signed on. I am grateful for that and urge you to read it [link]. Here in America, we need the support and help of the world's women, because, though I did not express it effecctively there, we are all fighting one fight: the fight for freedom.
The other reports came through in varying degrees of clarity from terrific women representing various feminist groups mostly in Latin America. Many impressed me. But aside from that petition, I did not see any compelling strategy emerge for enhancing the woman's voice in the Foro. Although there were many presentations organized by women's groups during the forum -- especially the World March of Women, and all praise for their hard work -- I was disappointed to discover that the debate about inclusion and visibility often precluded all other discussion, even when another topic was the designated subject. I began to wonder whether the feminists were marginalizing themselves here by narrowing their discussion to an analysis of the problem instead of showing compelling reasons why they should be included. There were many powerful women presenting at the Forum, many of them feminists, but they weren't discussing feminism. Women like Susan George, Arundhati Roy, even the Egyptian feminist Nawal al-Saadawi, were talking about war, water, globalization, labor -- they were bringing their female perspective to bear on issues confronting us all. Alas, they were not many; they did not speak for women as a group. That was the lack, and it is no small matter.
Unless women are included, the result will be the same. Men will form into groups. They will disagree. There will be hierarchy, and the whole scene, no matter how noble, will devolve into the same old/same old thing. Power over. But the question remains, how do we do that? Our strategy has been to ask permission to be included. I think we must do more than that: we must claim our right to be included? But what would it look like? And how do we do that?
Perhaps the women of the South, and indigenous women everywhere, will help us. But we'll have to ask them.
We returned to the convent in time to welcome the rest of the Gifting group. I met my roommate, Susan Bright, poet and publisher of Plain View Press, which has brought forth many books of poetry as well as such radical feminist works as Monica Sjoo's Return of the Dark/Light Mother. Plainview Press will soon release Midwifing Death: Into the Arms of the Mother, by Leslene della Madre (formerly Leslie McIntyre), whose work appears frequently in this e-zine.
Genevieve Vaughan and the Gift Economy
The idea of the Gift economy was articulated by Genevieve Vaughan, daughter of a Texas oil family, now in her 60s. Gen, as I came to know her, developed her theory over many years, and then applied it.
Gen's own journey took her to Italy, where she married an Italian linguistics professor, raised three daughters, and enjoyed the European progressive debate. In the process, she turned to feminism, and returned to Texas, where she applied her own linguistic studies to the economy. Her book, For-Giving, published in 1997, develops her concept of transforming economics from the current, patriarchal system, based on exchange, to one based on giving. The book is available free, on request [link] Practicing what she believed, she gave her generous financial support to women doing the work.
The concept of the gift economy is very simple.
Most of what we receive in life, provided by nature, is given. No charge is levied, no exchange required, for sunshine, rain, mountains or rivers. When we give to the land, it gives back in kind; no measure is taken.
In the same way, mothers give to their children the care that they need, knowing the baby and child cannot return it in equal measure. Children's needs don't wait; mothers are always on call, and they give as required.
This constant giving of nature and women goes largely unseen. Not even environmental costs of industry are included in the equation that makes up the global economy. Women have demanded that some of their unpaid work be included in the GNP. Instead, Vaughan suggests that we recognize this work of giving is, in fact, a better paradigm for social interactions than the concept of monetary value based on exchange.
If we gave, from our hearts, to fill the needs of others, we would validate the other. Sharing does not have the same alienating result as competition. And inevitably, what goes around, comes around. We grow to expect that our needs will be met too.
This gift economy was successively used in many indigenous cultures, and it does not seem unreasonable to imagine that it could be positively employed even in our own mass culture. Although we could hardly expect that society would drop its present system overnight, Vaughan suggests that by holding this paradigm in our consciousness as an alternative way of behaving, we begin to transform the system. Much like the concept of the millionth circle, this new paradigm would eventually reach a critical mass of acceptance.
We sat around the dining room table in the convent that evening, listening to Maria Suarez report on the meeting with Marcosur and sharing our thoughts. Maria operates the Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE), which held live broadcasts throughout the forum. She also helped organize a conference last December in Costa Rica, the third Women's Encuentro.
We retired to bed to the beat of a drum. Promptly at 9, as it would do every night this week, a band started up in a nearby courtyard. Angela told me that they were practicing for Carnaval next month. Practice they did until after midnight, song, guitarra, drums. I lay there drifting off on melatonin, thinking how in the States this noise in the streets would not be permitted and was that better, or worse?
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