Millennia 2015Women actors of development for

the global challenges

Presentation by

Ivana Milojević

7-8 March, 2008, Liege

In a nutshell:

• Main global challenges: human/human and human/nature relationships

• Women’s activism in addressing global issues and futures issues up until now

• Workshop 2 (Enhancing women’s rights, ethics, gender equality and political empowerment)

• Thus focus on political issues

Lack of human-human quality relationships at the global and local level = …

And more…

"I die 10 times a day, and no one realizes it. I am utterly destroyed"

Lack of human-nature quality relationships at the global and local level = …

Women’s activism

Women and Future: Data and issues

• See 3 texts on Millennia portal (encyclopedia entries written for Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women and Berkshire Encyclopedia of the 21st Century) Also these and other texts at www.metafuture.org

• Broad overviews: Trends, Scenarios, Visions of Preferred Futures

Brief slice: Politics• History of exclusion: women as nature men as

culture/civilisation (Ortner, 1974); women as ‘preservers’ of oikos/home sphere; ‘conservers’ of family/ culture/ nature. Men in charge of politics, future and development.

• Issue of private/public division (20th C feminism)• Actions for entering public political institutions (liberal

feminism) and actions for changing these institutions, political processes as well as global society as a whole (radical and cultural feminisms)

• Feminism + postcolonial theory = multicultural and global feminism

• Reconceptualising global political priorities

Phases in feminist/feminine politics

1. Ending discrimination - equal rights for men and women

2. Ending centralised forms of political organisation that replicate sexual and other divisions in the larger society - participatory democracy wherein there is a respect for the other’s experience

3. Building a feminist/feminine culture in a new society of women-centered spaces

From Humm, 1989

Phase 1 equal rights

• For men and women (lib. fem. focus)• For all women across , racial, ethnic, class,

religious and ability divide (cultural, socialist, multicultural and global fem.)

• For human and other non-human species/sentient beings (spiritual ecofeminism)

• Not either/or; but more commonly both/and

Phase 1 • We are here because people before us had a vision.

“Declaration of the Rights of Man”, Niquet Le Jeune, Paris, Chez l’Epire, 1789

Phase 2:

Problems with ‘equality’ within fundamentally flawed system

Military as ‘an equal opportunity employer’

Thus the next step in building feminist/feminine culture/society:

Resistance

Critique

Dissent

Resisting I Contemporary patriarchal politics

• Ignorance and the belief that no new pathway can be created• Global culture of war and gendered violence

Resisting II : Saviour myths and ‘passive hope’

From Prince Charming to new technologies;

historical and contemporary Cinderella fables

And this is why...

“Neoplastic will give you, without risk, a perfect body” 1939

Resisting III Contemporary politics of FEAR

IV

Revival of religious fundamentalism

V Creation of Fortress Australia/Western world

VI

Further isolation and separation, on one hand,...

VII

And the revival of nationalism, xenophobia and racism, on the other...

VIII

Contemporary politics of marginalising dissent

XIX

Global economic inequities

and

Contemporary politics of consumerism, individualism, me first society

XResisting Inner Patriarch

• Envisioning feminist/feminine society, culture, politics

• Engaging in reform and transformation

• Participation in global women’s movement

• Participation in other global movements that acknowledge gender partnership

• Local/global connection

Phase 3: From resisting to actively creating

It is visionary leaders that help move our societies forward

+ the persistence and the endurance of the collective

Creative visionary input by a collective

From power-over, in the direction of power-for, power-to, power-with, power-within and power-toward.

A shift from coercive power to the approach that focuses on enabling power to create positive change.

Transforming/Transformative Power

Envisioning different futuresi.e. common themes in feminist novels (utopian and sci-fi)

. . . future societies tend to live in ‘peace’ with nature and have some sort of sustainable growth, they are generally less violent than present ones; families seldom take a nuclear form but are more extended (often including relatives and friends); communal life is highly valued; societies are rarely totalitarian; oppressive and omnipotent governmental and bureaucratic control is usually absent, while imagined societies tend to be either ‘anarchical’ or communally managed. (Milojević, 1998, p. 90)

Women’s/feminist alternatives “We want a world where inequality based on class, gender, and

race is absent from every country, and from the relationships among countries. We want a world where basic needs become basic rights and where poverty and all forms of violence are eliminated. Each person will have the opportunity to develop her or his full potential and creativity, and women’s values of nurturance and solidarity will characterize human relationships. In such a world women’s reproductive role will be redefined: child care will be shared by men, women, and society as a whole.”

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN). 1984

“We want a world where the massive resources now used in the production of the means of destruction will be diverted to areas where they will help to relieve oppression both inside and outside the home.

This technological revolution will eliminate disease and hunger, and give women means for the safe control of their fertility. We want a world where all institutions are open to participatory democratic processes, where women share in determining priorities and making decisions.” (Sen & Grown, 1984, pp. 80–81)

In sum: the coming of partnership, gentle, life supporting society

SHE future

•Sane, spiritual, safe, smart, serene, satisfying

•Humane, humorous, happy, harmonious, hybrid, humble, hospitable, honourable, hopeful, healthy

•Ecological, equitable, economically-balanced, enlightened, educated

• Future societies living in peace with nature and with one another

• Communal life valued

• Totalitarianism, omnipotent governmental and bureacuratic control, xehophobia, racism, hierarchical structures missing

• Division between private and public sphere challenged

• Focus on centrality of human relatedness

• Supports peace, justice, security and life

Emergent “feminist/feminine culture in a new society of women-centered spaces”

SHE (Sane, Human, Ecological) Future starts with actionsactions in the presentpresent

Happy International Women’s Day!

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