CONFERENCES AND PANELS ORGANIZED BY IWAC, 1980-2000

"The Sexual Division of Labor, Development, and Women's Status,"
August 1980
The Burg Wartenstein Conference Center, Austria.
Organized by Eleanor Leacock and Helen Safa.

This conference marked the first Wenner-Gren Conference of 17 women scholars from around the world. At this ground-breaking conference scholars gathered to compare their findings on how significant historical changes in the sexual division of labor, such as the transformation from household to factory production, and contemporary changes resulting from the incorporation third-world peasant and non-industrial societies into the global capitalist economy affected women's status. They concluded that the productive and reproductive roles of women cannot be separated, the division of society into domestic and public domains is historically contingent, and the debate concerning the universal dominance of one gendered domain over the other is futile. Eight of the papers presented were first published in a special issue of Signs (vol. 7, no. 2, 1981) and republished in the more complete version of the conference in Women's Work: Development and the Division of Labor by Gender, edited by Eleanor Leacock and Helen Safa (1986).


World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the UN Decade for Women
NGO Forum July 10-19, 1985
World Conference July 15-27, 1985
Nairobi, Kenya

More than 14,000 women from 150 countries met in Nairobi at the NGO Forum to foster inter-cultural communication and to create the opportunity for women from all parts of the worlds to openly exchange views. The Forum was part of The World Conference for Review and Appraise the Achievement of the United Nations Decade for Women. NGOS and the UN agreed that equality of opportunity between men and women in education, employment, and health were the main concerns of the Decade. NGOS brought specific proposals and ideas to the Conference and important interchanges took place between the Forum and the individual governments representatives meeting at the Conference.

The Forum was arranged by a planning committee of NGOS in cooperation with women's groups in Kenya. Dame Nita Barrow of Barbados was Convener of the Forum and was instrumental in guiding and raising funds. In IWAC's view, anthropology's major contribution to the NGO Forum was to point out the cross-cultural variability in women's situations, experiences, and interests as these relate to global trends and to define the main issues of the decade. IWAC placed a strong emphasis on being a useful resource and presence at the UN Forum and World Conference.

IWAC's Nairobi statement asserts that, as anthropologists, IWAC members object to the blanket statements made in many of the UN Decade for Women documents that "deep-rooted cultural traditions" are the primary obstacles to achieving the objectives of full equality for women. The statement cites the great variability in so-called traditional cultural practices and cautions against the generalizing statements made by the UN that ignore the specificity of cultural practices and how they actually affect the relative statuses of the sexes. The IWAC statement concludes firmly that as anthropologists their point of departure is not to assume what people need, but to ask them.

In the IWAC newsletter (Issue 7) following the Nairobi meetings, Helen Safa wrote that unlike previous conferences on women in Mexico and Copenhagen, there were large numbers of Third World women present. According to Safa's report, at the official UN Conference conservative groups attacked what they considered to be the "politicization" of the conference. Connie Sutton reflected that the "anthropological commitment to cross-cultural understanding suffused the conference's collective experience." Out of Nairobi came several main themes on which to focus in order to work towards gender equality. These included: the determination for women to become more active politically and the need to find ways to communicate more effectively and with greater understanding of what specific issues mean in differing local contexts.

IWAC organized four panels at the NGO Forum: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Women's Collective Actions; Women and Migration; Cross-cultural Perspectives on Women's Labor Producing and Reproducing; and The Woman Question: Forward Looking Research and Strategies, a brain storming session on future research issues and strategies.


Women's Collective Action in Cross-Cultural Perspective
November 9-17, 1985
Mijas, Spain

With the generous support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, IWAC brought together an international group of scholars and activists for nine days in Mijas, Spain to discuss the relationship between past and present forms of women's collective action and how the nature of the local sex/gender system influences the issues around which women mobilize and the forms of collective actions in which they engage.

The Conference Report, entitled A Decade of Women's Collective Action: Anthropological Perspectives, (IWAC Bulletin 1, February, 1986) includes summaries of papers presented at the week-long conference as well as additional comments.

Central to Conference's objective was the careful and deliberate development of feminist anthropological methods for comparing women and women's movements cross-culturally. Conference organizers and participants grappled with questions of how to conduct cross-cultural comparison in order to create a sense of the larger global picture of women's actions while still recognizing differences and carefully explaining specific local contexts. Conference participants firmly agreed that the combination of research and activism is crucial. Goals of the conference included: how to build on women's immediate problems and interests, how to overcome divisiveness among women, and how to build the links necessary for political effectiveness. Eleanor Leacock wrote that links must be made between feminist scholars as well as with non-academic women in order to establish networks of organizations working for peace, against exploitation, racial discrimination, and poverty. A recognition of the diversity of feminisms is underscored.


Women's World's: Visions and Revisions
Third International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women
July 6-10, 1987
Dublin, Ireland

Keynote speakers underscored the threat that comes from the increased militarization of the world. IWAC members Constance R. Sutton and Helen Callaway organized a panel on the topic of "Cross-Cultural Concepts of Feminism" and met with anthropologists at the conference to discuss current feminist anthropological research and themes for future research.

Connie Sutton noted in her report in the IWAC newsletter (Issue 10) that "unlike the Nairobi meetings, the representation from the third world at Dublin was disappointingly small."


International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES)
12th Conference
July 24-31, 1989
Zagreb, Yugoslavia

Sessions on July 26, 1989 were sponsored jointly by IWAC and the IUAES Commission on Women. IWAC member Connie Sutton organized a well attended memorial session in honor of Eleanor Burke Leacock. Other sessions focused on the impact of religious revivalism and fundamentalism on women. Connie Sutton and Helen Callaway organized a successful panel on "Plural Meanings of Feminism: Cross Cultural Perspectives."


"Anthropological Perspectives on Women's Issues and Women's Empowerment"
American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting
Association for Women In Development (AWID) Annual Meeting
November, 1989
Washington D.C.

In November, 1989 IWAC organized two panels in Washington D.C. The aim of these panels was to acquaint the audiences with issues IWAC members had explored in the previous decade and to specify the virtues of international dialogue between women anthropologists. At the AWID panel attention was given to the relevance of an anthropological approach to international development issues, while the theoretical usefulness of a feminist perspective was discussed more fully at the AAA meeting.


"Women at Work: A Feminist Examination of Third World Women's Movement into New Labor Sectors."
The 49th Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology
March 28-April 1, 1990
York, England

This panel focused on the interaction between changes in the global economy and shifts in women's participation in Third World labor markets. The presentations focused on women employed in informal sectors and supported the view that women's work needs to be analyzed not only as a response to the broader economic conditions of dependent capitalism, but also in connection to gender relations.


Practicing Feminist Anthropology: Views from Around the World
Presented at the Fourth International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women (IICW)
June 3-7, 1990
Hunter College, The City University of New York, New York City

IWAC acting president Constance Sutton organized this panel which adopted a critical and self-reflective approach to their work. Participants addressed what practicing a feminist anthropology over the previous decade meant. The conference report, entitled Practicing Feminist Anthropology: Views from Around the World (IWAC Bulletin 2, November, 1990), includes the keynote address by Johnnetta Cole as well as abstracts of the papers presented at the conference. Cole's address called for the creation of an International Sisterhood. The panels and papers examined the practice of feminist anthropology in the U.S. and some of the problems and theoretical dilemmas it faced. Comments and discussion of papers raised questions about feminist anthropologists' responsibility to work to change inequalities they confront rather than just reporting findings. The discussion also asked questions about the levels and extent of accountability that are necessary to the people and communities with which feminist anthropologists work. This panel was funded in part by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and UNIFEM.


"Feminism, Nationalism, and Militarism"
Session at American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting
Chicago, 1991

This panel was sponsored by the AFA and organized by IWAC members Linda Basch and Constance Sutton. Political scientist and keynote speaker Cynthia Enloe discussed some of the issues and contradictions of feminism, militarism, and nationalism. Seven anthropologists responded from the perspectives of their research in Latina American (June Nash), Southeast Asia (Aihwa Ong), Nigeria (Constance Sutton), Yugoslavia (Bette Denich), Palestine (Davida Wood), and India (Eva Friedlander). Papers from this panel were published in Feminism, Nationalism, and Militarism (1995) with additional articles by Mary Moran (Liberia), Nina Browne (the U.S.), and an introduction by Linda Basch.


IWAC's input into the Women's Caucus Statement on The World Summit for Social Development
PrepCom I February 1994
PrepCom II New York, 22-25 August 1994

The Women's Caucus, part of Women's Environment and Development Program (WEDO), met to prepare analyses and recommendations for the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD). The Women's Caucus sought to address the inadequate gender analysis of the eradication of poverty, the enhancement of productive employment, and social integration. The Caucus proposed the need to reconceptualize the paradigm for development. The PrepCom II priorities for the World Summit for Social Development included, revaluing women's productive and reproductive roles, the restructuring of local and international institutions to remodel the partnership between State and civil society, a revision of the distribution of resources, the strengthening of legal and political mechanisms that ensure women's human rights. The Women's Caucus called for a stronger United Nations, stronger support for human rights, a reduction of militarism, and greater support for Africa.


"Shaping the Future: Reflections on a Decade of Change"
Symposium held at the United Nations, New York 17 March 1995
Organized by IWAC, UNIFEM, DAWN

This event initiated a study of the international women's movement that IWAC conducted. The speakers included: Yolanda Moses, President of the City College of New York; Lucille Mair, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations; and Noeleen Heyzer, Director, UNIFEM. The event was organized by Linda Basch, Achola Pala Okeyo, Eva Friedlander, and Connie Sutton. Linda Basch and Eva Friedlander comment in the project description that the moment for stocktaking had arrived in the women's movement so that future agendas could be framed against an understanding of women's past experiences with collective action. Basch and Friedlander propose to bring an anthropological approach to the effort to document women's collective action.


Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum
August 30-September 8, 1995
Beijing, China

More than 30,000 women attended the NGO Forum on Women '95 held in association with the UN Fourth World Conference on Women. In the February/July 1996 AFA newsletter Voices (included in archives Box 8, Folder 3), IWAC members Eva Friedlander, Christina Szanton-Blanc, Linda Masch, and Gail Lerner wrote about the Beijing conference and NGO forum and IWAC's involvement. In Beijing, NGO representatives organized into issue-based caucuses lobbied governments. Friedlander wrote that "after ten days of heated negotiations, the 189 countries present endorsed the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action." IWAC members Joan Mencher, Cristina Szanton-Blanc, Ann Okungwu, Faye Harrison, and Suzanne Hanchette organized a session on the problems of "Gendered Caretakers and Children Under Stress in the Global Context."


"Communication Difference, Creating Unity: Reflections on the Two-Decade Old International Women's Movement"
IWAC Panel at American Anthropological Association (AAA) 94th Annual Meeting
November 1995
Washington D.C.

This AFA sponsored session was organized and chaired by IWAC members Linda Basch and Eva Friedlander. It was devoted to reviewing the course of the women's movement over the previous two decades. The panel included papers by Rosina Wiltshire, Achola Pala, Vivenne Wee, Yolanda Moses, with Constance Sutton and Chandra Mohanty as the discussants. The papers addressed problems that the women's movement faced in communicating across difference and recognizing differing forms of gender inequality and gender equity. Presenters discussed the milestones and setbacks the women's movement faced and the way in which women had reshaped the political process.


acronyms

AAA American Anthropological Association
AFA Association for Feminist Anthropology
AWID Association for Women in Development
CDS Center for Development Studies
CONGO Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council
CSW Commission on the Status of Women
DAWN Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
GROOTS Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood
INSTRAW the UN's International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women
ICAES International Congress of the Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
IUES International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
IWTC International Women's Tribune Center
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women
UNRISD United Nations Research Institute for Social Development