One of the things that, in my limited AWID and women's conference experience, made the 2005 AWID Forum unique was the strong presence of transgendered women in it.  Primadonnas, a group of transgendered women from Malaysia, did a drag show during one of the plenaries and at the closing dinner (held at the Thai Royal Navy Headquarters and hosted by the Thai Tourism Authority -- which I found brilliantly surreal and subversive). Together with Feminists in support of sex work, the members of Primadonna also held a demonstration on Day 2 of the AWID Forum to protect the right of sex workers to work (specifically against re-emerging conservatism that threatens to disenfranchise sex workers further).

The transgendered women at the AWID Forum received mixed reviews, of course. Most, I think, found the drag show quite entertaining (it's hard not to dance to Tina Turner's Proud Mary, after all). Others found it "a little bit too much". As they conducted their demonstration on Day 2, some women joined in, others cheered them on, others wore polite smiles, and others went about their own business after a cursory glance at the demonstration.

I have no problems about transgendered women in Feminist spaces (or any other space for that matter). I have no strong knee-jerk objections to it at all (this might have something to do with the fact that I have been surrounded by transgendered people for most of my adult life, so their presence at the AWID Forum was nothing new). But more importantly,  their presence confronts Feminists  with the mother of all questions: What Does it Mean to be a Woman?

I have a feeling that this may be one of those Issues that Will Split the Women's Movement Once Again...

What I didn't like was the lack of real (even formal) discussion about the issue of transgendered women in the Feminist movement/s. I had hoped that the mega-drag show extravaganza was backed up with debate where different perspectives, opinions, arguments about the matter would be threshed out -- where the mixed reactions would be explained and articulated.

*****

Snippets of discussions with different people during (and immediately after) the Forum also brought texture and nuance to my understanding of the issue of transgendered women in Feminist spaces. In the absence of any space for actual debate, these small, informal discussions shed some light on the discomfort that some of the participants had about the presence of the transgendered women in AWID (or any other Feminist space).

One of the  main issues seems to have to do with stereotypical and idealised images of women's bodies. The problem, I gathered, was that most transgendered women perpetuate these idealised bodies because they're built like models: tall, skinny, with perfectly-sized breasts, lots of make-up,great hair. I imagine that for Feminists who have been fighting to change such notions about women's bodies, the glaring and unapologetic imagery of scantilly-dressed and perfectly-bodied women must be hard to take. At the final dinner, while the Primadonnas were performing, I overheard some women commenting about the drag queens, and saying tongue-in-cheekily: "It's a new fashion paradigm. Clothing companies can continue to make clothes for the 'ideal' body type, and these women can wear them -- they have the bodies for it, after all: tall, skinny, no hips, perky boobs... and the rest of us can j ust dress comfortably!"

Another issue has to do with whether or not the transgendered women identify themselves as Feminists and therefore take to heart other women's issues beyond that which relates to their own sexuality. There are some people who suspect that the women's movement is fast becoming the space where everyone / anyone who is disenfranchised and marginalised goes to for support. Not that there is anything wrong with that so long as those who seek out women's spaces for support are equally showing support for other women who have other issues. This one bugs me a bit. Feels to me like we're setting criteria for what makes one a Good Feminist (i.e., one who understands and cares about all women's issues), and it seems to be quite an exclusive perspective (i.e., you can have the Feminist Badge if you are so and so). As with other spaces where participation / presence is granted, I think we need to examine who it is that sets these criteria and parametres -- and be accountable to why we include and exclude certain individuals and groups.

Then, of course, there's the whole issue of sex work, which has long split the Feminist movement into two major camps and is its own kit & caboodle. With the transgendered women at the AWID Forum calling for support for transgendered sex workers (mainly by pitting sex work against conservativism), they have thrown in their lot with one camp in that debate. And that must make those in the other camp (the one I personally lean towards) just a tad uncomfortable (especially since it seems that this camp is being bundled in with Bible-thumping conservatives just because it refuses to promote sex work for women).

I'm still working it out in my head, all of the questions this is raising (which explains why several days after the AWID Forum has ended, I'm up at 3:30 in the morning in Phuket when I have a boat to catch at 7:15). I think they are good questions (I think questioning is good, generally). I just hope there are more venues to talk about these questions, perhaps even ask more, maybe even figure out what the issues about transgendered women are all about. Perhaps in the next AWID Forum?

A belated post that I intended to write during the forum, but things got in the way. Meetings, wrap-ups, last moment hugs (very sorry I didnt manage to say a proper goodbye to gabby my spiritual grandmother, but i hope the vicarious one to irene will somehow send the desire through), games of shit head, missed massages....

Anyway, Lydia spoke at the opening plenary that I ranted about earlier about the notion of languages. I was actually very much looking forward to hearing her lilting accented voice and her grace in measuring communication through speech. She chose instead to speak in Spanish. And I was frustrated once again I cannot understand that language because the I am thinking it would even more amazing to hear her in the tongue that she swims in. She claimed the need to break the hegemony of English in the forum space.  The lazy comfort of speaking in only English and hearing only in English, and the expected assumption of being understood. Perhaps I am reading her wrongly.

But it made me think. I can understand the tiredness that comes with translation. I exist in constant translation. What tongue can I safely call my mother? I grew up in a cacophany of sounds. My grandma scolded me in love through teowchew and hokkien, my aunt and closest cousin exchanged mandarin words with me, english thrust upon me by my mother i ravenously swallowed because it spoke to me about the changing colours of seasons and exotic food like tinned tongue in faraway trees, malay i tasted through connecting snapped syllables while schoolmates wet the plastic yellow mat placed on the floorboards of my class and carried the message of playground rules, and through cantonese I learnt the art of gendered flirtation. Which is true? Which is Mine?

Now I am in this space, and it appears that English that I have learnt to love and use to communicate the invisibility of meanings that congeals and slips within me is violent in erasure. I can understand why. But Spanish erases me further. I bought two books and a tape on learning Spanish through e-bay, I learnt how to say mucho azucar por favor and donde esta el servicio in my first trip to Spain. Much like how I learnt how to say sawadeeka, khapkunka and tao rai in Thailand and talaga, adiba and ano in Philippines. It shivers.

One of the key themes thrown about in this forum is Diversity, Inclusivity and Difference.  I suppose language can be a site to negotiate these concepts, words that mean nothing apart from being politically correct at the moment.  How to acknowledge that we are all diverse while at the same time holding on to the connections? We all speak in a multiplicity of languages, come from such different histories - personal and chronicled. I don't want to be reduced to a claim for lack of representation. Who is supposed to represent me apart from myself?

If there were translations in Malay provided for, would I be happy since this is a fragment of my national identity? Would I feel less uncomfortable with the assertion for Spanish, or French, both of whom hold the same power as far as I am concerned, with English, apart from a random chance of missed domination in diachronic colonialism (or perhaps it is merely my ignorance). Do I need to learn all the languages in shuttling spaces across the world before I can finally be settled in some form of marginal representation? Or will they shift my sense of discomfort as different notions of authenticity shift within me in different spaces?

I spoke to Lydia after, and she mentioned that there were sessions where some English speaking audience (assumed through colour of skin I suppose) walked out when some presenters spoke in Not English. There are translators in some of the sessions, little sets of earphones can be gotten quite simply, it doesnt take too much effort to be able to understand. Perhaps that is the crux. The sheer laziness of wanting to listen. The moment of swift decision, of that extra small step needed to be taken so that another language, another space, another time, another history, another context, another wisdom and another struggle can be entered into somehow. The decision to say internally, I cannot be bothered, there is this other session I wanted to go for and it is in English.... Is that it?

So whose responsibility is it for communication to happen? Who is the speaker and who is the listener? Where is the space? What happens when the language I can communicate most effectively in, to be able to dialogue in, falls outside of the Official UN Languages? To be able to enter into spaces and to engage, I will then have to bloody learn and swallow some other sounds, and what is the Big Deal? As though language can represent me anyway....

As though language can't. As though language doesn't, silently, speak about who I am supposed to be when I wear it on my tongue. How I help augment assumptions through choice of this word or that. How most of the time I am not even conscious of troubling my own assumptions when someone chooses to speak this or that.

But to demand for active desire to understand in a language that is holds less dominance for one reason or another in a specific space is wholly justified I think. To not be lazy in chanced privilege of occupying a space where I/you can be understood or understand for comprehension of another lived communicable experience. To expect effort from the person that I/you am speaking to to want to listen and engage and talk back.

But when it becomes a demand for another specific language to be included in An Official Translation List, then it troubles me. What gives one marginalised language more claim than another? Is it a question of majority? The more person that speaks one marginal language, then the more 'practical' or 'obvious' it is that it should be also formally exchanged? What then is the difference between this and the dominant language for those whose language is spoken in small spaces? Is this not another war for dominance that have little bearing on me since I have gone through the labour of sheathing my tongue with one logical paradigm of one random 'historical coloniser'? How can we assert Difference and be Inclusive through recognising Difference without at the same stroke erasing another of less contextual power?

And it is a wearying fact that in positions of power, the cushy assumption of being understood halts the effort to learn Difference. But what about people like me, the Automatic Translators, who will never have any credible claim to any language for any length of sustainable time? Must I feel guilty, less credible, less authentic, for being able to gain access to spaces and speak and represent and discursively create, for wearing the symantic clothes of the dominant - not without effort or sacrifice? When did I accidentally and suddenly become the Centre through language? When did I accidentally become erased and dysappeared through language? How did it all happen at the same moment and the same space?

I am not sure, but I am sure that a conversation is made up of many people trying very hard to be understood and make a connection. It shouldn't always be up to one party to assume that they are making all the damn effort. It's up for perceptual grabs which party I/you seem to be sitting in at any particular moment.

Where are you now? Random occludents patterned by power.

 

Ask, because people won't come to you

This seems to be the real theme of fora like the AWID Forum. I miss the spaces that I used to find in caucuses and ad-hoc meetings. Maybe I've missed key notices. Sigh! Am I meeting-ed out? Have I made errors in choosing the sessions to attend? Would it have been better to choose to attend sessions on issues I know little about? Would I have felt any more different? On the flip side of the coin, is this the reality of information being more accessible today? Of being able to read the intellectual and not so intellectual thoughts of others, feminists and academics and all those who fall in between or outside? I'm beginning to feel that it's probably the latter, and maybe fora like AWID are meant to just meet up with women and friends again, to remind ourselves that we're all really in the same boat, and maybe to reassure ourselves more than anything else that we're there for each other even though we may be divided by class, religion, ethnicity, locality, values, abilities, sexuality and politics.

Finally, I go to a session that sort of invigorated me. Sexuality-baiting, lesbian-baiting... and no, it's not a term that you'd need to learn more about in order to know how to date if you're from a sexual "minority" ;o) Here, I'm reminded about different kinds of capital. Not monetary.. but of stigma and of morality. Are these forms of capital being globalised as well? There was a question by one of the panelists whether these "men" and authorities are secretly meeting and strategising against us. There was a realistic recognition that working on women's rights issues maeans we open ourselves up not just to stigmatisation and labelling, but very physical violations. Stigmatisation and degrading and looking down on "the other" are such ingrained strategies within us as people. We make judgments--quick judgments, cursory judgments--but still judgments. We may not be conscious of these, but we're definitely just as guilty as feminists, as activists, as gender activists. There was a call for older feminists to help young women who've come out about their sexuality to consciously support these young women, to ensure they don't remain isolated in their attempt to be courageous. Again, a persistent call since the last AWID Forum, maybe a little louder and repeated more often, but the same call. Why are we not consciously reflecting on our own prejudices? Why was there no panel on prejudices of feminist organisations? Why was there no frank assessment of how we discriminate, our discrimination that is a very conscious choice, and what are we actually doing on the ground to change things.

Overheard in a toilet cubicle:
"I hope my daughter grows up a feminist"
"It's our movement"
"Let's hope so."

A scrap of conversation from a session on sexualities & development:
"Vaginas will never grow old"

On middle class' repression to openly speak on sexuality :
"They are like sandwiches!"

On funders' and donors' need for 'development indicators':
"If we were to make sexual pleasure our desired outcome, then how can we come up with ways to measure this? How would we be able to quantify sexual pleasure?"

Hee hee hee...

Finally got up in time to not miss the third boat for morning plenary, and I can see why participants make the effort to get up after 4 hours of sleep (maybe, with so much conversations to have and catch up on with old friends and new allies, or tap tap tap to send out news on what’s been going on), cram into the 8:10 am boat and herd into the ballroom by hundreds to find an empty seat for the an expectant body.

The speakers chosen are eloquent, articulate, funny, passionate, intelligent, experienced and some, very very cool. Speaking on the theme of Change, personal stories, anecdotes, poetry, slogans and wise cracks can do a lot of the weary or sceptical feminist who needs a little bit of solidarity pep-juice.

So I caught the tail end of a coming out story by Pramada Menon to her 60+ year old mother who despite the narrow space she possessed for physical existence, has the width of a generous universe for openness to difference and change. Marcela Rios Tobar presented practical theories to the points that needed attention for change to happen, namely: connection between the global and the local, and to interrogate 'reverse transnationalism' where international processes affect what happens on national spaces; the failure of progressive ideologies to provide viable and inspired 'utopias' that enabled conservative fundamentalism to flourish and the need for democratisation of feminist leadership practices. Hmm...

Enisa Aminova was a sassy, self-identified smartass Roma feminist who is "bored of always being the minority" (although she acknowledges that being the majority can be boring too =D). Running through the racism and classism that flows within feminism, she called for' transpersonal' politics, where the "you" & "i" are clearly located in articulations of "we", not merely the tired orientalising dichotomy of "us" vs "them". Ok, sounds cool, what next? A poem! The way to change is to be drunk according to feminist academic, Dr. Sylvia Tamale from Uganda, quoting a poem from some dude whose name I forgot (Charles Beaud... sorry, I am a bit of a dumb dumb this way). Not intoxicated drunk, but giddy with passion and anger and all sorts of emotive, instinctive, psycho-spiritual motivations for us to want to make some change. It was a pretty cool poem, and I must ask c5 or jabulani who the poet might be.

Then Medea Benjamin Pink gave a sort of rally speech about the work of Code Pink who mixes activism about the US War on Iraq and other sorts of "evil" with creative usage of pink and puns. It was applauded, stamped with approval by feet and ended with scattered standing ovation. The feeling was exhilirating, though there was a worm of discomfort wriggling behind my ribs and toes that was watching the experience throughout. 

This left we with a strange sensation… on the one hand, all the speeches and presentation added with the concentration of a large number of participants – all listening with attentive collectivity – injected me with a sense of solidarity. For a rare moment, I felt like I was in a movement. Not fragmented by geographical location, focal issue, random labelling of identity, but adhered in our mutual desire for change. The universality of this feeling was exhilirating.

Nonetheless, I soon found that I was losing out on what Medea was actually saying. The stuff of the matter was drowned by the style of her speech, her fervour, the soundbytes she articulated  very succinct and powerfully, the images used, the names of politicians she named with comfort in communication. I’m not sure why it irked me. After all, Bush has become a common good in terms of being a Global Asshole, at least within the social activists’ universe. It isn't surprising to hear hearts soar with the invocation for his resignation.

I am troubled because I really don’t want to react with a knee-jerk, inner-cheek-biting stance of “U.S.ophobia”. But, it’s the positioning of US as a form of universal that perhaps pissed me of the most. The assured knowledge of being understood and supported. The standing ovation (Why? What? Why didn’t we stand when other women were sharing powerful narratives located other places?). I think the work that Code Pink does is amazing, but the embedded assumptions in the body of her speech and my automatic impression, as well as what I experience as part of the larger audience, dislocates a reading of a particular or specific locale, which is the U.S.

While it paints a picture of initiatives done in the U.S. in relation to politics related to the area, simultaneously, it draws the resignation of Bush as a universal priority and imperative. Is it? Perhaps, with the power of the U.S and its influence, it is fair to claim that everyone is affected by his callousness to some degree. But to invoke that and rouse such a reverberation of emotive support through language and texture of communication that assumes a wealth shared signs with Self as the centre of the universal… something just feels so fishy. It reverberates too uncomfortably with all other mass media narratives that plonks perspective from the U.S. as the centre that determines the 'universal' and normative. Not sure if I have not interrogated this enough, but anyway, I felt this dulls the bright edge of Code Pink’s radicalism. Too familiar, too assured, too comfortable, too coherent...

When Lydia Alpizar chose to speak in Spanish to resist the dominance of English in global conferences, it just made sense. At the same time, something still quite sit right. I'll blog about this later. Anyway, she raised the crisis of resources to support women's movements work for change, and made a suggestion of bigger NGOs to help channel funding for smaller organisations and efforts who may not have as wide a network of contacts etc. Although I share runningtoddler's concern, I am also reminded of channeling of resources to small networks and groups in Aceh and wonder how that would/have or would/have not trouble/d the discussions.

Okay, enough rambling. More later. 

Head's still reeeling from yesterday afternoon's, "Gender and Justice in the Gene Age" session. The science of human cloning and the scenarios painted were all straight out of Science Fiction, which initially suspended all thoughts / objections on the social and cultural implications of this technology. The idea of a world where one can go to a website and fill out a form to genetically design the perfect baby (right colour, right nose shape, right gender, no congenital diseases, no disabilities, no quirks) was fantastic in a Philip K Dick / Marge Piercy sort of way. Or perhaps a world where one's vanity can be taken to extreme levels by making clones of one's self. Grotesque. Bizarre. Interesting. Who wouldn't want to live in a comic book world? A part of my brain was definitely thinking: "Yeah, I'd like to witness a world like that. Live in it, perhaps."

Thankfully, the women in the panel (which included the brilliant Marsha Darling*) had tackled the issue enough that the Science Fiction of it no longer fazed them and they were able to raise really, really good points about the dangers of the Gene Age. They were voices of reason to minds which were too caught up in the idea of re-creating the world by pushing science to its limits. As they explained the science behind genetics and eugenics, they also discussed their implications. A world where one can have "designer babies" is a world that will not tolerate human frailty and aberrations. It will not accommodate people with disabilities, messed up facial and bodily features, and any kind of quirk.  It will spawn mutations of existing discriminatory values and prejudices against particular genders, races, and human traits to scary levels. It will create glaringly wrong heirarchies / inequalities based on one's genetic make-up and how much one can afford to have their and their offspring's genes manipulated. It's a world where Nature wins over Nurture through expensive, artificial methods.

And a world like this is not so far off the horizon. The experiments have begun and the new reproductive technologies are already being developed. Websites where one can choose the sex of one's babies are already up and running. And these things are happening at the expense of women. The base material for all genetic experimentation is the female egg cell. To fully set up the new genetic order will require massive experimentation and testing and will need gazillon embryonic cells. And guess who's manufacturing those cells? Guess who's being offered major money to ingest harmful drugs to generate more eggs for harvesting? Guess who's susceptible / in need of such financial resources?  Women. Poor, un-informed women, in particular.

So once again so-called human development is taking place on women's bodies. Surprise, surprise.

Come to think of it, a world where particular human genetic traits are valued over others is not a new idea. A crazy dude from Austria, way back in the 1940's actually attempted to wipe out an entire race simply because they were not Arian enough. He had a funny mustache and liked to be greeted people by obliquely raising his arm and saying "Hail, Hitler". He was a huge supporter of eugenics, too. And in his fucked up mind, there was nothing wrong with wanting a "perfect" race. And his experiment totally justified the scores of people he massacred.

Remembering this actually puts  the whole Gene Age idea in perspective for me. It's cool for comic books, literature and movies, but we can definitely not suspend our disbelief and objections to it in the real world. Not when the cost and effect of such scientific development are bourne by those who will be further fucked by it.

________________

* I was pretty lucky to have attended a session in the last AWID Forum (in Guadalajara, Mexico) on Genetics and Gender, where Marsha Darling spoke about the gender implications of eugenics and genetic engineering. After that session, I was hanging out at the hotel bar with KarenB, who knew Marsha Darling personally. When Marsha Darling came over to join us, I was so much in awe (typical reaction to anyone who says anything that blows my mind) that I actually made a fool of myself and did the "I'm not worthy" bow to her. I think it embarassed her a bit...Sheesh. What a groupie.

October 29, 2005, Saturday, 11:00-12:30

Organized by UNIFEM, the session discussed the perennial tensions between religion and human rights, particularly women's rights and attempted to identify spaces and mechanisms where these may be negotiated.

Islam
By Sallbiah Ahmad, Lawyer/ Researcher, Malaysia and
Siti Musdah Mulia, Religions Affairs Department, Indonesia
Sallbiah discussed the ramifications of the failure of secular liberalism to allow a freer exercise of the Islamic faith. The fundamentalism that emerged out of the political deprivation of Islamic communities has become the main medium towards self-determination and at the same time has made feminist articulation more difficult. Sallbiah said that despite the tensions between universal principles and cultural relativism, the latter is nonetheless meant not to invalidate human rights nor effect moral degeneration. The challenge is to activate the productive synergy between religion on the one hand and secularism and human rights on the other.

Siti said that the principle of Tawhid actually invalidates the ongoing subordination and oppression of women in most Islamic communities since Tawhid calls for quality and freedom. Siti’s group recently drafted a proposed law that would otherwise “correct” the Shariah law. The proposal, among others intends to make marriage as a contract between the bride and the groom rather than the bride’s father and the groom; limit the authority of the bride’s guardian in marriage; enable women and non-Muslims to participate in marriage as witnesses and transform mahar or dowry as a symbol of love and responsibility from being a “price of vagina.” Unfortunately, the proposal was swamped with protests and eventually failed to go through the formal legislative processes.

Buddhism
By Ouyporn Khuankeuw, Gender Trainer, Thailand
Ouyporn provided a brief background on Buddhism, as a faith which puts a premium on self-reliance---which makes its distinct from other religions which are centered on one or more gods. Theravada Buddhism which is more popular in South Asia and Southeast Asia is deemed as more oppressive to women, unlike Mahayana which accommodates women in the higher tiers of the Buddhist hierarchy. Ouyporn identified the common link between Buddhism and feminism. While the former is opposed to any form of suffering (e.g. ignorance, greed, anger and ambition), the latter is opposed to oppression (par. inequality). Both suffering and oppression trace their beginnings in patriarchy. Ouyporn said that among the means through which women’s concerns may be advanced is to redefine the concept of karma which naturalizes suffering and oppression. Revisiting the core values of Buddhism would also yield spaces that allow women’s empowerment. The search of wisdom and compassion through the right view (one of the steps towards the attainment of the Four Noble Truths) and meditation (e.g. communication) should not be barrier towards women’s empowerment.

Christianity
by Arche Ligo, Women’s Studies, St. Scolastica College, Philippines
Arche explained that the liberation theology movement sees two major dimensions of the religious experience. Religion is at once nurtured through personal encounters and reinforced by social institutions. It is the influence of religion in social institutions that primarily impacts on the construction of gender and eventually oppression. This, particularly as Christianity aims to surface among the faithful the “supreme capacity for sacrifice.” Arche said that Catholic and Jewish feminists have found solidarity in the project of revisiting and reinterpreting the scriptures --- whose current reading dates back to Augustine of Hippo, who asserted that “we are men, you are women; we are heads, you are members; we are masters, you are slaves.” Moreover, unlike Protestant Christian, Catholics encounter the Bible mainly through the priestly tool. Christian women are thus in the lowest tiers of the church hierarchy (God, Church, priest, man) and at the same time associated with the body rather than the spirit. Arche asserted that equality among sexes can be articulated within the context of Christianity, given that both women and men are created in the likeness of God and that it is through the women’s bodies that the whole drama of creation is played out.

Panel Reactor, Toni Kasim, Sis Forum Malaysia
Toni said that while it is important to pinpoint spaces within the religious context for integrating gender concerns, it is equally important to external institutions and mechanisms which can put this project forward. She posed the question: is there really a secular state? The struggle for human rights must not always assume the existence of a functional state. While courts may be places where grievances may be aired, the imperative of seeking practical justice is often untapped due to the “guilt” that surrounds it --- in cases where religion deems such move as unacceptable. She added that such situations only exemplify the so called private voice and public voice of women. Even as they recognize the oppression emanating from religious practices, women often opt to be silent about it and defend the community particularly in cases where communities happen to be a minority. Despite the massive influence of the patriarchal side of religions and the tensions even among feminists (e.g. academicians and activists), tasks of deconstruction and rereading must continue.

Women on Waves sails with a mainly women's crew to take safe medical abortions to countries where abortion is restricted. The way it works legally is that Dutch law applies on the ship so the crew can sail to a country, take women on board, go out 12 miles out to sea  and give the abortion pill. Women are supplied with the 2nd pill which means women can abort at home.
Women on Waves have visited the shores of Ireland, Poland and Portugal, whre abortion is restricted to attempt to put abortion back on public agenda.  Often successfuly. In Ireland three Irish women have filed a case against the Irish government asserting their right to safe, medical abortions. Another outcome was the mobilisation of doctors who have formed Doctors for Choice.

The boat sailed to Poland where abortion was legal but was criminalised after the fall of communism. As happens when the boat sails into harbours, there are many people there to meet the boat - some friendly and some aggressive. In Poland there were many angry and abusive male protesters. But the positive spin off is that there was an increase of 12% in support of abortion to be legalised. This means that there is now a majority in support of abortion... from 44% to 56%.

A year ago Women on Waves sailed to Portugal where the government actively prosecuted people for assisting or undergoing abortion. A nurse been in prison for 6 years for performing abortions.

The Minister of Defence decided that they were a threat to national security so sent 2 war ships to meet the boat. Whenever the ship arrives there is lots of media attention. With the 2 war ships the media attention was very high globally with coverage from BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera.

Women on Waves could not dock but opened a hotline and many women caled. A public announcement was made via TV on how to use a pill for an abortion. The website was shown on TV.

On average Women on Waves get 36 000 hits a month and many emails in five languages.

Women are dying because they cannot access safe, medical abortions.
Women on Waves are doing critical, brave work...

Here we are again. The feminist movement. We deconstruct boxes while creating boxes of our own. I don't know where I belong in all of this. Am I a quasi feminist? Am I not activist enough? Am I not feminist enough? Does my lack of ability to articulate as intellectually as all the other older and sage feminists lead people to label me? Frances Kissling says that we're afraid as feminist activists to speak out in spaces that belong to others in case they disagree with us. Is that true? What if we do speak out and we get so frustrated and irritated that people refuse to listen and we don't know how else to make our argument? What about feminist spaces? Do we all really say what we want to say? Yes, we find women who say just the right things and the audience applauds. But why do I feel some ambiguity when I hear these words? Maybe because after so many years of feminism, the movement is just as hierarchical as any other institution. Somehow I feel like there's too much pc... am I on pc overload?

PC = politically correct