REPORT ON THE WOMEN
ORGANISING WORKSHOP
AT UTS, 24 OCTOBER 2005
(from RIIA convenors: Melanie Gilbank, Devleena Ghosh, James Goodman,
Christina Ho)
Forty people participated in the workshop, which was held in association
with the 'Women in Asia' conference at UTS, on Sunday 24 October. The
day was organised into three sessions: stories, politics, action - here
we report on each of these, and on a range of other issues that came
out in the course of the day.
1. STORIES
How are women organising for change in Asia and Australia? What are
their visions? What are the strategies that people used, what worked
and what didn’t? Stories from women organising experiences, in
different sectors, movements, cross-culturally and within different
institutions.
Facilitators - Christina Ho and Melanie Gillbank
Qi Fen Huang and Angela Zhang, Asian Women at Work, Sydney
Carla Bianpoen, freelance journalist, Indonesia.
Key issues:
The importance of women critiquing 'mainstream' agendas from a gendered
perspective. This may involve highlighting the impact of these agendas
on women, and claiming to speak for society as a whole, for the public
interest. Examples were outlined from the Indonesian experience of women
in the democracy movement, women in the Aceh peace process, and in the
tsunami reconstruction effort.
The necessity to engage directly with the everyday experience of women,
in the nexus between socio-cultural identity, work, and home. Drawing
on the experience of Asian Women at Work, of organizing women homeworkers
in Sydney, there was a strong emphasis on the inter-personal process
of developing women's capacity and willingness
to take up issues themselves.
2. POLITICS
What is the inspiration behind people’s drive to take action?
What is the driving force behind these groups and individuals? What
are the things holding them back and shaping the action that groups
and people might take. Is feminist inspiration the driving force? If
not, why?
Facilitator - Soraya Kassim, Fairfield community worker
Chilla Bulbeck, Foundation Chair in Women's Studies at the University
of Adelaide.
Debra Yatim. Aceh journalist
Rhiannon O’Donoghue, UTS Students Association Women's Collective
Key issues:
Feminism as a political critique, a form of political identitification
that informs political action, is alive and well. Feminism is widely
credited for achieving significant advances in gender equality, in Australian
society, and in fact more so in Asian societies. Despite
this feminists often make their claims on society in the name of the
women’s movement. This reflects the wider the public legitimacy
and acceptance of the women’s movement, as against the feminism.
This is reflected especially in Indonesia – where feminists rarely
publicly position themselves as such: many women’s movements and
demands then are driven by an implicit feminist analysis and agenda.
The implication, for political practice, is that feminist and generic
women’s demands are integrated. For some feminist activists it
matters little whether what they do is explicitly labeled as ‘feminist’
– the key is to be doing it, not to be agonizing over how to name
it. For others, this tactical move if anything requires a greater emphasis
on analyzing, naming and contesting the exercise of patriarchy. A failure
to name the problem may disaggregate any collective challenge. Yet,
others responded, a failure to embed contestation in the everyday lives
of women may render feminism irrelevant.
A key consideration, raised in the session, was our own complicity
in patriarchal exclusions: several participants referred to the need
– and in part this reflected the contribution from Asian Women
at Work – to begin where women are at. A straw poll of the participants
showed all but a handful did not have caring responsibilities: the absence
of women who care for children or the infirm or elderly suggested the
forum itself was actively excluding its own constituencies. Holding
such forums on the weekend offered the possibility of wider participation,
but only if provision was made for child care, or if some effort was
made to locate the forum where it is more easily accessible.
3. ACTION
What are the key agendas for action? Where are the opportunities to
work together, to reinvigorate a feminist public debate? What are the
difficulties and how might they be overcome. Is there a need for something
like this, or something different, to be held again?
Facilitator - Karen Iles, Australian Services Union NSW
Ellene A. Sana, Sarilaya, Philippine women’s group
Angela Budai, Finance Sector Union and Jews Against the Occupation
Alison Aggarwal, Community Legal Centres
Several participants highlighted the absence of forums such as this
where an explicitly feminist agenda of political action could be debated.
Feminists are involved in many urgent political campaigns, which often
do no have an explicitly feminist agenda, or even a gendered analysis.
This has meant that feminist activists have felt isolated, and have
felt unable to pursue feminist agendas without attracting passivity
or hostility.
There were similar experiences of isolation in the context of the Philippines,
where feminist activists had deliberately sought to address this problem
by creating their own trans-movement network. The purpose of this was
to draw feminist women together from across the various social movement
and NGO sectors to reflect on their shared concerns and develop shared
agendas. The outcome was a deeper engagement of the movements and sectors
in challenging gender division as a central part of their campaigning.
There was discussion of this need to integrate feminist analysis and
perspective with, not against, the engagement of women in other fields.
Feminism, thereby, may be understood as a ‘meta’ concept,
that offers a means of understanding and contesting across a wide range
of political fields, rather than confining itself to narrowly circumscribed
definitions of what may constitute ‘women’s issues’.
There was also debate about the practice of feminism, in terms of organising
women around feminist concerns. Several participants pointed to the
principles of the ‘organising approach’ in the trade union
movement, and to the concept of ‘community organising’ as
being centred on building collective power rather than simply on advocating
‘for’ or providing services ‘for’ people. Several
stressed that this required commitment to a process of developing capacity
to organise people in sustained membership-based campaigns, and for
a systematic commitment to supporting on-the-ground activists.
The discussion led to proposals for follow-up along these two lines:
first a cross-sectoral network of feminist activists, and second a series
of ‘women organising’ sessions, perhaps as a rolling series
in the western suburbs. The Chair asked who might be interested in following-up
on these kinds of projects, and 7 or 8 people offered to
participate.
OTHER ISSUES RAISED IN THE COURSE OF THE DAY
Visions
Need to develop a holistic vision to claim a relevant and coherent voice
for feminisms, as a long term strategy, involving deeper forms of collective
organising. Needing to challenge both individualistic consumer society
and neo-conservatism. Need especially to deal with the ‘backlash’
claims of neo-conservatism – as a ‘rebalancing’ of
gender
relations ostensibly in favor of men (eg through changes in family law,
debates on schooling etc). Need to debate strategies to force a change
or transformation in this ‘politics of care’ policy agenda.
The women’s movement needs to be able to create urgency around
these issues.
Agendas
If we abolish the term ‘feminism’, then what do we do about
masculinism? Need to move from victimology, into an active challenge.
Need for education about the continuing and new inequalities –
in the workplace, in terms of domestic violence etc. Need to reconstruct
feminism as being about ‘fun’ collective action. Need to
formalize currently informal networks of women. In any organising, need
to address caring responsibilities of participants – and perhaps
link to or organise within the spaces that women already meet.
Organising
Must prioritise collective organising, not service delivery: women’s
organisations have tended to split into those offering services and
those promoting a systemic understanding of gender division. Neither
engage especially in direct organising of women to challenge patriarchy.
Can learn from the organising school experience about what can be gained
from bringing people together across sectors to learn
from each others’ experiences, perspectives and approaches.
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