Scandinavia's biggest ever feminist gathering
SCANDINAVIA rier of ten such bombs a 'peace carrier." That is sick!"
Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician from Australia, a peace activist and founder of such organizations as Freeze Now and Doctors Against Nuclear Weapons, gave us a powerful lecture about imperialism, the arms race and international capital's military plans.
MORE THAN 10,000 women attended the Scandinavian
Forum held at the University of Oslo, Norway, from July 30 to August 7. There were 700 different seminars and lectures. About a hundred organizations ran literature tables. It was the largest feminist gathering yet held in
Scandinavia.
EVA NIKELL
W OMEN have always had
to learn to understand the male view of the world. Many of us have university educations in male sciences. It is time that we learned to use our own experience as a basis for social development," said Kristin Karlsdottir, who works with the Icelandic "Women's Slate."
"We are making history today; we are producing and using new knowledge," said Kamla Bhasin, an East Indian woman activist.
The Scandinavian Forum was a feminist gathering on a scale seldom seen. As the week went on, the initial formality and caution vanished. More and more people spent their time together on the lawns. Instruments appeared. Musical groups were formed, and new action groups were born.
More and more activities were taken outside into the good weather. There were sales of women's handicraft, photos, posters, badges and clothing. In many cases, the receipts from these sales went to special women's projects in the third world or to immigrant women's organizations. Strengths and weaknesses of the movement
There was a whole center for Scandinavia's various unions, with exhibits, a book table and meetings. One center, the "peace tent," was used for anti-militarist meetings and activities. Hundreds of different sorts of cultural activities took place in the days and evenings of the week.
The Scandinavian Forum came to be marked by the typical strengths and weaknesses of the women's movement. Many organizations and individual women complained that it was hard to get information about the arrangements in time. Women's activities are more often propagated through personal contacts and informal channels than by official means.
The Swedish mass media were also unbelievably backward about reporting on an event that was the biggest ever feminist gathering in our corner of the world. But "the women's struggle is out." At least it is according to Swedish TV, which did not want to buy the film from Norwegian and Danish TV.
Exchanging experiences with third-world women
The Scandinavian Forum, despite all this, came to be a meeting place for thousands of women working with various projects. It involved researchers, trade-union, peace and environmental activists, women's schools, media groups and cultural workers.
Immigrant women from the various Scandinavian countries could meet, and we in the industrialized part of the world got an opportunity to exchange experiences with third-world women. Greenlander women in sealskin dresses, Faeroese women with their special songs and traditions, Lapp women and Finnish professional mourners — all came together in a common demonstration.
Single women with children make up a majority of all the world's poor families. Between 1960 and 1975, we have seen a marked change. More and more, women are being pushed down below the poverty line. Gertrude Goldberg, one of the international guest speakers, talked about the "feminization of poverty." It was a comparative study of conditions for women in six industrialized countries.
"We women are 53 per cent of the population. We do two thirds of the work on earth, we get a tenth of the income and a hundredth of the property. We have charge of all the children, but we have no power, and Mrs Thatcher is not a woman." "The military talk is pure science fiction. They call a bomb that can annihilate a million people a 'clean bomb.' They call a car-
Forging links with women around the world
"We have a contact network embracing 10,000 women in 150 countries. We collect thousands of documents, pamphlets, books and writings, and produce our own series of publications around various women's
Marilee Karl told about ISIS International, a worldwide association for feminist work and organization. "The word 'development' means actually to open, to unfold, to discover, to experience. The work contains fantastic potential. In women's self-activity there is a long series of such possibilities. The struggle has to include a new element, we have to bring happiness, beau-
"We do not want to be a part of male society and capital's traditional 'development.' We have to build our own road. If the mass media do not pay attention to us, we have to go out and play street theater. If we can't be on TV, we can shout in the squares."
Kamla Bhasin from India talked about women's experiences in the third world, and their attitude to the development of their societies.
Two threads ran thought the Scandinavian Forum, two different views of feminist activist — work for equality or women's liberation. Work for equality, which is pursued in the framework of the conditions that prevail in society today, is seen by many women as too limited a goal. It is the political establishment's goal. Women's liberation, besides involving formal equality between women and men, means a fundamental change in the entire social structure to bring it into line with people's
The Scandinavian Council of Ministers Conference at the Scandinavian Forum dealt with equality. The strongest impression from the rest of the forum was that we had exchanged experiences of women's struggle and women's liberation.
It will be a long time before we will be able to see the full effects of the Scandinavian Forum. The contacts, the new knowledge and the inspiration that thousands of women offered to each other is a rich culture medium for generating continued solidarity and collaboration among one of society's vulnerable groups, women throughout the world. *
[From Internationalen, newspaper of section of the Fourth International.]