Gender Justice Summit 2010: Overview

I haven't been able to get started on writing the post-con articles yet, because my body went on strike. I'm slowly getting back to movement now, taking care of my knee and my back. This is why I don't go to, say, big sf cons and the like - my body won't take it well.

But I did want to start with a general overview. The conference was called the Gender Justice Summit 2010, sponsored by Oxfam Canada, and as you might guess, was focused on the rights of women in a global context.

To cover the topic, Oxfam invited a number of women from globally Southern countries, such as:

- Rosaline Presence, of South Africa's Women on Farms Project

- Bogaletch (Boge) Gebre, of Ethiopia's Kembatti Mentti Gezzimma-Tope (KMG)

- Rosa Escobar, of Guatemala's Asociación de mujeres en solidaridad

- Jeannette Urquilla, of El Salvador's Organización de Mujeres Salvadoreñas

- Lorena Aguilar, of Costa Rica originally, from the International Union for Conservation of Nature

- Raquel Vásquez, of Guatemala´s Alianza de Mujeres Rurales

- Dorothy Ngoma, ED of the National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi, and a member of the W-8.

There were also a number of resource people from closer to home, including the dynamic Jessica Yee, founder and ED of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, and some experienced activists from Oxfam's own organization, both Canadian and from abroad.

I wasn't able to attend the Friday sessions, or the opening reception, so my conference began Saturday morning.

So having stayed overnight at my girlfriend's place in Toronto, I showed up in time to catch the morning plenary session (with several of the above as speakers), and then (per the requests from Shakers) decided to attend the dialogue/workshop at which spoke Ms. Presence, Ms. Vásquez, Ms. Aguilar, and Oxfam's Nidhi Tandon - focused on the intersection of food security, women's rights, and climate change.

There was a break for a march and rally around lunchtime. I went through about a third of the march, before my body said "Enough," and I went back to get a bit of a lie down on the grass in the quad.

Several of the same women were again in afternoon sessions, going deeper into the issues raised in the morning, and the specifics of how these affect women in those places: how climate change is changing growing patterns, which is affecting food security, and discussing those issues in smaller groups (my group led by the very insightful Ms. Tandon). We also saw a 17-minute film about a land occupation by the South African Women on Farms Project, which was brilliant and infuriating, and which I hope to be able to bring you soon (technical difficulties got in the way). There was a Central American film scheduled as well, but again technical difficulties. I'm working on tracking down a copy of each of them, and if anyone's got video hosting they'd be willing to offer to these women's orgs, that'd be awesome, because they deserve to be seen.

Saturday night led into an awards ceremony for Oxfam people, and was followed by a very popular musical act (Nomadic Massive - still being much talked about the next day).

On Sunday morning, another large session allowed us to hear from the rest of the southern partners in attendance, followed by a short dialogue session. In this case, I decided to attend the session at which Ms. Yee was speaking on reproductive justice, though it was a tough choice: I really wanted to attend Ms. Ngoma's session as well, on maternal health.

After the session, we had a closing plenary, and the participants were urged to spend the rest of the afternoon over at the People's Summit, a socialist event being held at the same time not far away (and which Shaker TheDom attended!). I had to head off home.

The goal here is to write at least one post about each of the women I mentioned above (each of whom I spoke to with an eye to doing so), as well as a general post recapping some of the really great and the really horrifying things that were covered in the sessions otherwise.

I'll tell you this: it isn't going to be fun or easy reading for those of us in the privileged parts of the world. There are a lot of ways in which we are directly or indirectly contributing to the oppressions of these women, very notably including food security and climate change, and some of the statistics from the maternal health project in Guatemala are seriously grim.

But I think, too, you'll find you're inspired by the power of these women - the things they've accomplished are highly impressive. The W-8, that Ms. Ngoma is a part of, is a fabulous organization, eight women from globally less-privileged nations, each of them a power in women's rights, labour, and/or environmentalism. They are crones of the finest order, and I say that with nothing but respect.

The big feeling I got from the conference was one of hope and energy. There was a high percentage of young women (and some young men) at the conference, and their energy was inspiring and infectious.

That's my general outlook on the con; there'll be a lot more to come as I get the various posts written, but it'll take several days, as in some cases there are pictures I want to find, links to set up, that kind of thing, plus some fact-checking out of my notes. I took 37 pages of handwritten notes over the 11 hours of sessions I attended.