Fundamentalism thrives as a fearful response to the fallout from rampant global capitalism and the chaos of the current crisis. Notes Bello, "Today, corporate-driven globalization is creating much of the same instability, resentment and crisis that served as the breeding ground of fascist, fanatical and authoritarian populist forces (in the 1930s)."⁹ The global justice movement and thousands of national and local movements, as well as the massive global anti-war mobilization in early 2003, represent a more positive form of resistance and a critical counter-force. However, as opposed to the Right, these movements have not linked a political program with organized social services and cultural meaning, to respond to people's physical, cultural and political needs simultaneously. The Left demands that the State deliver services and redistribute resources; it critiques the type of social service delivery that isapolitical and demobilizing, and opposes the privatization of service delivery (whether through the private sector or through NGOs). It is awkward, then, that religious fundamentalist movements have coupled service delivery with political and ideological mobilization to such powerful ends. It is a challenge to our own thinking and practices.

Central to feminism is the challenge to patriarchy. Patriarchy is understood as a socially constructed system controlled by and benefiting men, through the political, economic and ideological institutions of society. Some of the central divisions within feminist movements are between those focused specifically on patriarchy and those who view women's oppression as inseparable from broader societal transformation. The women's movements have also had intense debates about the vast differences in women's lived experience due to multiple oppressions, and about concerns as to which "movement" speaks for which "women." Given power relations at the global and national levels, the women in the dominant groups have often come to embody the definition of "woman" and to define the agenda for change to the exclusion of other women. We particularly note these dynamics between women of the economic North¹⁰ and South, between "white" women and racialized women, between women of different classes in both South and North, and increasingly between women of different religious and ethnic groups.

There are still strong elements of essentialism in some feminist arenas, imagining "woman" and assigning her inherent attributes. This emerged again in anti-war mobilizations in 2003, when some women's groups took up banners of "women for peace" or "mothers for peace." Comments Katha Pollitt in The Nation: "For progressive women, in 2003, to fall back on the ideology of woman-as- peaceful-outsider rings as false as Phyllis Schlafly pretending to be a housewife." This strategy says "men are violent and women are peaceful, men love guns and women love children, and propose[s] that men messed up the world and women can fix it. The positive aspect of this vision is that it gives disregarded and disrespected ordinary women a platform-as mothers and homemakers-from which to demand attention as significant social actors; the downside is that it valorizes that very powerlessness."¹¹

Despite the recognition of the very different roles men are assigned in society given different race, class or national origin, there are still some who would see men as the enemy. Others, like Comandante Esther, view women's struggles as part of a common project for radical change, yet challenge patriarchy within that struggle as well as within the larger system.

At the global level, women's organizing that was galvanized by the 1975-85 decade for women began to shape a holistic agenda at the Nairobi Third World Conference on Women (1985), particularly with the DAWN manifesto that addressed a "crisis in people's capacity to survive.generated by the structures and effects of an economic system (capitalism) enforced by male-defined political and military power (patriarchy)."¹² This was strengthened by the UN Beijing Platform for Action of 1995, which explores multiple issues "through women's eyes." However, despite these advances, global women's organizing has continued to function with a significant divide between those working on issues of violence, reproductive and sexual rights, and legal equality for women, and those focused on economic issues. Yet success depends on the linkage of the two areas of rights. Comments Sunila Abeyesekera of Inform, Sri Lanka, "women's capacity to enjoy economic and social rights is often constrained by eco­nomic dependence and social attitudes that affirm her secondary and subordinate status in society. The right to be treated on an equal basis with men when it comes to domestic and family matters is essential for women's economic and social freedom."¹³

On the economic front, things are further complicated by the fact that much of the discourse and activity in recent decades has been shaped within the context of "development" study and practice-within the governmental and inter-governmental arena, development agencies, and NGOs that deliver services and shape mainstream policy. A succession of approaches within this field, from Women in Development to Gender and Development, has addressed the unequal impacts of policies on women, and called for more resources to women.¹⁴

The development debates of the past 30 years, particularly in the UN, are a reflection of the broader power relations between the central powers and those nations emerging from colonialism. While the North-South struggle is overt in the international arena, much of the work of "development" on the ground obscures these power relationships, especially in the case of development aid channeled through NGOs. Thus, a good deal of the work in the field of "Women in Development," now called "Gender and Development" has been an effort to integrate women into an unequal and detrimental development model.

Women's groups in the economic South, as well as such groups as Alternative- Women in Development in the North, have been strong in their critique of this approach.¹⁵ In claiming a more radical approach to Gender & Development, Maria Riley states that GAD "identifies unequal power relations between women and men; . reexamines all social, political and economic structures.from the perspective of the gender differentials.and recognizes that achieving gender equality and equity will demand 'transformative change.'"¹⁶

Feminists also seek to bring their agenda into the global justice movement. Many colleagues in social change movements tend to see their political project as only about addressing the external oppressors while minimizing the need to address women's concerns. Commented the DAWN movement, in a statement to the second World Social Forum in 2002:

It is never a simple task for feminists to engage with and attempt to transform the perspective of progressive social and political move- ments such as those strongly represented in WSF. In doing so we often find ourselves being responded to through tokenism and vague or rhetorical commitments to gender, while at the same time being marginalized and criticized from all sides: by progressive men and women who do not have a feminist perspective; by feminists who find it futile to engage with males in male-dominated spaces and are critical of feminists who do so; and even by some grassroots women leaders of social movements who have essentially mobilized themselves on the basis of motherhood and the political virtue of women's values.¹⁷

Feminists are concerned that patriarchy cannot be a mere add-on for the global justice movement. It is a central element in the functioning of the current system in the economic, social, political, military and cultural spheres, and thus analysis and movements for social change cannot succeed without incorporating an explicit critique of patriarchy. This is becoming all the more apparent as fundamentalisms grow, gaining mass social followings and political power in part through increased control over women's lives. The objectification of women and reassertion of control over their bodies, from Gujarat to Washington, DC, as well as the Bush Administration's justification of intervention in the name of "women's rights," reveal the centrality of patriarchy in the current conjuncture.

By addressing the power relations between men and women embedded in societal institutions, feminism necessarily addresses the very nature of those institutions, and seeks to transform them to bring justice for both men and women. However, in reality, many of the pieces of this project get compartmentalized. Women's movements for rights encompass many fronts. Many women enter "women's movements" to increase choices and control over their lives, or for economic reasons, without a critique of patriarchy or an identification with feminism. Women's organizing cuts across all sectors, identities and issues, and is embedded in different political projects. This all tends to come under the heading of global women's movements. Many of these groups, issues, identities and projects have converged in global arenas such as UN women's conferences, all seeking "women's rights" and "gender equity," making for a sometimes fuzzy scenario.

In the post cold-war era, much organizing at the global level has moved into the NGO arena. This has shifted the ground from mass- based organizing by trade unions, peasant movements and left political parties-weakened by the rise of neo-liberalism and the collapse of the USSR. NGOs play an important role, and in themselves are not good or bad. It's a question of how they ally themselves with social movements and a broader Left and feminist project. Yet, the realities of funding, coupled with neo-liberalism's push to shift state functions to the private sector, have meant the de-radicalization, professionalization and potential co-optation of many groups.

NGOs range in size from tiny volunteer entities to multi-million dollar organizations, and in politics from radical social change groups to fronts for transnational corporations. While a large number of NGOs primarily channel public and private donor dollars to social service projects, a sub-set use the NGO institutional structure to pursue a more radical social change agenda, including efforts to strengthen mass-based social movements.