Day Three of the Forum

We have all just come out of the Plenary session "The Contexts of Our Organising". The panel was a remarkable selection of women's righst activists focusing on sex workers in India, women headed households in Indonesia, law reform for women's righst in Iran, abortion righst for women in Poland, freedom of communication and access to ICT for women in South Africa and as issue pertinent to women in southern africa, women living with HIV in Zimbabwe. The converstaion was rich with detail of the challenges and victories of women activists in these countries working on these issues. One highlight is that Feminism is still a dirty word in many of these contexts. Feminism, they say, is still described by those against us as a 'curse' and a 'swear word'. But feminist activists devise ways to survive and flourish nonethe less. Slogans like "Feminism: I desrve it" is used on camouses in Poland and "A world without husbands is wonderful" is used by women headed household in Indonesia who face the stigma of being unmarried or divorced is a society where marriage, no matter the quailty of that marriage, remains a goal for women, an achievemnt of femininity, that many women have intrenalised. The session ended with women singing, standing and dancing in memory of Miriam Makeba. It was another emotional morning - of pain, hope and celebration!