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Global Women's Movements at a Crossroads: Seeking Definition, New Alliances and Greater Impact

By Carol Barton

In a circle under the trees at the dismantled women's tent at the close of the January 2003 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, some 30 feminist leaders representing regional and international networks from around the world gathered to evaluate their impact on that global gathering of activists. In 2003, Latin American feminists, who have been outspoken voices on the WSF International Committee, assumed responsibility for the planning of key plenaries at the WSF only to discover that these events were physically marginalized while attention turned to big-name speakers. Meanwhile, smaller workshops organized by women were sparsely attended. Women working primarily in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) discussed whether a stronger presence of Left political party influence in the WSF (parties that are notoriously sexist) was a dangerous or a strategically necessary thing. In the closing WSF press conference, a male WSF leader had acknowledged that integration of a feminist agenda in the WSF was one of the critical issues yet to be addressed, but also challenged feminists to be more responsive to the realities of indigenous, African descent and other marginalized women who are present in large numbers at the WSF, but not often part of feminist organizations. In the small women's meeting some saw these remarks as lacking an understanding of feminist agenda and practice, while others quietly acknowledged the depth of class and race divides in feminist movements.

In a taped speech to the 10,000 peasants organized through Via Campesina who marched on the WTO meeting in Cancún, Mexico in September 2003, Zapatista Commander Esther clearly linked the struggle of women as peasants and workers to the issues they face as women. "The struggle against neoliberalism humiliates us, exploits us, and wants to wipe us out as indigenous women, as peasant women, as women.We also want to say to the men that you must respect our rights as women. Because many times the mistreatment we receive as women isn't only coming from the rich exploiters. It also comes from men who are poor like us.We call on women from the cities to organize to struggle together with us. Those who are factory workers, domestic workers, teachers, secretaries. aren't paid a fair wage.many young women workers are harassed and raped. This is why we invite you, sisters, indigenous women, peasant and urban women, to organize and join in the struggle together. Since we all suffer humiliation both by the rich and by our men, together we will demand that they respect us as women."

These two episodes underscore some of the challenges facing global women's movements struggling for gender justice and for economic justice.¹ With their colleagues in other social movements, feminists must respond to urgent current realities: neo-liberal globalization, religious and ethnic fundamentalisms, militarism, the US interventionist "war on terrorism" in the name of security, and the decline in multilateralism as the US takes a unilateral approach and inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies. As feminists struggle to defend women's rights in this context, they debate how to be part of a dynamic global justice movement and still maintain a powerful, distinctive voice. Feminists have been successful in building organizations and broad movements in recent decades, and in having many of their demands recognized (at least on paper) at the global level. At the same time, they confront many challenges, including:

-- The larger political/economic forces, particularly neo-liberal globalization and the rise of religious fundamentalisms;

-- Debates within women's movements on the nature of the feminist political project, strategies and arenas for action.

-- How feminists can claim space within social movements and the global justice movement² while keeping a clear feminist agenda and integrating feminist analysis into those broader struggles;

-- The challenges of cooptation and the diluting of political change agendas;

-- The need to bridge gaps between concerns about women's right to control their bodies and their autonomy, and women's economic justice struggles;

-- How to address the multiple oppressions women experience, including class, race, ethnicity, caste, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship status, colonialism, region, religion, age, and marital status;

-- How to strengthen local women's struggles while continuing to have a global impact.

This article gives an overview of global women's movements³ at the regional and international level, focused on global international fora, while recognizing that the success of work at the international level is measured by its impact on the lives of women at the local level.4 It explores responses to the current global political-economic challenges, as well as to specific problems within these international networks. I write this not as observer but as an activist fully engaged in these movements, and I recognize the limitations as well as the benefits of an insider's vantage point. I seek to pose questions and dilemmas, observe trends and point to some directions, without pretending to have answers for this "crossroad." The analysis offered here reflects an internal critique, towards my own organization and that of colleagues, in a constructive effort towards more effective political work. We are not immune to the contradictions of the moment.

The Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice observes:

Women are being hemmed in by two forces: One is the push for a corporate-led globalization with a "fundamentalist" notion that there is only one economic model for the world, that of the "free market" and trade liberalization. The other is that of religious and ethnic fundamentalism, aggravated in part from the dislocation caused by neo-liberalism. Both of these forces are devastating to women, who suffer both the loss of livelihoods and economic security, and the efforts to reassert control over their life choices and their bodies. Both internationally and nationally, these forces are pushing hard to dismantle women's hard-won rights to define a sexual rights and reproductive agenda, to express their sexual and reproductive rights, and to have access to resources that assure life choices leading to reproductive health and well-being.⁵

Much has been said about the current model of neo-liberal globalization, and its differential impacts on women.⁶ The past 20 years have seen an intensification of economic re-colonization, first within the framework of multilateralism led by G-8 countries⁷ and their corporate interests, and now under the Bush Administration with a decidedly unilateral bent. Walden Bello of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South points to a crisis of legitimacy in the current system.⁸ The rhetoric that twenty years of "economic reforms" and liberalization would reap growth and "development" has failed miserably, leaving crises such as that of Argentina in its wake. The debacle of Enron and many other US corporations showed the weakness of US capital, faced with a crisis of over-capacity and declining profits which led to mergers, and then creative book-keeping. It also highlighted the vast dangers of de-regulation and privatization of energy and other sectors. In response to growing unrest, seen both in religious fundamentalism and in a burgeoning global justice movement, the US and its allies have stepped up repression and undermined liberal democracy under the rubric of a global war on terrorism (often alleging that activists are terrorists). At the same time, the war in Iraq and US military presence in the Philippines, Colombia, the Middle East and multiple smaller fronts, represent a challenge to national autonomy, a challenge to imperialist rivals, and the overt grab of a cocky empire.

One reaction to intensified globalization is religious fundamentalism, growing in strength in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. In the global South, the loss of peasant land, credit and price supports in the rural areas, and the loss of urban jobs, social services and markets for informal entrepreneurs have arrived in the package of Western culture and political/military imposition. This has robbed people simultaneously of livelihoods, cultural anchors and dignity. In response, religious fundamentalisms offer political, economic and cultural/ideological alternatives to people cut from their moorings. Not only are many religious groups challenging Western domination and military intervention; they are also providing the critical social infrastructure to meet basic needs, filling the gaps left by the diminished state. From the Hindu BJP in India to the Christian evangelicals in Brazil, Cuba or US neighborhoods, to the Muslim brotherhoods in Gaza or Egypt, these are the groups reaching out to poor people and meeting their immediate needs. They seek to restore a sense of dignity, albeit through an often rabid cultural, religious or ethnic nationalism that vilifies an "other," particularly through its women. While some of these movements (radical Islam, for example) pose a strong critique of globalization-which threatens their political, economic and cultural control-they are also anti-women in practice, and mobilize around the control of women's lives and the abuse of the "other's" women. In the US case, Christian fundamentalists, a strong force behind the Bush Administration, have had a heavy hand in the globalizing project. They are shaping US foreign policy using literalist Biblical interpretations to justify the occupation of Palestine and support the Iraq war, while seeking to rewrite two decades of legislation for women's equality and reproductive rights in the US. They vilify Muslim immigrants as well as poor welfare moms and gay or lesbian couples as the "other." Their support similarly comes from people's sense of economic insecurity as gaps between rich and poor in the US grow, feeding a right-wing racist and xenophobic agenda which also seeks to control women's lives.