Women’s Space

I received the following Call to Action in my e-mail a few days ago.  I’ve been part of the World March of Women since its beginning 10 years ago.  It’s hard to believe it’s been that long!  In 1999 I participated via telephone in NOW’s organizing meetings as the group in charge of U.S. women’s involvement.  I was such a new feminist then– it had only been four years since my excommunication. 

In 2005 my daughters, Pramiti, my granddaughter and I met up with some of the members of Vancouver Rape Relief to participate in the World March of Women handoff of the Women’s Global Charter for Humanity from the U.S. to Canada.  Below are two of my daughters carrying signs they made for the event.

Above are some of us on the way to the march.  Everyone has grown up so much!

I cannot say enough about this very fine grassroots effort on behalf of the world’s women.  Spread the word!  Get involved!   Organize in  your own communities and plan events and marches and let the World March of Women know, then follow up by sending your reports and photos.  Nobody is going to stand for female persons in this world if we don’t.   Change is not going to come for us unless we make it.

World March of Women website

CALL TO ACTION
Change the lives of women to change the world.
Change the world to change the lives of women. 

We, activists of the World March of Women, struggle together against the root causes of poverty and sexist violence. Ten years after our first International Meeting, we gathered together in Panxón, Galicia, from 14th – 21st October 2008. We were 136 women from 48 countries from all five continents, joined together to construct proposals around our Action Areas: Peace and demilitarisation; Common good; Violence against women; Women’s work.

During these seven days, we also joined many Galician sisters and male supporters in a public forum for debates and a fair to defend Food Sovereignty and women’s self-determination. We also took part in an amazingly joyful, positive demonstration – along with more than 5,000 people – in the streets of Vigo on Sunday morning, 19th October. Accompanied by the sound of “batucada” drums, we created rhythms for women’s rights, against machismo and for peace. 

Our struggles continue in the global context of an increasing offensive of the conservative sectors of society, religious fundamentalism of every kind, including communalism, the criminalisation of protest, the disrespect of people’s rights over their territories, rising militarization, and violence perpetrated by governments in the name of an alleged “war against terror”.

Patriarchy, capitalism and racism are three systems interlinked to control our bodies and our lives. The institutions of countries from the South and North — governments, large companies, and religions — want to prevent us from achieving our rights and take away rights we have gained. Following in the wake of the food, energy, environmental, and ethical crises, the financial crisis reveals once more. Yet again, the State is called on to bow to the interests of the financial system and transnational companies, abandoning the people and saving the market. 

We struggle together permanently to resist the system imposed on us and to construct alternatives based on the values of peace, justice, equality, freedom and solidarity. In 2010, our collective voice will be even stronger from 8th March to 17th October: 

• Marches of many kinds, colours and rhythms will open our mobilisation calendar and celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the declaration of International Women’s Day.
• Marches and other simultaneous actions around the world on 17th October will strengthen our presence in Sud Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Between 8th March and 17th October, we will carry out many actions, including defending the rights of domestic and rural workers, and rejecting the promotion of the prostitution industry during the World Football Cup in South Africa.
• With the aim of making explicit the diverse causes and interests at the heart of increasing militarization, we focus our actions on various issues. We condemn the exploitation of our resources by multinationals, which impoverish the most vulnerable peoples. We denounce the State’s responsibility in the development of the arms industry that leads to extreme violence against women.
• We refuse to accept that armed conflicts are waged for the control of the natural riches of a people. We refuse intervention or threats to people’s sovereignty by imperialist powers. We refuse to accept that women’s bodies be used as spoils of war!

Women on the March until we are all free!
ANOTHER WORLD IS NECESSARY AND POSSIBLE 

Financial Crisis Declaration, approved on the 20th October 2008, during the VII World March of Women International Meeting at Panxon, Vigo, Galicia

In a context of patriarchy and neoliberal economics, the banking and finance system is in collapse. Attempts at recovery to improve its functioning only worsen the situation. The stock markets of the world are in free-fall; the crisis is growing and cannot be hidden. The consequence of the non-redistribution of wealth is massive impoverishment of populations, and of women in particular. This system favours the development of war as a tool to acquire the resources of the South and to develop the arms industry. In the midst of these military conflicts, women suffer unacceptable and inhuman violence. 

The colossal gains of the speculators and stockholders have been privatised while the enormous losses of the system have been nationalised, i.e. paid for by all us, men and women, through our States.

We, women of the world, are the first to be affected by run-away unemployment, by the loss of food autonomy, by the commercialisation of common goods. This financial crisis is closely linked to all the other crises: climate change, and the food, energy, and work crises.

The countries of the South are pillaged for their riches; their food habits modified to benefit the agro-food transnational corporations. They have been suffocated by the weight of debt and by the lack of transparency in the use of loans from international organisations. 

In the face of the bankruptcy of the only model of globalised economic organisation, we activists of the World March of Women, gathered in Vigo, Galícia, from 14th – 21st October 2008, re-affirm our anti-liberal position and demand the transformation of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Central Bank and the World Trade Organisation, as well as the Development Banks. We vigorously denounce all free trade agreements, especially the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) – such as the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) – and the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). We demand the end to fiscal paradises that hide drug money and corruption; we demand control of all movement of capital. 

It is clear that we need another economic system; we need to develop the creation of economic solidarity structures, autonomous production cooperatives, as well as a Bank of the South to support development that is ecological, egalitarian, and sustainable. 

We want transparency regarding the use and administration of public funds.  We want the resources of the people to be allocated to meet their essential needs first and foremost. 

Our States are responsible; they owe us accounts.  It is their duty and obligation to regulate the economic system and protect citizens from financial sharks. The costs of the crisis should be assumed by the stockholders and by those who have grown rich from the speculation.

Other rules for the distribution and use of money should be defined in a democratic and participatory manner, together with the populations, social movements, and feminist organisations. The definition of budgets should take into account the preservation of common goods and the development of public services.  All of us, all men and women of the world, have the right to a healthy diet, decent housing, health care, education, a decent job, transportation, and culture.

Together we can build a world where our values of justice, peace, equality, solidarity, and freedom are given priority.