SPRING 2007 VOLUME XXIIII NO. 1 NNeettwwoorrkknewsnews The Newsletter of Sociologists for Women in Society TThhee BBiigg UUnneeaassyy:: WWiinntteerr MMeeeettiinnggss iinn NNeeww OOrrlleeaannss By: Manisha Desai communities and the difficulties that lie ahead. The major one SWS President being housing and bringing back New Orleanians from the far corners of the US. The Road Home program, one of the new pro- organized our winter meeting in New Orleans to grams supported by Federal funds is so problematic that it has reflect upon one of the worst social and political helped only about 40 families, out of 200,000 displaced, to return. disastersII in recent US history and to show our support to the local This rude awakening continued throughout the three days we communities rebuilding against many odds. In the spirit of soli- spent in New Orleans. darity our meeting was Plenaries held jointly with the 7th The three plenaries were Annual Social Justice organized to bring togeth- Conference of the er local and transnational University of New efforts around post-disas- Orleans organized by ter reconstruction. The Professor Jean Belkhir. first plenary on Friday This enabled our mem- morning included presen- bers to hear many more tations by Brenda local voices and meet Robicheaux, the Principal more local activists. The Chief of the Houma evaluations note it as “one Nation in Louisiana and of the most moving” and Fatima Burnad, a dalit1 “one of the best SWS activist from Tamil Nadu meetings I’ve ever attend- Women’s Forum and ed.” What made this Society for Rural meeting so moving for Education and most of us was being Development, Chennai, there to witness the dev- India, who had worked astation wrought not just with the dalit communi- by Hurricane Katrina and Front row: Lori Tuttle, Kathy Feltey, Shawna Rohrman, & Liza Grossman. Back row: Rachel ties after the December but also our racialized, Schneider, Wendy Grove, Vicki Hunter, Michelle Bemiller, Jodi Ross, and Jean-Anne Sutherland 2004 Tsunami. classed, and gendered society. The not so hidden injuries of race Brenda’s presentation began with a history of the Houma and class were still visible 18 months after the landfall of Katrina. Nation in the region and their current situation. Her presen- Because I wanted this to be a meeting that engaged the tation emphasized that the future of the community depend- community, one of the first events we organized was a ed on education that drew upon the native heritage and cul- meeting at the Asia Baptist Church in a community that is ture, which is being taught to the children through summer still reeling from the aftermath of social injustices. Mayor tribal school, as well as the education in public schools to Ray Nagin who was supposed to be present at this commu- enable the community to rebuild and sustain itself. Fatima nity meeting was not there but Pastor Kenneth Thibodeaux Burnad began with a documentary on the impact of the who sits on one of the city-wide reconstruction councils Tsunami in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. As a with the mayor welcomed us, provided us with food, and dalit activist, her focus was on the issues faced by enlightened us for an hour on the struggles of his and other ...continued on page 3 Photo Courtesy: pdphoto.org President's Message: The Global Women’s Rights Movement and its Discontents By: Manisha Desai This global women’s right movement has ment, one needs an expertise — a familiarity 3 President led to what Kardam (2004) has called the with the UN system, its treaties and platforms, global gender equality regime, a series of not to mention the ability to raise funds for ow fortuitous that I write this norms, laws, and mechanisms to ensure travel — forged by highly educated women message on International women’s rights. But the regime is a set of pri- from the North and the South. This is not to Women’sHH Day. As I read about the celebra- marily discursive and symbolic commitments say that global activists have not made efforts tions and events made by governments with very little actual to be more inclusive. But given the structural planned around the commitment of resources to transform gen- inequalities that exist, their efforts have been world to mark this dered institutions and structures. Nonetheless, limited by the ability of women to navigate the occasion, I was women’s movements have used these symbol- global gatherings. struck by two in ic commitments to achieve victories at the Poor women, however, have not been com- particular: (1) a local levels. But there is a limit to the global pletely absent from the global women’s rights BBC report on how gender equality regime. Even within the UN movement either at the UN conferences or at women in Russia system, we have seen very little progress in the World Social Forums. They have partici- were celebrating it terms of hiring and promoting more women pated in telling their stories, in bringing cultur- by going out to din- and committing more resources to gender al performances, as well as their crafts for sale. ner and receiving flowers; and (2) a post on mainstreaming. But for the most part they have not been able the SWS listserv that in Argentina it is becom- I want to suggest that for the global to use their expertise and knowledge to partic- ing more like Valentine’s Day. There are mul- women’s rights movement to be meaningful ipate in the discussions, which are carried out tiple ironies in these two observations. Chief for a majority of the world’s women, it will in European languages and in academic styles among them being the transformation of a have to draw upon the expertise of the poor unfamiliar to them, or enter into negotiations day, that originated in the US to recognize majority and to focus on communities and with government delegates or other activists. working class women and that, has symbol- institutions in which poor women are located. It is time for the global women’s rights ized socialist solidarity for over a century Because as Piven and Cloward (1979) noted in movement to be visible at the local levels and around the world, into yet another occasion their classic work, Poor People’s to bring into conversation and struggle poor for capitalist consumption in Russia and else- Movements: Why they Succeed and How women located in families, communities, and where.1 they Fail, poor people cannot change institu- institutions. In saying this I do not want to But such ironies abound in our global era. tions to which they don’t have access. Most privilege the local over the global but rather And I want to use this occasion to reflect upon women do not have access to the UN and the suggest, that at any level, the kind of expertise one such contradiction: the successes of what global gatherings from which the global gen- we use, the sites of our struggle, and our focus has come to be called the Global Women’s der equality regime has emerged. will determine whether our victories are sym- Rights Movement and the continuing realities Petrice Sams-Abiodu — Executive Director bolic or affect the lives of women around the of violence, poverty, and injustices that most of Lindy Boggs National Center for world. women face on a daily basis around the world Community Literacy at Loyola University in (e.g., see the March 8th statements of the New Orleans and a speaker in one of the ses- 1 In the US International Women’s Day did not receive Commission on the Status of Women sions at the SWS meeting — made a similar much attention except from the workers’ movements and ww.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/51sess.ht observation about the role of black men in women in left parties. After 1975, when the United m). While this contradiction is a result of New Orleans. She noted that while black men Nations declared it as the International Women’s Year and many factors such as the difficulties of trans- had very little connection to the market and the ensuing International Women’s Decade from 1975- forming structures and institutions, the lack of traditional institutions they had strong connec- 1985, it gained more recognition. Today many more political will to redistribute resources, and the tions to family and communities in which they women’s groups and Women’s Studies programs and new inequalities resulting from neo-liberal lived. Hence, when the hurricane struck they departments mark the occasion by holding events to globalization, the war on terror, and religious responded as members of families and com- reflect, celebrate, and recommit to struggle for women’s fundamentalisms, I want to focus on how the munities in trying to protect them. equality and justice. strategies of the global women’s rights move- The global women’s rights movements has 2 The term global is also problematic because while there ment have also contributed to it. for the most part drawn on the expertise of are women’s movements in most countries around the While the term Global2 Women’s Rights educated, privileged women from the global world, they are by no means global. movement is a highly contested one, it usually North and the South. For to participate in 3 Kardam, Nuket. 2004. “The Emerging Global Gender refers to women’s mobilizations of the past thir- global meetings of the UN and even global Equality Regime from Neoliberal and Constructivist ty years around the UN’s International gatherings such as the World Social Forum Perspectives.” International Feminist Journal of Politics Women’s Decade from 1975-1985 and the one needs to be well versed in a Eurocentric, 6(1):95-109.