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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: WOMEN AT THE EARTH SUMMIT
- Message-ID: <1992Aug26.082307.20064@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: PACH
- Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 08:23:07 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 87
-
- The ACTivist July/August 92
-
- The ACTivist is published monthly (one issue during July and August)
- by the ACT for Disarmament Coalition, 736 Bathurst St., Toronto,
- Ontario, Canada, M5S 2R4, phone 416-531-6154, fax 416-531-5850,
- e-mail web:act.
-
- Reprint freely, but please credit us (and send us a copy!)
-
- /** gen.newsletter: 121.12 **/
- ** Written 11:26 pm Aug 11, 1992 by web:act in cdp:gen.newsletter **
- WOMEN AT THE EARTH SUMMIT -- DEFINING OURSELVES,
- DEFINING OUR ROLE
-
- Pam Simmons
- NGONET/Third World Institute
-
- Principle 20 of the Rio Declaration promises women full
- participation in environmental management and development.
- There are, however, two unwritten conditions. Women are not
- given the option to refuse to participate, and their participation
- is to be channeled by states. Both conditions create problems for
- women.
-
- How is UNCED going to ensure women's participation? Agenda
- 21 says women are to be "empowered" to be environmental
- "managers"; women's status is to be improved; their potential
- is to be tapped and catalyzed into appropriate, consensual action;
- and their essential role in sustainable development will be
- recognized.
-
- This is what is intended to happen to women. This is what
- women will be allowed to do. But where are the women in this?
- Where are the active, dissenting, powerful, self-respecting women?
- Many of these women do not want to be labeled "managers" or to
- have their "potential" exploited. And many would resist being
- assisted to take "appropriate consensual action." Status will not,
- cannot, be passed out like manna from heaven. Status will be, and
- has been, fought for and gained through women's many specific
- battles, for votes and for trees, against violence and discrimination.
- This is participation. Who exactly will gain from women's participation
- in development? Official development projects do not address the
- exploitation of women in export-processing zones, the sex tourism
- industry or agribusiness. They do not question the basic sexual and
- international divisions of labour. Instead, they reinforce them, to
- ensure a source of cheap labour and economically dependent
- women.
-
- It is clear from UNCED rhetoric and agreements that governments
- and inter-governmental bodies will be responsible for steering us
- along the road to sustainable development. This is a problem for
- women. Such bodies are steeped in a patriarchal tradition that has
- not only excluded women from participating but has also mostly
- ignored women's interests except where they echoed men's. In too
- many instances the state has acted as an instrument of oppression
- against women, either by refusing to intervene in private matters
- such as "domestic" violence or by unnecessarily interfering and
- harassing women who dare to speak or act without the patronage
- of men.
-
- The Rio Declaration puts 18 principles before women are mentioned.
- Each principle assumes the existence of benevolent, neutral,
- representative states. Most states, if not all, represent particular
- interests and certain groups of people. Are we to rely on these bodies
- to act against their own interests in devolving power to women?
-
- Robert Goodland of the World Bank, one of these "neutral"
- international bodies, in writing on the need for state intervention
- in population control, states that "poverty, abandoned babies,
- unwanted children, starvation, massive deforestation, extinctions
- and irreversible environmental abuse are greater evils and dangers
- than freedom of choice for women." But freedom of choice for women
- is a prerequisite for solutions to any of the above: something made
- clear by the Women's Caucus at Rio in their call for measures to
- ensure the rights of women to decide the number and spacing of
- their children.
-
- Women will play a vital role in future social change. But the role
- will not be conferred on them by official delegates at international
- conferences. The real issues will not be addressed by delegated
- management and participation within set parameters. The
- parameters are the issues, and women themselves will carve
- out their role in their everyday battles to conserve their
- environment and to win respect.
-
- ** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **
-
-