MORE than 2,500 women from 35 countries in Latin and North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, participated at the 5th feminist meeting of Latin
America and the Caribbean, in November 1990, at San
Bernardo, in Argentina. Alicia Ponce, a member of the
Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT) of Mexico, and
Laura Rodriguez, a supporter of A Luchar, a
Colombian revolutionary group, spoke to us about the meeting and the struggles in their respective countries.
W HAT are the mecha-
nisms of coordination and the discussions of the women's movement in Latin America? Alicia Ponce: The first meeting, in 1981 in Colombia, brought together 200 women from five countries; it discussed above all the question of the autonomy of the movement. In the course of other meetings, we discussed patriarchy and power, solidarity with the Nicaraguans, the development of the feminist movement and, finally, in Argentina, we have begun to draw the balance sheet of these ten years of work. Other discussions have taken place, notably on the actions of the state in relation to women, on the institutionalization and the problems of coordination between the groups.
A current began to emerge in these meetings which argued that the women's movement had more a social expression than a feminist consciousness. There are also certain tensions between the women who intervene in the social movement, and meet certain obstacles (lack of specific women's commissions in the trade unions for example and those who are involved, sometimes in paid fashion, in the women's movement, in the nongovernmental organizations, with exterior financing. The social movements began to coordinate themselves, in Mexico 1990, in a continental front of communal organizations, and women have organized themselves in a specific commission.
Today we must advance in the creation of a feminist pole, with all its diversities, inside this movement; this is the difference that we have with the so-called radical feminists who have often remained outside of the current movement.
• What has been the impact of these meetings at the level of the different countries, faced with concrete national realities?
Colombia, the bourgeoisie's process of modernization affects women also. The Gaviria government has come up with some proposals which take up some traditional demands of the women's movement, notably on the possibility of maternity holidays for the father
The wife of the president has begun a process of groups, excluding from the outset women involved in the social movements or the left. Finally, Gaviria has announced that the new Constituent Assembly will discuss the problem of divorce for Catholic couples (the church having an important influence in the affairs of state of our country, this subject was until now taboo).
The government is taking up long standing demands of the women's movement in order to gain legitimacy in a sector of the population which has won itself some space through its struggles.
Since the 1980s, women have organized and linked themselves to social mobilizations, even if the forms of organization have obviously changed. The dynamic of the women's movement is marked by the general political situation.
They fight above all against the violence which strikes the different social sectors 84,000 deaths in 4 years); they fight also for the suppression of obligatory military service (which affects above all the poorest).
There are some problems of coordination between the feminist movement and women organized in the trade unions or in the countryside: we must work harder for the convergence of these struggles
(this is already being done; during the campaign for the Constituent Assembly we arrived at an agreement to make common propaganda on the specific demands of women, without however agreeing to support the same candidates).
LATIN AMERICA
But the need to maintain joint pressure on the new assembly has been agreed (on the secularization of the state — our constitution begins "in the name of God" — on maternity, domestic work, social functions, and so on).
Alicia Ponce: In Mexico, the women's movement campaigns for the recognition of violence against women (notably rape) in the context of reforms of the penal code (before being elected the current president, Salinas, had promised the penalization of rapists).
In the context of the Network against Violence, we have worked around a draft law against rape, with all the parliamentary groups. This has allowed the opening of discussion on possible reform of the Penal Code in several states of Mexico, and the holding of public meetings on vio lence against women.
In the state of Chiapas, the party in power proposed a law on abortion - far from being perfect — in December 1990; this has led to a discussion in the women's movement and in society (the proposed law envisaged that an unmarried woman would decide by herself but that, in a couple, the decision must be made by the two partners - which is not our position - and abortion is presented as a method of family planning — whereas we think it is the final resort).
It is not by chance that this proposition came from Chiapas, where the indigenous population is in the majority and where forced sterilizations are common; but it nonetheless represents an advance. The
Church has obviously responded in a very violent fashion; the adherents of liberation theology have followed its lead, even though their social base is essentially composed of women.
There now exists in the capital and in certain regions a front of more than 50 organizations, which campaigns for voluntary maternity and for the depenaliza: 9 tion of abortion. March 18, 1991 • #202 International Viewpoint
In the shadow of
Japanese imperialism
ASIA
MATSUI Yayorl İs a journalist and co-founder of the Asian agents, and were successful damping the open advertisement of
"beautiful pleasure this?"
American feminist women responded by accusing the Third World women of being too politicized. "You are just tools of the male political system, and you had better talk about your own personal sexual problems. Why are you only talking about political and economic things?" So they spent a lot of time Ten years later, I attended the Nairobi conference, where I noticed a big differ-
Women's Association, which is conducting a program on
Women and Development to raise the consciousness of kisaeng" — "you won't even have to use your chopsticks, they'll even put the food right into your mouth".
That kind of stupid publicity.
Soon after that I attended the ence. The American or Western European women were more aware of their
Third World women, and wanted to understand their situation.
people in Japan on the realities of women in other Asian countries. The following
Asian People's Conference which was held in Tokyo in 1974. We were a little bit disappointed. The participants were largely men, and they
And Third World women themselves wanted to be more feminist, not to talk about only politics or economic tures. I think this kind of change is posi-
Interview was first published in the AMPO Japan-Asia Quarterly
Review. It has been shortened slightly for space reasons.
Y OU have been research-
Wing the situation of Asian women for two decades now. What changes have there been over that period?
My first involvement in Asian women's issues was the campaign that we started against kisaeng tourism - that is,
Korean women who are serving men sexually. We heard news that Korean female students went to Kimpo airport putting up placards saying "Don't country a brothel for Japanese men". Naturally, under the dictatorial government, women students remember it well; then we tried to start something, but we didn't know what to
At the time we were campaigning against pollution, and it was much easier because we could attack the polluting company. In the case of kisang tourism, anyone, your father, your husband, or your friend could be the men who responsible. How to organize a campaign? That was our problem.
The first thing was to find out about the situation. We were really shocked to find out that as many as half a million Japanese men per year had been visiting South Korea, mainly for sex. After we uncovered this reality, we began a campaign at our end in Haneda airport, handing out leaflets to embarrass or shame • Was the campaign a success?
To some extent, yes. At least the wives for the first time realized why their husbands were going to South Korea. More women got angry, or became conscious 10 paigned to change the practices of travel of these sorts of things. Also we camInternational Viewpoint #202 • March 18, 1991 didn't pay any attention to this kind of sexual abuse of other Asian womAfter the conference, the women participants decided to form a small group, which is now known as the Asian Women's Association. The Association launched a broad campaign across several countries, not only
South Korea, because Japanese men began to go to other countries, such as the Philippines or Thailand. So our campaign had to be Asia-wide.
Through this campaign, that we didn't know anything about our sisters in the neighboring countries, we were more aware of women in the Western countries. This resulted in raising our consciousness about our relations with other Asian women.
• Does the Asian Women's Association as a Japanese organization, have relationships with counterpart organizations in other countries?
Yes, but this took time. In Asian countries in the 70s there was no strong women's/feminist movement. It was only in the 1980s that these groups were formed influence of the United Nations' Women's Decade from 1975 to 1985. I think that this UN Women's Decade was a very strong opportunity to change consciousness in Asian countries. I was sent to Mexico City to cover the conference of the International Women's Year in 1975. i was very shocked to see the confrontation between the American and the Third World women, particularly the Latin American women.
really confronted the North Americans, to the point of even trying to take the microphone, saying "Look, you in the First World have such a comfortable life, and you are trying to talk about women's equality. But do you know about what the United States is doing to our sisters? You come to Latin America and take all our resources, and then our women are really poor and oppressed. Don't you think you are responsible for tive. My observation is that for the past
20 years the situation for women in Asia has only gotten worse in many ways, but the consciousness of women has been awakened. More and more women realize their situation, even as the situation is get-
• The idea of international solidarity is an old one, for example in the labor movement, but mostly as solidarity among men. I think that the among women as women is histori-
You talked about the relationship between the US women and Latin
American women - what about the relationship between the women of
Japan and Third World women in
Asia? What kind of communication difficulties do you find?
In our part of the world, the relations are more complicated. The United States and Latin America have very different cultures. In the case of Japan and other Asian countries, it can be said to be one Asian cultural area, but economic development has Another factor is that Japan was responsible for military aggression during World War 2, and Asians will never forget this. Now some women see a kind of second invasion, this time economic.
After the war, Japanese women, even women, did not really think about responsibility for the past military aggression. And most of the feministgroups in Japan today don't realize their responsibility for the past economic inequality. Frankly, most Japanese feminists are not yet aware of this issue. That is why our Asian Women's Association tries to look at these problems: economic inequality or exploitation is combined with sexual abuse or sexual exploitation. • You mentioned the Asian People's Conference in 1974 and how it was almost entirely men. I remember the movement in those days in
is what led to many of the so-called kakushin jichitai (progressive local govern-
Japan was almost always like that. The men in the movement looked puzzled and worried, but they basically had no idea what the women's movement was about. I have the feeling that this has changed some.
To some extent, but on the whole the gap between women is widening. It is true that more Japanese men are listening to women's voices seriously. But outside the movement most men are still ignorant of feminism. Why is there such a shortage of women to get married, not only in the rural ares but in many cities too? Because in consciousness between men and women is so wide, more women feel that it is stupid to marry men who cannot about women's basic rights. In Japan, women are still much more con-
There is a growing minority of women who are increasingly more conscious of their rights and situation. But the general society is still backward. Look at the housewives; they can hardly their situation, the reality of their family relationships. Their husbands pay little attention to their family and their children are forced to study to keep extremely competitive school life.
• If that is true about housewives, how do you explain in the last few years the very lively political activism among housewives in the anti- nuclear movement, and how housewives have become a new power base behind the
Socialist Party? It seems to me that many non-feminist women have been extremely active in recent years.
Yes, I'm proud to tell you it is these middle aged women who are speaking up against the system. But there are two problems. One is that it is still a minority; often they are isolated. Another thing is that they are not necessarily feminists. They try to be nice wives, they want to go home as soon possible, to cook before come home. They are not really prepared to change their lifestyles.
only the recent anti-nuclear plant campaign; the first wave of Japanese women's political activism was the
The peace movement, the movement in the post-war period was also carried out mainly by women. The anti A-bomb movement since the 50s was part of it. During World War 2, more than 3 million Japanese were killed. Hundreds of thousands of women lost their husbands, sons and brothers. It was natural that women, determined to refuse to send their beloved as soldiers, built the base of the anti-war movement. • The first wave of the antiprostitution movement came in the late 40s. How did it continue after the anti-prostitution movement was much stronger before the war. The Kyofukai (Christian Women's Temperance Union) launched a very strong movement, but it is hard to say that it was widely supported. It was rather isolated, and Japanese attitudes towards prostitution hardly changed. On the other hand, the peace movement of the 1950s had a much bigger base, especially the anti-nuclear bomb movement. Then since the late 1960s, the anti-pollution and environmental movement, and in the 70s the consumer movement; then, in the 80s, this new wave of the anti-nuclear power plant movement. This is a brief history of Japanese women's actions which have had some impact on society.
Movements for the rights of women have existed in Japan continually since the end of the war. That history can be divided roughly at 1970. The period until that year was characterized by a women's movement under the influence of leftist political parties. Working women fought for equality in employment, demanding equal payment, jobs, promotion, and at the same time, maternal protection measures such as longer maternity leave, menstruation leave, and so on. Another force
ASIA The Japanese Women's movement According to Akemi Maedai and Sachl Kaneko of the revolutionary Marxist Socialist Women's
Association of Japan "THE Japanese women s movement is not a well organized movement. There are networks at a local level involving above all women who went through the war. The full time coordinators are mainly housewives, but the participants are mostly workers, mainly in the service sector where they are employed as saleswomen or clerks.
Much of the factory work has been transferred to other Asian countries. Only 30% of workers are organized in trade unions less for women. The main trade unions are based in the public sector. Usually women work part time and are very difficult to orga-
Since the 1980s many women have been sensitive on the issue of arms, especially during the period of ex-Prime Minister Naka-
There are three main currents:
those who have been involved since the Second World War - quite old now. The second is organized by the Socialist Party, and the third was influenced by the new left and is very radical. The Japanese Communist Party also has an organized move ment. We, the Socialist Women's Association, are very influenced by the new left current. The CP women's organization is very tightly controlled, but there are many conflicts between the SP women and their The Japanese peace movement has been led by the Women's Democratic Club which was founded in 1947. This organization was supported in the beginning by the United
States. It was led by CP women at first. In 1970s a very radical wom en's movement emerged, which the JCP opposed. As a conse campaigns in anti-pollution
1970s. It was really the women who took the lead to organize anti-pollution campaigns all over the country, were very strong in the local areas. This was the mothers' movement which made a variety of campaigns from peace issues to child care demands. This 'old' type of women's rights movement didn't really question patriarchy or sexuality, but concentrated on improvement of physical conditions for women.
quence the Club decided to break with the CP. Since then the Club has been an autonomous organization and now some of the younger, very radical, women
11 belong to the Club. *
ASIA
As we entered the 70s, the new women's liberation movement from the United States was introduced to Japan. Especially young, educated women were inspired and awakened through a new feminist ideology which tried to challenge sexism in all of society. In spite of the prejudice and hostility to the militancy of feminists, small groups formed all over the country and began to influence the consciousness of women. • Do you see a potential in women's movements for achieving things that men's cannot achieve?
Definitely. Japan's economy has developed so rapidly because the gender roles for men and women are so traditional; men working so hard as company warriors, with the women always in the background consulting them. But, because women are excluded, they have more possibilities. The men are chained by the system, but women can see the system more clearly from the outside, as victims, and have more room to get angry and take action. Japan is not yet a civic society, but a company society, and women are excluded as full members. They are • Paradoxically, they have more
Yes, that is why in the anti-pollution movement they can take bolder action. They aren't anxious over promotions or getting fired. I know many cases, like that of the company Showa Denko, which polluted the water with mercury. In the beginning, both men and women employees took action to protest. But later, all the men dropped out and only the young women against their company. The women were only clerks or typists, they were not afraid of being madogiwa-zoku (those passed by for promotion), but the elite men were afraid to speak up. This is a very typical example that I wrote about many years ago. • But you mentioned that while the movement is developing in these ways, in some ways things are getting worse, and the sex industry is one of the things that was expanding.
In the 1970s export-orientated industrialization was promoted as the new type of development, and more and more women were brought into the employment of the transnational factories in the export industry. They were pushed out far from the rural areas to the industrial zones.
This transition was partially positive, because these women have a little more freedom than in a rural community under the traditional control of their parents, without any money or economic power.
12 file, sill it is their own money. Even though what they earn is extremely
International Viewpoint #202 • March 18, 1991
Now as factory workers, they are under the control of a different kind of man, the managers and owners. They often have to face sexual abuse on top of the economic exploitation, so we cannot say the situa-
We also have to think about the change to agribusiness, which results in more women having to work on plantations growing bananas, or other
Also being commodified at an enormous rate are women's bodies themselves. The sex industry has grown in almost all of these countries. The number of prostitutes has grown to four, almost five times what it used to be. Thailand's urban development has been remarkable, while the rural poverty has been the same if not worse. This poverty pushes women into prostitution, and there are in the range of one million prostitutes in Thai-
The Thai newspapers report so many stories of how the northern hill tribe girls are being sold into prostitution. So I want to point out that it is said that economic development has been promoted rather successfully in Thailand, and they are seen as a newly industrialized nation. But it is only in the urban areas, and the rural areas are abandoned and forgotten, so the income gap between Bangkok and northern Thailand is seven to ten times. The yearly average income in Bangkok is about 70,000 baht, while in the northern three provinces it is about 10,000 baht. Women suffer the most from this uneven development. • Which countries' men are the main customers for the Thai prosti-
It is first of all the local Thai men in terms of numbers, but tourism has worked to expand and promote prostitution. The number of foreign tourists is now five million per year; that is why the shortage of women is so serious. have begun to reserve or "book" girls at the age of four, and they get them into the brothels at ten or eleven years old in the cities or tourist areas. So while of course many local Thai men girls, it is the foreign tourists who have the economic power to really expand the industry.
As for numbers, I couldn't say distinction of being customer. But in terms of money, the Japanese male tourists are the • Is the opposition to tourism growing?