Feminist Dialogues 2005 Porto Alegre, Brazil http://feministdialogue.isiswomen.org

Concept Note for the Feminist Dialogues
23-25 January 2005, Porto Alegre

The personal is political: this was a rallying cry for the first steps of women's movements all over the world. Nothing is more personal than the body. Nothing is more political either. The personal and the political inform and complement each other. As feminist movements we have learnt that a process of collective organization and collective articulation of protest are indispensable for effective feminist politics.

Individual and collective identities are drawn upon our bodies. Even as we assume multiple identities they are contested terrains as the tensions of cultural and social definitions intersect on them. Our bodies thus become critical sites upon which structural oppressions are located.

For various reasons, bodies are marked by dominant forces. Caste, class, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality map themselves on male and female bodies in highly specific ways, and shape everyday political, social, economic and cultural realities. They also come together in the way bodies are constructed, defined and perceived. These in turn demarcate boundary lines between exclusion and inclusion, between perceptions of 'them' and 'us', between friends and foes.

Social, political, cultural and economic contexts determine what we do with our bodies and how our bodies are acted upon. The state, community, family, religion and market have consistently chosen women's bodies as one of the central sites upon which to put into place an array of controls, duties, responsibilities and rights.

As feminist movements we are conscious of the fact that our bodies are replete with cultural and social meanings. Equally important is our understanding and experience that women's bodies are key arenas upon which many moral and political battles are being fought. It is through women's bodies that the community, state, family, fundamentalist forces (state and non-state), religion, the market and male identity seek to define themselves. Through a plethora of patriarchal controls these forces and institutions transform women's bodies into expressions of power relations. Women s bodies are in this way, at the center of authoritarian or democratic projects.

Women's movements have waged countless struggles over one central demand-the right to autonomy over our bodies. It still remains an intense struggle for most women in their struggle for survival. We need to examine our strategies in the light of current political realities. How have we fared in asserting our rights to live with dignity and security? How have our campaigns changed? Have they lost the cutting edge? Or are we in a better position now? What are the gains, what are our losses?

The Feminist Dialogue represents both opportunity and challenge in taking forward this vision for change because it places transnational or international feminist organizing centre-stage. At this point in time we hope that we can broaden our avenues of collective strategizing. What can we achieve through a concerted effort at feminist organizing outside of our internal 'borders'? How can we change the world from inside through this organizing? It is relevant to put our time and energy into it?

We would like this Feminist Dialogue to interrogate the body, recover its complexities, and examine the ways in which we can regain control over our bodies as a strategic element of our collective agency and our vision of alternatives. This is in relation to the inter-linkages of the multiple oppressions arising from the consolidated and yet autonomous forces of:
· neo-liberal globalization
· war, conflict, militarism and militarization
· fundamentalisms.

We present a brief framework to help initiate discussion on the three themes.

Theme: Neo-liberal Globalization

Globalisation seems to imply and promise a borderless world where nation states do not exist. It signifies many possibilities for new forms of democratic governance, non-state political organizing and feminist organizing. It also seems to imply a global community where mobility of people and ideas are free and available to all.

However, the flip side of globalization manifests as the neo-liberal economic model, which privileges
§ economic integration of a capitalist world market through the primacy of the private sector, corporate profits, privatization and the retreat of the welfare state,
§ the imposition of "economic reforms" such as structural adjustment, PRSPs, or "good governance" through the IMF, World Bank, and WTO in a growing "coherence" of policies.
§ the push to pry open economies, gear them toward exports, and eliminate protective tariffs in the name of trade liberalization
§ the promotion and valorization of transnational corporations as the most efficient integrators of the global community
§ the growing gap in wealth and livelihoods between rich and poor within and between nations, which is exacerbated among marginalized racial, ethnic, caste, and class groups, and poor women.

How are women's bodies through particular definitions of women's labor and stereotyped identities utilized for neo-liberal globalization? Many studies show that the ideology of globalisation has affirmed women's primary role as housewives to justify their relegation to the lower rungs in the labour market and to exploitative conditions and wages. Young, disadvantaged women and some from the educated lower middle class all over the world choose to work in exploitative sweat shops and in free trade zones or in call centres as there are few alternatives.

How have women workers organised to assert their right to fair and equal wages, decent work conditions, against sexual harassment and protective legislation, to a recognition of their role as workers and earners? How do they link their struggles as workers to their struggles as women? The impact of the free market on women producers in the South has been disastrous. Their control over seeds have been taken away and indigenous patterns of crops have been destroyed.

The commodification and stereotyping of women's bodies in advertisements has undergone some changes in recent times. The industry has resorted to subtler imagery, often appropriating our language and distorting feminist political goals of liberation as it seeks to promote cigarettes, cosmetics, garments or kitchen appliances. Have we changed our analyses and strategies to address these new realities?

Industrial nations and TNCs have exploited essential natural resources of the South for their over consumptive and affluent lifestyles. And in the process depleted the world's natural resources like metals, water and forests. This loss of resources has grim repercussions for women. Loss of livelihood and traditional resource bases, displacement and impoverishment have serious implications for democracy, governance and citizenship.

The exclusion of women from global decision making bodies like the UN or international financial institutions is no accident. At the ground level, women have no decision making powers nor do they have rights over property or inheritance. However, these international institutions broadly accept that at the community level, women are far more credit worthy than men and hence most micro credit and savings schemes are targeted at them. The questions for us are: have such programs helped women or driven them deeper into debt? How have these schemes affected the well being, survival strategies and struggle for autonomy over their lives and bodies? How has gender mainstreaming, local political participation, and gender budgeting, as well as anti-poverty programs addressed women's needs?

Theme: War, Conflict, Militarism and Militarization

Neo liberal economic strategies have sharpened social tensions and have sometimes led to the emergence of extremist forms of identity based politics. The proliferation of wars and conflicts in the world today is a clear manifestation of a 'normalization' of violence. Militarism is the glorification of a military mode in civilian life and justifies the unquestioned presence of armed or para forces in society, for beyond national security. Militarisation is the evolution of the military-industrial complex that makes manufacture and sale of arms one of the most profitable industries. It shifts massive state and private resources from social needs to weapons. In many societies, particularly those defending interests of regional or global empire, workers are increasingly dependent on the military economy for jobs, income, education, and the social and economic advancement of racial and ethnic groups, the poor, and women.

Militarism also plays a critical role in state repression of its own citizens and those in other nations. The doctrine of "national security" and "anti-terrorism" become a license to repress dissent, limit constitutional rights, and quell the opposition of progressive movements. As seen in the US, this is sometimes done with the acquiescence of large sectors of the public, built on fear of an unknown "enemy" as well as the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of their own population. Thus, militarism and nationalism tend to be built on a profound racism, even as oppressed minorities may identify with the nationalist cause.

The patriarchal nature of war, conflict, militarism and militarisation has a profound impact on women, in and out of conflict situations. Some women become combatants and active participants in acts of violence as we have send from Gujarat to Abu-Ghraib. Women also become symbols of their own nation/community and are the targets of attack and violation by the 'enemy'. Women are affected differently by conflicts according to their locations in the grid of class-caste-ethnicity-religion-language, etc. in the context of their existing vulnerability in society. Invariably conflict and militarization are drawn on women's bodies. Sexual violence, sexual policing including dress codes, public sexual humiliation and brutal sexual assaults, control and regulation of women's reproductive capacities are part of conflict and militarization. The patriarchal design and agenda inherent to militarization is control over women's sexuality and reproductive capabilities so as to suit the objectives of ultimately gaining power over communities or nation-states.

What then is the role of women in peacemaking and building? How can women enter debates on politically negotiated resolutions of conflict in which sustainable peace and justice with reparations are possible? Women's engagement with these processes is critical because emerging principles of full and equal citizenship and practices of consultative governance are a key component of these discussions.

Theme: Fundamentalisms

Several forms of fundamentalisms have emerged in the current moment. Most prevalent are political-religious fundamentalisms, from Christianity and Judaism to Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. But beyond this is a broader fundamentalist ideology-a powerful discourse that goes beyond the religious to impact cultural, political and economic spheres with fundamentalist values. This opens the way to an exclusionary, authoritarian, and profoundly anti-democratic way of thinking, despite gaining ascendancy in some cases through elections. The dogma of the "free market," while not a religious fundamentalism, is nonetheless the imposition of the idea that there is no alternative. Fundamentalisms impact women's lives and bodies in multiple ways, from direct control over bodies, to the use of women as national symbols, to the imposition of neo-liberal absolutes, to the closing of spaces for public participation and protest, to the wars that have emerged as ethnic, religious and economic interests go to battle.

In response to the universalising culture propagated by the global market, right wing forces move in to 'protect' culture, tradition, religious values. The 'culture' they promote is one that promotes the 'natural' status of women as mothers and wives, their subordinate status and so on. How do we understand the contest between forces of 'modernity'? How do we locate ourselves in the resistance against globalization?

Modernization creates a crisis of identity and religious fundamentalism steps in to take advantage of it. The political agenda of the right wing is to also turn it into a nationalist project, which defines the roles and responsibilities of women. Religious fundamentalism addresses the lack of cohesion in modern society through a pitting of identities, which privileges 'us' and vilifies 'them'.

Religious fundamentalism is also a response to the threat of the diversity of identities as diversity threatens their hegemonic hold on communities. It is also a backlash to social movements, most particularly women's movements, which seek to embrace diversity. Since fundamentalisms are essentially hierarchical and authoritarian, religious fundamentalism undermines the principles of equality and democracy.

Specific constructions of sexuality are central to all fundamentalist projects. They adapt patriarchal frameworks to justify the relegation of women to the domestic sphere and to legitimise their participation in their activities. In their ideology, women are perceived as the 'property' of the community and of men. The image/honour of the community is thus tied up with women's bodies. Likewise, women's bodies (often reproductive organs) have been made the targets of the most horrifically detailed violence. Dress codes are given, women become biological and cultural reproducers, and all forms of non hetrosexual relationships are often violently opposed.

The last few decades have seen a phenomenal rise in right wind fundamentalist and extremist movements across Asia, Latin America and the US in particular. The impact[s] on women's lives, on their rights to autonomy and to choices, specially for marginalized groups of women are grim.

Feminist movements have had to grapple with several uncomfortable realities in the face of this growth of fundamentalisms. Violence linked to identity based politics is usually preceded by longstanding propaganda that militates against feminist principles of (sexual) equality and justice for all women. How do we look at our strategies in dealing with religious belief which is important to many women, and on the other hand, religious fundamentalism? How has the rise of different forms of fundamentalist and rightwing conservative politics affected women's movements? What are the implications of the recent US election results in this context given that abortion and gay marriage were key issues? What are the advantages and disadvantages of forming alliances with other social movements on this issue?

Interrogation

At this historical and political juncture we confront three major forces that work together just as much as they work separately. Our understanding of the impact of these forces on - our bodies, our relations, our lives is still incomplete. While different local, regional and global networks have made strides by building alliances across regions around specific issues, such as reproductive health, abortion rights, or opposition to structural adjustment, we have a long way to go in integrating "gender justice" and "economic justice" in terms of our analysis and action. This has plagued and weakened our movements, as some forces in power would lift up women's personal rights while undermining their economic rights through devastating macro-economic policies.

As women's movements, we are challenged to find new and different ways of analysing and understanding these forces. We need to be asking new questions that allow us to develop a more vital paradigm for a feminist understanding and perspective on globalisation. A cross cultural and transnational collective thinking and action becomes imperative in our search for strategies. And as these processes are articulated differently in different parts of the world our strategies necessarily have to be global as well.

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