Unknown Speaker  00:07
Hello, it's a pleasure to welcome you all to the 18th annual scholar and feminist conference. And I'm a little chagrined in some sense because I'm a newcomer, since I've only been here at these conferences for seven years. Many of you are the founders organizers of this conference when it was the only game in town. In a sense, this, this scholar and feminist as most of you could tell, if you gave testimony is one of the old it is the oldest annuals feminist conference in the country. And for a long time before the so many academic feminist conferences emerge, it was the place where were activists and scholars met to generate the issues that have become the anti canon canon of women's studies. But it's also true that in the coming year, we'll be celebrating the center's 20th anniversary. And we hope to have a series of events over next year, to which all of you will be invited to help us celebrate and help us in a sense, help lead the women's movement and for the next 20 years. It takes a lot of people to organize a conference such as this and I want to give special thanks to Ruth farmer, the Associate Director of the Center for Research on Women Ruth Would you stand and and Bernita Dortch who is unfortunately downstairs, but if you see her she's wearing a nametag, please thank her as well. Now, I sometimes think that being an apartment dweller in New York in the 90s is a metaphor for the environmental crisis. Even when we convince our landlords or our co op boards that the roof leaks, or that the bricks need pointing, or that the heat doesn't rise to certain floors, there's still an issue of how to convince other people and how to fix the cracks or leaks once you've gotten people to agree. My co op, the president of my co old Co Op board first suggested years ago that the leak was a figment of my imagination. Many of us have heard that about so many social issues which we've been involved, that I spent too much time as an intellectual staring at the ceiling doesn't know I always stare out the window, that it was really an old crack that had simply not been painted over. And if I got some special paint, it would disappear. But not until the wall caved in to the neighbors unaffected by the League recognize that the whole building was in in that the entire building was in danger. And I think that we are in the same position around the planet Earth and some of the issues that we see as as of imminent danger to us all. Gradually, it has begun to dawn on all of us that the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica, the global warming, that the loss of rainforests that the erosion of soil, that the use of chemical fertilizers in certain places that the use of preservatives of certain kinds, in dangerous soil and endanger future generations. But, paradoxically, it's still difficult to talk about environmental crises we face here at home, in our very own cities. poor neighborhoods where people of color live in large numbers have become a dumping grounds for toxic waste, low radiation and high radiation wires criss cross over the poorest sectors of our cities. At home, there are those of us who those at home those of us who have homes are trying to withstand pollution of all kinds. Women as members of neighborhoods and as leaders of community boards have begun taking the lead not only to resist the attacks on their lives, and those of their families and friends, but also to define what constitutes the quality of life to define goals for the future. Some of the solutions offered often seem as bad as the diseases and have special impact on women. And I think most of us are not surprised that many of the solutions to the problems that we now recognize

Unknown Speaker  04:58
seem to be the one Men should labor more that women should sacrifice more to the problems of disposing waste some propose abandoning pampers and other paper diapers to abandon tampons, the individual costs and fuel and water and women's labor time boiling diapers and rags and sterilizing them. I remember my mother boiling diapers and some of you in the room remember doing it may seem an inappropriate price to pay. Instead of cleaning up the work environment, there were those who would bar women from the best paying jobs in order to protect the egg, but not the sperm that make up the fetus in a period when feed when fetal rights in greater than women's rights. And there were those that recognize that population and those who recognize that zero population growth is necessary to sustain the Earth. Seldom note that people limit their progeny when they have property to pass on. Rather than speak of massive redistribution of property or other means of dramatic of democratically regulating population. There are those who would impose draconian measures on women to prevent them from bearing more children. But the goal not everyone will agree with what I've just said. But the goal of this conference is to bring together feminists and environmental activists with different views to discuss the political means we can develop to save the planet by enhancing the democratic process, and by empowering women who are already leading their neighborhoods and regions in this kind of struggle. Now, if I if delta absolute had not existed, we've would have had to invent her to launch this Conference on Women, the environment and grassroots movements. No one has done more than Bella to advance women's position through elective office through grassroots activism, and through efforts to win recognition for women's judgment in the agencies where foreign policy is made. It is therefore not surprising that when the history of how women helped shape the political movement to rescue the earth, and when a safe and secure environment is written, Bella Abzug will be viewed as one of its pioneers and leaders. As a lawyer for 40 years and as a member of Congress for six years and an advisor to President Carter for two years. She provided the she presided over very many important con conferences, and generated important laws. I think many of you don't know that. She, she helped organize the federally funded National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, in November 1977, the first federally financed women's con conference ever in the history of the United States. She had already co sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment when it passed the House of Representatives in 1971. As a congresswoman, she wrote the first law banning discrimination against women in obtaining credit, and the fact that many of us have credit cards is due to bail, I am convinced we wouldn't. This is a mixed blessing bill. She also helped to write and pass the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act and the government in the Sunshine Law, both of which open government agencies to scrutiny and if you've ever sent for your FBI file, it's also thanks to Bella early in the 70s. She had already worked for environmental legislation and harbor cleanup measures. She helped shape the UN Decade of women from 1975 to 1985. She was a congressional adviser to the US delegation in Mexico City in 1975. Then she was both a participant and a CNN commentator at the 1980 Copenhagen conference, and Nairobi in 1985. She organized and chaired a panel of over 1000 people to discuss what if women ruled the world. She continued her work as an international leader and grassroots activist. And now she is the president of women USA, which reaches out to grassroots women's organizations engaged in trying to win equality, peace and justice. Through the women USA fund, she helps promote the visibility and participation of women in the form in the formulation and conduct of foreign policy.

Unknown Speaker  09:51
The Women's Foreign Policy Council of which she's the president has formed the international policy, policy action committee Pac Man made up of 45 women from throughout the world to hold the World Congress of women on Environment and Development in November 1991. So that women's can help set the agenda for the UN Congress on conference on Environment and Development to help be held in Brazil in 1992. It's my very great pleasure to introduce Bella apps of

Unknown Speaker  10:35
the morning you Okay, good morning, I'm very pleased to be here and to meet with feminists concerned about everything, the planet, I'm sure you're all concerned about everything. That's, that's a lot of light and life. Well, it's been an interesting period in history, because I have been doing a lot of work on the environment, especially trying to bring in what we call some people's input into some decisions that are going to be made. This conference is going to be held in in Rio, in 1992, is a world conference heads of state by the way, which the UN is organized. But this time, there's a tremendous effort, just as those of you who participated in the decade, we'll remember to make sure that there is input from people. And so I have become very involved among various international Coordinating Committees trying to help develop the input of the non governmental sector. I'm also, interestingly enough, and Adviser to the Secretary General of the UN conference. Because I have been very, very persistent about presenting the point of view that none of this can take place effectively, without the full participation of women, and an address of the issues that are affecting women. Before I begin my formal remarks, so to speak, although I'm never that formal, I have to say it's been tough. Not only have we confronting a serious situation in that the United Nations is, is a male entity, which all of you know it has six, maybe a five ambassador, so a women out of 160 nations and therefore even as they structure a conference like that, the existence or concerns of women's problems in the environment, in any part of the world and divide and development, whether it's in the in the developing world or the developed world are practically absent. In fact, the originating resolution of the UN to to wait for for doesn't even mention reproductive rights, so population. And that's a serious problem. But we have been very insistent on that. And the Secretary General has been very responsive, and they have set up significant working parties to discuss the issue of reproductive rights, and we hope it will be finally infused. But my experience has been that even in like non governmental organizations, which exist in vast numbers, who are interested in both environment and development, not only in this country, but all over the world. If I'm invited to meetings, more or less, they are male dominated, there are maybe if you go to a meeting of 120, if you get about 20 women there, it's a lot and a lot of those women are not feminists story, and they're dealing with work on the ground. They're terrific people, and they're all people who are on the ground doing great work, and whether, you know, in the developing world, as well as in the developed world, but a lot of these women don't think about what are the special aspects of all of this that affect women. And that has essentially been the role that my organization and I have been attempting to play, to make them understand that, that there is no way in which we can really make any difference unless the vast involvement of women and the energies of women are very seriously taken into consideration, their knowledge, their skills, all of those things, and especially their participation. I just came back from Geneva where they had a preparatory conference, and you should know some of these things because you should become more involved in some ways. There was a we haven't in the United States that US citizens network, which, by the way, is an organization that has in it not only environment groups, but groups and social justice, peace groups, because there's a tremendous linkage, obviously between the environment and social inequities and development and peace and equal rights and poverty and disease and hunger, obviously, reproductive rights. And so there is a very good network that's been put together here in the United States whose function is to try to impact on what the US policy will be on an ongoing basis, but specifically using the opportunity of this world conference, to be able to influence them.

Unknown Speaker  15:29
There, each country has to file a national report, those of you who were involved in the decade will remember that each country had to file a national report in each of the five year periods of the decade, and in each of the three conferences, and it was really through the risk of filing of those reports that in many cases, it became clear that there was such serious discrimination that they and then indirectly helped to mobilize a lot more activity on the part of women all over the world, because they began to they had to tell us what the condition of women was. Now all of the countries have to give us give the UN for this conference, a report on what the condition of environment development in their country is. And so we've been trying to influence this national report, we have added to the major questionnaire, a specific women's questionnaire, which raises questions about that affected the gender dimension. And we've been, we're going to have a series of roundtables sponsored by the Council on Environmental Quality which belong, which is a which is the federal agency drawing up this document. But I must say that it's it's an they're going to be a couple of public hearings, one in Maryland and one in Chicago. And I just want to fill you in on that. Because I think it's important to know that there is some action which we try to influence now as far as the UN conference is concerned, that will be a parallel forum. But before that the women's Foreign Policy Council through its international committee is running this World Congress for a healthy planet in November 1991, to develop a Women's Action Agenda on Environment and Development, so we can impact on the what the results will be in, in, in Rio. But more than that, to really re mobilize the global feminist network, to re mobilize the global feminist network, which emerged so strongly out of the decade, we feel this is another opportunity to link all of the concerns that feminists have all over the globe, with the fundamental issues so that we can then rebuild a big movement that can begin to impact on all of the issues that we care about, that's our main interest, we were where we're very anxious to have, as many of you was, can get in come to this because our emphasis will be to bring in 50% of the women from the developing countries, but the other 50% can come from Europe and the United States and, and other areas like Canada. So I just want you to know all about this. I have some material, once you leave, which can be which will be handed out to you. So you'll get a better idea if you want to participate. And in general, if you want to find out how to participate, you can also get in touch with our office in New York here, which is doing a lot of this international organized. As I get around, as I say I try to always get the focus away start to say the non governmental organizations don't we have created among the non governmental organizations, which have hundreds, if not 1000s, a consciousness that when they set up these big steering committees that they have to have gender division, gender equality, it has never been done before, but it's finally happening. We even got the Secretariat of the UN, to hire by almost 50% Women in this staff. I mean, on the professional level as well. So we're making little inroads, but not a hell of a lot. As I said, I just came back from Geneva and in order to get a consideration, women on the subject of land resources as well as a thinking about the fact that they had to have a special section on women's concerns. I had to get into a closed meeting of the UN violate about 10 laws. I lobbied a whole bunch of members of the delegates and finally I spoke and after I spoke, of course, the US came up to me delicate and said, you know belly just violated a whole bunch of laws. I said, What's new about that? In fact, when I came in, they were making a paper on land resources. And they hadn't mentioned one word about women instead. When I walked in, he said, and we must remember the role of women. So either. So I then looked at the paper afterwards and it wasn't in the paper. So I said, I heard you mentioned women, what's going to happen with the paper? He said, I'm revising it. Well, I mean, it's serious. So all the papers that they produced for this particular preparatory conference had when they were on significant issues, including biodiversity biotechnology, land was the lessons.

Unknown Speaker  20:31
climate, water, oceans, forestry, all kinds of things, not a mention of women in any room. But I think we really work them over, I prepared a decision for the delegates to pass, which wasn't quite fast. But by the week after I left, which was the last week of their plenary sessions, I was told by several people who were there that every delegation got up and spoke about the necessity to include women in the document, so we try to make some progress. Well, what's it all about? I always like to tell these people that I don't understand why this is happening, because you're talking about natural resources. And I think that women are one of its most valuable and most neglected its natural resources. You know, you're going to hear from an Astra and on the Eco feminism but, and myth and tradition. And history, women, of course, have always been identified with Mother Nature. That nurturing female, the Creator of Life spirit of the Earth, spathi, capricious and unpredictable in her rule over natural forces. And so it's an image that has been pleasing to many male philosophers, writers and leaders, because by contrast, it assigns the male sex dominion, over the intellect, rationality, science and technology as well as the power or should I say the hubris to tame and control nature in the name of progress for humankind. And as we know, that has not worked out very well. Much of what has been done in the name of progress and growth and development has been done without much reward for the effects on human beings. And especially women as well as on the atmosphere on the coal global ecology. Those of you who are in Nairobi, I think know that. It was the place in a sense, I would characterize as being the place where global feminism came of age. It was a symbol of sisterhood, of international feminist networks of our hopes for a better and fairer and safer world. It was also the birthplace of the most comprehensive and historic statement, the forward looking strategies, our agenda for the future. And it was a compass peace and development, equality and human rights which we constantly try to bring before this conference is taking place on environment to say, you've already passed the the UN itself has passed a whole series of statements in the forward looking strategies which have not been implemented. And here's your chance. Women generally were here feminists that we know have achieved some historic legal and cultural change in our group status. But I believe that for a majority of women throughout the world, individual rights, human rights, social rights, economic political rights, are not improved. In fact, it's the icing on the cake cake that the millions of women have never tasted, and they still seek plain bread, and water. All of us have the focus attention on the fact that, as we know, 10% of the world's income is all that women earn that they own only 1% of the world's property that they put in two thirds working hours, and receive pay for only a third and the women more than 50% of the population. Or we hold only about 10 to 12 to 6% of the seats and world Parliament's women are increasingly heads of households. They are disproportionately poor. In our own country. 78% of people living in poverty are women and children mean right here. In this opulent and splendid city, we see them everywhere. Lying in doorways, doorways waiting on bread lines among the world's refugee population, and we see it perfectly tear terribly on the screens every night. 80% of women and their dependent children each year an estimated 500,000 women die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% of these deaths take place in underdeveloped countries.

Unknown Speaker  25:08
Women and their Children don't get enough food and water and they get little or no medical care little education. Women are majority of migrants a majority the underpaid workforce. In the multinationals, global factories a majority of the world's illiterate, a majority of the oppressed and because of their sex, they are victimized in distinctive ways. Women's Political prisoners on the go, the additional humiliation of rape and sexual torture, domestic violence is a worldwide epidemic and so on. Governments run by men also conscript women's wounds. I think that there is an important moment here, as I said earlier for women, women, in this discussion of Development and Environment, interact most closely with the environment, more than any part of the population. They are the farmers. They're the stock breeders this applies to fuel and water. They are the managers and often the preservers of natural resources. They're also innovators in crop use, and monitors the plant species, they're the primary uses of water in agriculture. As major uses of forests, women are sensitive to their value, and aware of the need to limit the rate of exploitation so that farmers can be regenerated and preserved for future generations and industrialized, as well as developing economies in factories and offices and communities situated near toxic dumps. Women are exposed to a variety of environmental hazards and pollutants are constant is that I work as undervalued and underpaid all over the world and my leadership roles denied. And we are of course victimized by the hunger and illiteracy and poor health and scarce social and technical services. Women, however, are not just victims. Were thinkers and organizers and activists were part of a worldwide movement that is brought into every nation of the world no matter how poor or oppressed the message that women can work together to take control of our own lives, and to bring our collective experience wisdom and numbers into the areas where the policies and decisions are being made by the future of our planet. Let me remind you, it was Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring alerted the world to the startling effects of water and soil pollution. It was 1000s of women marching and demonstrating against dangerous trumps your mind the nuclear fallout will help win the ban on atmospheric nuclear tests. And we've continued that struggle against the nuclear arms race and hazards in areas ranging from the Greenham Common Europe and the United States to Africa and Asia, and the endangered islands of the South Pacific. Women have organized the demand at Pacific nuclear free zone and to protest the plundering of their land and fragile ecosystems by foreign companies in India, it was Vandana Shiva and the women of the Chipko movement, who embraced the trees on which their livelihoods dependent to prevent them from being trapped down. There was Professor Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who initiated Africa's remarkable Greenbelt rescue operation. And it was many times in flight from a vindictive government. Some of you may have met her when she was here just a month ago. She's one of the members of our committee and, and at that time, they began to persecute people that her biggest crime in the last few months has been that they have this fed pa with tremendous greenery in Nairobi, in which the Moy the president of this country wishes to build a 60 story building. And the women had been preventing that from happening. And so she had to stay here until the atmosphere cooled and effective. She's a delightful woman, we've spent a lot of time together and, and she's one of the most significantly interesting leaders in the woman's effort throughout the world. And of course, it was Lois Gibbs, the so called ordinary housewife in upstate New York, who expose the chemical poisoning of our communities, homes and schools. And she's one among hundreds of 1000s of women in this country who will become environmental activists and it was women like Patrick Kelly, of West Germany, and others who took the leadership in organizing the Green Party's in which women are supposed to have an equal voice

Unknown Speaker  29:42
and had a little problem lately. Some of you may have heard her but at the interdisciplinary Congress here at Hunter, we had a panel on women in Eastern Europe and she was an east and west and she made it very A dramatic and important presentation and most important, there was Prime Minister Gro Harlem, Brundtland 's vision and leadership as head of the UN commission that told us of our common future, and what we must do to assure that we have a Livable Future. And that brings me to the crux of the matter, women are both affected by and effectors of the environmental crisis, we must be a part and a central part of the solution. And I've used on economic justice and human rights and reproduction, and the achievement of peace all elements of the environmental development crisis must be heard at local, national and international forums, wherever policies and decisions are made, that can affect the future of our planet. So you heard I've described to you what we have tried to put together and we're acting because I wrote is ill. A warns of visible to the naked eye. over exploitation has decimated the forests and degraded soils and rivers and lakes and oceans have been plundered and polluted. The biological treasures of our planet a diminished every day is irreplaceable plant and animal species are exterminated. Everywhere people suffer from decreasing supplies of clean water, fuel, fertile land and food. social inequities. I mean, all of this doesn't happen from nowhere. social inequities have been created by economic systems that rely on Warped priorities, warfare and the continuous build up of military security, the concentration of land and economic power in the hands up few the promotion of consumer societies, the misdirection of science and technology, which has led to an imbalance in the use of energy and resources. And near irreversible worldwide pollution in the span of just one human lifetime has got to be addressed. And it can be addressed at this moment, this UN conference is not going to address it, it's going to begin something and we the people have to carry it forward into a whole new effort to create a different vision and a different concept of how society should function all over the world. And it's our role and as far as responsibility, because in a world where we have these kinds of conditions added to by homelessness and, and disease and poverty, which consumers who've been being. And we hear nothing but talk of global warming, warming and greenhouse effects and the and the piercing of the ozone layer. The concept of national security, which has thus far really dominated the thinking in geopolitics, the concept of national security through military measures, is outmoded and absurd, because the security of this world is at stake in the sense that we are possibly burning up this planet. In maybe 50 years. We have watched and many of us have protested as we went to war, for oil for Petro dollars for control, for assertion of might for testing weapons of death. And we continue to watch in horror as they burn the oil wells as they scorched the earth as they created one of the most serious economic catastrophes on this globe. And as they incited people to revolution to help their own condition and then simply reduced billions of humans to disposable debris of failing to help the people in Iraq. And the man many of them designated as Tipler bed as he was still presides, in fact, those who originally attacked him, now protect him. Those who would destroy him now allow him to prosper. More scandalous than the kitty Kelly story is the riving and they turning and the of the Bush administration and denying that they encouraged the uprising of the Kurds

Unknown Speaker  34:47
and that has now abandoned them to death, destruction and starvation. You No, women are very much involved in this war. We don't really get enough of a point of view on that. By the way, women's Foreign Policy Council on the on the 22nd. This is holding a conference, which you can attend their fliers here on women and the Gulf War winners or losers and important panel discussion. But one of the things that struck me as being fascinating was the story of this woman in Jordan, where women do have the right to vote, but none has ever dared to seek election. She campaigned, among other things on a proposal to amend family law to give women greater rights she had done on expos day on television are the physical abuse suffered by women every straighten up society as well as the total economic dependency forced on them. A husband can have three or four wives divorced and remarried at will he can confiscate his wife's property and sometimes her income, she can be thrown out of her house left destitute even be deprived of her children. The fundamentalists tried to have a TV program banned and so on. local newspapers received hundreds of letters from outraged men who said it was a God given right for men to beat women. When she announced that she was the candidate for parliament that fanatics brought charges of apostasy against her in a religious court. And in the fashion of communities condemnation of Sami Rushdie, her accusers called for the lifting of punishment for many Muslim who might choose to assassinate her. She lost the election, after serious effort of evidence of ballot tampering, and of course, she lost a job and lives in fear of her life. You think this is a problem peculiar to the Muslim world? Let's look elsewhere. We as I mentioned before, in the entire world, there are only about a half dozen states in which women are heads of governments. And often that happens because of the widows or daughters of male rulers. On average, women account for about 14% of members of legislatures in every part of the planet, and our own United States Champion of the free world, the new international order, but he's speaking on right now. President speaking about and what he means by the new international order, we already know what he means by the new international order. And all the other stuff congratulate descriptives that leaders love so much. The figures are even worse. Still, today in the Congress, we have only about 5% 30 women to win the out of 100 and the Senate 28 and one non voting member in the house, as Frederick Douglass, a famous Liberator and suffered just said, a government supplied by man alone as the government helps to fly and like a bird with one wing unable to sort of the highest and the best. And that's one of the problems with that, I think. So the question is what is Why is it so important that women and a perspective be brought in? Well, I think we've been treated to something very serious in the last week since January 16. We watched the war in, in golf, I think in the process, many people lost their souls. I think their sense of moral right and wrong, they lost the peace dividend. And they lost the kind of imagination that's required. Understand how water humanizes people, turns ordinary people into faceless, nameless objects, who must be expended. We use chemical weapons napalm and fuel air explosive as horrific as any, that the demon Saddam Hussein was supposedly threatening us with. In six short weeks, we dropped more bombs on Iraq and Kuwait than all the bombs dropped around the world in the six years of World War Two, including the nuclear bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How can we possibly imagine the terror and pain and suffering inflicted on 1000s of people, including women, children and animals. All we saw was a sound and light spectacle. So we didn't see all of detail until just now. All this means what? That we can no longer live in the playpen by the rules of the patriarch, any more than we can continue to live under Pentagon protectorate. And we are in great danger of having that happen. One of the most interesting things that happened it seemed to me

Unknown Speaker  39:34
of in this hole was to see the unbelievable mobilization that we were capable of not only of our own forces, but of nations and the United Nations. For the first time we had some movement towards collective security for all the wrong reasons, but we did have it and we saw for the first time, that time Find that mobilization that caused my imagination to say the following, and I'm sure everybody else's imagine what more than 100,000 sorties which is what they had. And over 500,000 men and women mobilized at a billion dollars a day could do if instead of being targeted to destroying, targeted to create something constructive, targeted to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, repairing our infrastructure, providing needed health care, educating our children, fighting aids and breast cancer, and drugs and crime in our streets. Imagine what that could could, how it could be done, we saw that it could be done, we have failed in what our demands upon our own country and our own political power structures must and should be, we have been a sense in many ways been somewhat immobilized. We in the women's movement, who created emanations of democratic process have sort of allowed ourselves to be somewhat co opted into various non effective tactics will help us to lower our demands. And I'm suggesting to you that this is the kind of thing which requires all of us to stand up and shout that we can make some difference. But will it happen? Will it ever happen, that we can see a mobilization in this country of a billion dollars a day, and 500,000 men and women and all of our political energies and all of our economic energies, you look at what they're doing failing to do right now to help the refugees that are streaming over those mountains and mud and snow and rain, they are dropping inefficiently, dropping packages to them from the air if they were really serious, since they weren't able to mobilize to destroy, they can also mobilize to build and that is a demand we have to make. Question is will it happen? I don't think it will happen until women's collective experience and value judgments are considered equally along with the collective experience and value judgments of men as a policy forming force in society. It is our belief that man's dominion over nature parallels the subjugation of women in many societies, denying them sovereignty over their lives and bodies. And until all societies are forced to truly value women in their environment, their joint degradation will continue. And not until decent men and women recognize that the small share of women's political space that has denied women access may very well be responsible for the imbalance that uses military instead of economic policies, and political or instead of a political and diplomatic alternatives to sell to solve international crises. Not until we change the picture of only 15 or so women ever having served as heads of government in this century, and not until women who have been trained to speak softly that is some of us and carry a lipstick and carry a lipstick, come out and demand a different kind of stick a seat at the table where decisions of life and death are made. And not until we begin to have Tamar Schwartz cups. And you nestra piles, and people like that, in the place of the Baker's and the Chinese and the Buchanan's and the Sonos will we find a place for utilizing the energies and the hopes of this country to build a whole new world. And not until the State of the Union address will be given by the President of the United States, Regal in her purple silk dress, addressing her cabinet of Supreme Court justices, eight women and one man.

Unknown Speaker  44:23
In Africa, they say when two elephants fight, the green grass suffers when two elephants make love the green grass office I think it's time to get the elephants off our green grass. It's time to get the elephants off our backs. It's time especially to take the toys from the boys. And it's time to replace the smart bomb with the smart peep with smart people. It's time mostly however, to address the enemy within ourselves, the failure of so the failure of vision Mostly the failure of nerve. And mostly the failure to say that it isn't that we think that women are superior to men. It's just that we've had so little opportunity to be corrupted by power. And we want that opportunity. Now, it's really, it's really, it's really because we have a right and a necessity, in fact, I believe, a deep obligation to recognize until on every level of society, in politics, in education, in the media, in the labor movement in the community movements, in not only elective office and appointed office all over, we have to begin to change all of that. Most governments, as I said, have no women in leadership with decision making. In the case of development environment, it's a tremendous crime, because the knowledge and skills that people have, you know, in Africa, 80% of the women 80% of the agriculture produced by women 60% in in Asia 40% in in Africa. I mean, it's ridiculous when they have village meetings where women come because they really are the primary managers. Nobody talks to them, and nobody wants them to say anything. And it goes on all the way up the bureaucratic ladder, whether it's in aid programs, whether it's in governmental decisions, or whether it's in many cases in non governmental action. We can't Mr. mutilation, growth and equity are interrelated. Designing collaborative responses to the current crisis, urgently requires the full participation of women of every color, class and country. And so until we get on that bandwagon until we get on that train, until we have third world to participate, wherever decisions of life and death are made affecting women, or affecting humankind, we won't create that change. But we have that well. We have that ability, we have that vision, we have to just summon up that strength and I hope you will thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker  47:43
More chairs in the back, I think some of you need them in there behind that post. So please feel free. Now. Lester King, who many of you is widely known as a peace activist, and as the founder of women's Pentagon action League, as and is, and the feminist Peace Institute is like many peace feminists increasingly concerned with the Earth as a whole. She's the CO editor with Adrienne Harris of rocking the ship of state toward a feminist peace politics, and as also a pioneer in the field known as eco feminism. She organized the conference called Women and life on Earth, eco feminism in the 80s, which was one of the first events to link feminist and environmental concerns. For those of you who want to read more about this issue or collection of essays called Eco feminism, and the RE enchantment of nature, women ecology and peace will be out with Beacon Press in the fall. Those of you already engaged with issues of women in science may have attended the lecture series. She organized last year at Eugene Lang college at the New School for Social Research where she teaches today she'll speak about eco feminism, a policy of connection

Unknown Speaker  49:30
I can't stand see if I can use this appropriate technology, which I wish we can distinguish from The inappropriate technologies that Bella has been talking about, I think I should take off this necklace, which is ratalie. Well, first of all, I want to say that, you know, I was really probably inspired like all the rest of you by Bella's talk this morning. And I think that, you know, in my mind and in experience that what ecofeminism is actually is a philosophy for feminists, we're concerned about everything. And so I mean, it's, that's exactly what the inspirational thought is. And I that one camp, and I think for people who actually do feminist politics and take seriously the lives and empowerment of women, that the idea that you can separate women's issues from, you know, global issues, or issues of social justice or ecological viability, it's just not the case. And so I think this kind of method, or this way of thinking in connective terms, has come organically out of feminist thinking. So it's not something that just some philosophers invented to call eco feminism and to proclaim, it's really an articulation of a way that doing feminist politics makes you think. So I want to also say that, on the question of the failure of soul, vision and nerve, you know, what, which is also a phrase of Bella's that, you know, the work, I think that those of us in the feminist peace movement and in in the Eco, feminist movement have done is really predicated on the importance of vision of active participation and mobilization. And of doing that in some ways that are imaginative, new, reflective of women's experience and valuing of the traditional aspects of women's lives. And also, which in some way had created or seek to create an ongoing democratic and formed intelligent, political women's culture, which can take direct action, which can lobby, which can do all kinds of things. You know, and I think this versatility that women have, as political activists as human beings, that a few men have to and others could we help, is, is is really crucial to, you know, building an ongoing kind of feminist movement. The other thing I wanted to say is that Kemo, Ruth and their staff here have done a really wonderful job in putting together this conference. And I think it follows on a lot of conferences that I've attended over the years, where it's always represented a politically and intellectually engaged feminism, and a place where so called Theory and Practice, could come together and inform each other. And I think for those of us who are on the margins of the Academy, we see further and further this gulf of division between what might be called Academic feminism, and activist feminism, you know, moving further and further away. And I think this is an extremely bad problem. And, you know, it's in some way fueled a kind of anti intellectualism on the part of activist feminists, and a kind of elitism on the part of academic feminism, which I think, is a very big problem for the future of feminism. Because if we're going to set a political agenda and be an active, mobilized political movement, we need all the intelligence and all the capacities that we have together across the board. And so I think this kind of increasing separation is a very, very bad thing for feminism, and it's detrimental to the development of feminist thinking, it's detrimental to us being able to know and have resources to do the things that we need to do. And I think from listening to Bella, and the range of issues and concerns that she's talking about, it certainly is the case that, you know, all these capacity should somehow, in some way, be able to work together and complement each other. And I would like to see us have a democratic, intelligent, feminist political discourse, which was also recognizable and comprehensible to a wider feminist community.

Unknown Speaker  54:21
And that doesn't mean it has to be simplistic or uninformed. But I think, you know, I think one of the things that that has characterized this conference is really an attempt to maintain a public political space, or public intellectual space, where these these ideas and these communities informed each other and I think now today, that's even a more striking need than it was, you know, whenever this conference started, what was it 18 years ago? I think I've been to most of the world getting dated here. So I really wanted to say that you know, about the importance of the center and the work that they're doing here and You know how central it is in this kind of effort to keep together a feminist theory and practice?

Unknown Speaker  55:11
Also, before I go on, Tim asked me to talk about what eco feminism is, you know, and I think, I think the shorthand was, you know, feminists who are concerned about everything. And I don't think that that, that people really have a very hard time understanding that that we just can't discreetly separate the issues, they just don't really separate. But what I really want to talk about a little bit is a couple of tendencies or several tendencies in feminism in the 1980s. That, I think in political feminism, I'll say, you know, which is that, you know, I think an increasingly strong, wider justice orientation has emerged through the 1980s. And I think this is evident in at least three developments, eco feminism, women of color, feminism, and the feminism emerging out of the developing world. And I think that all these feminism's have something in common, but I want to talk particularly about eco feminism, eco feminism, assumes that nature is an interconnected web, and that political issues and ideas are, are interconnected. That there's no doubt that there's development and differentiation in nature, but not hierarchy or rule. These are not given by nature's they're invented by societies. They're maintained by systems of economic and political domination, there is no the king of the beasts in nature, that is a human idea projected onto nature. And in some way, it's also an idea that has been picked up by certain sectors of the environmental movement to justify a misanthropic, misanthropic, or anti human point of view. And what it does is it tends then to obscure addressing basic questions of economic inequality and distribution of wealth worth worldwide, from the poor as ecological issues. So I think one of the things that feminists have done particularly, is to push continually the idea that social injustice has to be a concern of so called environmentalists or ecologists, and that this simplistic idea that that I've certainly seen dominate, you know, much of the environmental movement, certainly the mainstream environmental movement, that nature is good people are bad. And therefore, that's how you get number one platform plank of population reduction, nevermind Who are you know, in undifferentiated, just get rid of some of them. And we know which ones that are being you know, that this has been posed to get rid of, you know, the fact that this is invariably, totally not link, as Bella said to any assessment of, you know, the conditions of women's lives to reproductive freedom to the relationship get me directly shown between women's status in society, and how many children people have, and a whole set of questions about women's general empowerment and wellbeing, and population growth and how fast it happens. I mean, they're all these kinds of things, right? That as feminists, we can demonstrate. But these are not necessarily informing, you know, environmental and ecological, mainstream conversation and political thinking. So I think this is one of the first issues that feminists have in Moscow and will continue to raise. And I think it would be a mistake, I think some feminist groups have even suggested the linking of feminist and environmental or ecological causes a long lines of population reduction. And I would like to suggest that feminists should really criticize the language of population as a political issue. Now, of course, populations have any bad ecological balance in terms of what kind of living organisms of all kinds can be supported by what kind of environment that is a concern and a way of relating this is an aspect of a whole series of concerns that have to do with reharmonization of humanity and nature, I think is is is fine. But I think the framing of an issue as even calling it population is a way is ideologically loaded in such a way as to discount the questions of distribution and poverty and wealth and power in the world. And it's shortcuts all this social justice questions. It's also racist in a in a historical kind of way. So I think that this is sort of this. This was something that I really wanted to make a comment about, because I know some of you are probably the you know, I No, a lot of you as longtime feminists who are beginning to think about these connections, you know, in their various ways in which the suggestion that the connection be made between feminism and ecology is being posed. And I think that this is actually, you know, one of the most it's one of the most common conceptions. And I think it's a really major misconception.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:22
So I think so I think that in some way, you know, what one one begins to see is that it's impossible to take up an eco feminist political agenda without having a commitment to social justice, as well as ecological sustainability and the life of the planet. And in fact, not only does one take up these as parallel concerns, because it's right to do so. But also, in fact, that, that you cannot create a viable economic system that can feed the world and be in some way democratic and just and not take up questions of power and privilege, the power of the nation state, the nature of politics, and a whole range of other issues that we might call social justice. So these issues really are inextricable, not just as a coalition, you know, as in, well, the feminists need the environmentalists and the environmentalists need this feminist and they need the social justice people. I mean, they really are structurally interconnected. And I mean, I think that's, you know, that's where the importance of some kind of theory, you know, of a developing theory with many different dimensions that continually illustrates, and represent this point of view, from a feminist perspective is really crucial. And so, I think that, you know, that's one of the ways in which, you know, I've actually seen, you know, feminism function in various environmental and ecological contexts. And I think that that's the sort of maintaining of this sort of interrelatedness of social and ecological concerns is really central to feminism. The second thing, I think, is a particular way of understanding the woman nature connection. You know, the woman nature connection, as we have understood it historically, in our culture is a historical invention, and it serves certain purposes. Women are more No more natural than men, cats and dogs, trees, plants, flowers, you know, this idea that women somehow exemplifying nature is a historical idea. But nonetheless, I think that some Eco feminists or some people who call themselves eco feminist, have taken a rather I think, simplistic view at times, and I think of it as either vulgar eco feminism or

Unknown Speaker  1:02:55
people recognize this as shades of a leftist background, the vulgar view of something, and I think in some way, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's out of some desire, that really is, I think, inspired by a feminism that's concerned about everything that this woman nature connection is asserted. But I think it's also left us open to being set up by, you know, having people set up what I also call a straw, eco feminism, you know, and kind of in stereotyping in some way, eco feminism as a kind of marginal, irrelevant, romanticized woman, nature, anti intellectual woman nature celebration. And, you know, that's, that's actually, it's not that we don't have those tendencies within our movement. It's true that we do I mean, every movement has a lot of tendencies that various members might want to claim or affirm or not. But I think that there also is a history, you know, that can be referred to, which really has to do with seriously developing political thinking on the relationship, in particular, of feminism, ecology and peace in this history, in this country and elsewhere, actually precedes the interests of what might be called the more spiritually oriented feminists in the movement. And I say that not by way of repudiating more spiritually oriented feminists, but saying there is underlying always a concern with social justice, with politics, and with connecting feminism and ecology in terms of these other ways that that I was just talking about. So, I think, though, that it is true that because of women's work that we do because of our lives, because of the things that Bella was talking about, that we have a particular capacity as intelligent thinking rational human beings, to perceive certain aspects of the humanity nature relationship, in a way that has, I think, a major contribution to it. To make to understanding what that relationship is, and to doing it in a different way. And I think this has certainly been shown by what's developing as kitchen table science, or you know what I called when I did this new school series, outsider science, which for people who came, you know that it was largely feminist, but we didn't put feminist in the title. But now and then we do things like this. You know, and I think, though, that this idea of what constitutes valid knowledge, and what constitutes science has also been very narrowly defined in a patriarchal and institutionalized and power interested way. And that I think, what's happened with women engaging in ecological political struggles, and in farming and in all kinds of different activities. There are, in fact, all sorts of knowledge about the Earth, and about how it is that human beings developed ways to carry food, to bring water to do all these different things that are held, particularly by women. In cultures where there is a gender differentiated division of labor, many development strategies, the master development plans, do not take this into account in any way. This is not valid knowledge, it's exterminated, it's ignored, and so on. And I think this is true across the board. It's also true that for Lois Gibbs and other people who have pioneered in the toxic wastes movement and other issues of community health, that what they saw from their own observation of daily life was illness or inexplicable kinds of conditions that were existing, that were making for unhealthy community physical context. And that those women often had to go up against the experts and the scientists and develop their own knowledge base to find out, you know, what it is that they're actually dealing with. And now they're networks in which they're able to help each other a little bit more. But I think also, you know, this is where I think the Eco feminist, the interest by natural scientists, in Eco feminist and of community organizers, and toxic waste people, is converging in some kind of organic way. And so I think the development of some sort of women's kitchen table science, designed to really serve a community based environmental movement of women, is one of the most interesting and important developments.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:34
And I think that this really demonstrates how it is that you know, there are certain aspects of this symbolic relationship of women in nature that has a material historical base, that are not simply questions of, of a romanticization of women. I mean, I think from a feminist perspective, all of us are wary of things that say, this is the essential woman, you know, and she is this and she is not that she is emotional, she is not rational. And, you know, she thinks with her body, not with her head, we have a whole kind of series of separations that are put on us. And I think there's always a temptation, and it certainly exists in in the Eco feminist movement could just celebrate the flip side, say, we'll be good nature will be the body will be the feelings, you know, and will be against all those other things. And I think that that really the kind of central idea of eco feminism is an anti dualistic thrust. It's an odd word to use, I suppose. But I will. We have thrust. That and and to actually say that these things exist in relationship to one another, and that we need a reconstituted or a different kind of reason, and science and thinking, not to throw all these things out out the window. And I think Bella was talking about certain ideas that are related to this in politics, too. And I think one of the things that, that we've said any career feminism is that he took feminism is about more than an equal piece of a rotten carcinogenic pie.

Unknown Speaker  1:09:17
So in some ways, I mean, we both Vaughn and I think problematize the woman nature connection, and what it is that we think of nature also in our in our, in our cultural context is either red in tooth and claw, or is it romanticize pastoral, that these are also certain ways of thinking about nature. And I would say sort of parenthetically in an American context, that the romance with the wilderness with the Virgin feminized wilderness, you know, which I think the direct action, male, direct action wing of the movement of the environmental movement has really drawn on quite a lot, you know, the kind of fantasy of being Latter Day Daniel Boone's. You know, who Are Romancing the wilderness and protecting her is really, you know, drawing on the old macho militaristic iconography. And I think Bella's remarks, you know, demonstrate, you know, acutely, I think the fact that any movement that's linking feminism, ecological survival has to be anti militarist, and that these militaristic models of, you know, ways of going about saving the Earth or anything else, are just archaic. They're outmoded. They're, they're not elephants, they're dinosaurs. Or they should be. And so I think that, you know, they're just there lots of different levels at which, you know, and this is actually another another way, I think, in which ecofeminism has influenced the Direct Action Movement, and the environmental movement is this at least in challenging this eco warrior ideal, you know, which has been put out in the radical movement, you know, and saying, Wait, you know, that this, this, this warrior guy has got to go, whether he's an eco warrior, or George Bush, or, or any of these things, but you know, this, this person who is out there to, to, to, you know, kind of reinforce and reiterate or re redevelop a kind of male military, to protect something else is, is is not something that's going to accomplish what they say they are. So I think this is another kind of area in which ecofeminism has had an important influence. And I think the other the other thing that that I wanted to say about this is that there's also been, you know, in feminism and in other movements for social justice, this question of the ranking of oppressions in the setting up of hierarchies, it's class, no, it's race, no xx, you know, and we could go on probably, and, you know, I think with the proliferation of identity politics, that, you know, one runs into this even further, you know, that the particularity of identity becomes so specified that it's very difficult to talk about women or feminism because of the possibility of gross generalization and offending someone who didn't fit into your generalization, and so on and so forth. And so I think another thing that, you know, that we've tried to move toward is being able to work with difference and diversity, and at the same time to maintain a commonality of political vision and interest, you know, which can always be changed and criticized, and you can love it, or you can hate it. But, you know, there's some way of at least enlisting in the project and staying there, and being part of a movement. So I think that, that

Unknown Speaker  1:12:45
but there's, there's really, I think feminism and I think eco feminism in particular, has moved to a place where we need rank oppressions, you know, or argue for the hierarchy of its economics, its race, its sex, its nature, its whatever, you know that there is some way in which feminism as a political movement unit needs to proceed in such a way that we can take into account all of these in justices and the sustainability of the planet as part of our political vision and our political program. And I think the dearth of vision, in politics in general is, you know, such a major problem in the society and that most people are so incredibly alienated from political life, and that it's around this issue that's been called environmentalism or ecology is serving almost as a metaphor for the reenlistment or the revitalization of human beings, you know, and then for some, into a political life. And I think the question, you know, also, the other factor that that that exists right now is, is one of our problems, those of us who, you know, participate principally and primarily in centrally in feminism, over a long period of time may see with our movement, that I think feminism still is the most vital and broad based and hopeful kind of political development, you know, feminism in the broadest sense, and has the widest base of any potentially radical critical movement, which can raise this series of things. And so I think in that way, you know, we have this is the cup half empty or half full, sort of situation. And so I think it's going to really be up to feminists to really articulate and name and claim and, you know, figure out what should be done about and with and for this new public interest in and visibility of ecology. And, you know, I've been, it's very strange to be on this certain kind of talking circuit of ecological and environmental this and that, I mean, it's the only place that I could ever Imagine that somehow I was at this environmental Film Festival. And I was sitting at the table eating breakfast at the guesthouse, where they put up these various speakers was a huge event, there were many of us was the only place where you know, Ed Begley, Jr. Cesar Chavez, me and a couple of other people could all be, you know, eating breakfast is part of this. It's part of supposedly having something in common with one another. Well, the person then that the media came chasing down was, of course, Ed Begley, Jr, to tell them what the nature of the problem was, and what should be done, and so on and so forth. And this, I think, you know, this is this is where the, I think the need for kind of capturing the public imagination and for, for continuing ongoing engagement and all levels of publicity seeking shamelessly of taking over public space to demonstrate our concerns of trying to develop a visual iconography, such that you know, what it is that we're trying to say is, is understood, even if someone doesn't stand around to listen to the entire speech or read the entire track, you know, that there's some way that we need to continue to work on creative direct action, which has also been something that, that the feminist movement and the ecological movement have done. And I think there are numbers of different levels and ways to work on these issues. And that, what I would suggest is that, you know, people take advantage of the opportunity that we have here today, of listening to people and thinking about this, and I think I and other people have other speakers that are here that we haven't met, and we'd like to do some real networking here to really figure out what what it is we're going to do about this and how we are going to mobilize ourselves and maintain this level of mobilization and public visibility. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:20
When I, when I first went to UCLA as an assistant professor in the late 60s, early 70s, I had to lecture to a very large class in what was then called Western Civ, I call with the emergence of the Third World and changed it into that topic. But the students had never had a woman professor before these were the early days. And I used to pace back and forth on this huge stage. And when I asked them a question about what was it like to have a female professor, they said, well, she's a cross between Ali McGraw and Barbra Streisand. So I just brings up the ham, and you if you actually are a pacer, I want to put in a plug some plugs before I send you off the occasional papers, which is the publication of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. He has published a number of lectures and seminars that have been given at the center over the years, and they're for sale outside in, in front of this room. In about a week, the updated Annotated Bibliography of 80 pages dealing with material on women of color in our own collection, downstairs material that's available to all of you and to your students will be out you have a sheet in your packet, telling you how to order that we had hoped to have it ready for today, but that wasn't possible. So please look in your packets and send in the coupon if you want to buy it and send your students and your research assistants and come yourself to us our collection. There are vendors and information tables down in the gym. And there'll be time after you know before lunch and after lunch, probably after lunch, to go and visit the vendors and look at the information table tables. And then I have a warning or a plea to those of you who are running. We're speaking at different workshops this morning and this afternoon you'll have tape recorders in them please turn the tape recorders on just press RECORD and PLAY at the same time. And if you want we'll have monitors come and try to turn them over. But if you hear them click please turn them over yourself. Keep going we have shut ins and people who can't make it and women who have to stay home doing childcare who liked to listen to these tapes. We don't give them out for publication but we do like to make them available for people who have not been able to come out Um, then I will just announce that the plenary number one will be meeting in room 406 plenary number two, environmental justice race and class will be meeting in room 409 And plenary number three, the role of planning boards and controlling the environment. We'll be meeting in 407. All of the rooms are on this floor and you can just go around the band to find them. Thank you all and we'll see you back here live. We'll see you at Macintosh at lunch and we'll see you back here at two o'clock. Thank you very much