Sep 23, 2006 6:13:46 AM cite

As long as women consider themselves victims of "the patriarchat" they will BE victims. So it is up to women to express themselves and not to attend the hail from others.

by mbl

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: In many countries religion and social conditions, social organisation put women into a very unfavourable situation. A woman, I believe, is the most important, the main link in life as a mother who gives birth to a child, who brings up children. Yet women’s labour and educational process as well aren’t thought through in today’s world, because family had a great importance in former times. Children grew up in families, from generation to generation brought up by mothers, because their father should care about how to provide the family with food, he was a hunter who brought the prey home, while women were busy caring for the house and looking after children. In the present world bringing children up is pushed into the background, it is given up to different organisations like nursery schools, kinder-gardens, schools, − to a million of organisations, because women have to work. Yet women’s labour isn’t paid as men’s. In comparison with men are women in an unequal position. In Africa, for instance, there are many tribes, plantations, and the main provider there is a woman, because she cultivates the fields. She plants corn, which provides food for the family. She sells corn to the government for unfavourable prices. Yet firms are more interested in coffee, for example, because this business is more profitable, more gainful. And it [the government] educates men, teaches them growing coffee. And field territories get lost; men are engaged in producing coffee, so women cannot feed their families, because after earning money with coffee men drink alcohol.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Abbas Beydoun: Women's issue is one of the most important issues in the world because it continuously touches people's life, so other issues are affected by this issue. Defending women's right is included in the context of human right.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: I think women have an incredible responsibility not only with the world but with themselves. I think, it depends not only on men to open the space for women to exist and to be protagonists of history. In fact, the role of women through history has been of extreme importance. Recently, I have been reading Hungarian writer Sándor Márai, who says that the difference between men and women is that for women, men are their most important thing, their man or their home or their families, that's their the biggest struggle. Of course, this is a very limited edition in a way. I think women are more and more having transcendental roles in history -- in present and contemporary history. And, I think that the responsibility they have with humanity is to transmit their creative generative power into humanity. Women have been supporting the deeds of men of this macho world. And, I think, the time has come for women to use their apparent weakness in a way that they can make us more human, that they can make us more complete. Why are women still at a disadvantage? I think, we have to ask women as well.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Andries Botha: Well, I think the answer is quite simple. It goes, it's simply because men are still in charge. It’s about power. It’s about a particular notion of power. It’s about the inability to affirm the human equality of 50% of the people on this planet. It’s very simple. Until such time as the fundamental humanity of woman is appreciated to find clarified and given political agency. Until men understand that their power cannot equally, or equitably, be found in the world unless they are able to accord equal status to women. Until that time the world will remain at imbalance. Women are not in power for the simple reason, because men don’t really want them to be in power, and secondly because I believe men don’t really consider them worthy of that power.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: I think it is so funny that we have democracies in the world and very advanced people, civilized as we call them, who have not taken women as equals. Nowhere on Earth yet has man taken women as an equal. Nowhere. And it’s so sad. Women are the mothers of our children. These are people who raise our children and we don’t take them into consideration when the systems are being made. And as long as it is so advancement of mankind cannot be done. This is limited to what mankind can do without the women. But has man learned that? We say we know the importance of equality. Look how many women today, today as you and I we sit and talk, will be beaten up at home. How many women will be killed today by their husbands, their lovers, their partners? How many women will be destroyed in being put down physically and verbally and sexually abused? And we talk about we need to have the women equal with us. No we don’t. We just don’t have that yet. One day I pray that you and I will be able to help the women to rise to our equal side. And only then will man like myself will be able to arrive at my rightful destiny. Whatever that destiny is for man then I will be able to arrive. But until then I can never arrive because I don’t know which way I’m going to go. Only when men help the women to rise to his equal will he be able to arrive. So one day in near time to come I pray to the Great One that man will do so.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Anthony Arnove: I think the question of women's position globally in the world today comes back to a historical question about the nature of women's oppression in this economic system that we call globalization today; this economic system of capitalism. From its inception, capitalism has been premised upon a division of labor that has emphasized male participation in certain activity and has tried to carve out a place for women, which has relegated women to the role of a particularly oppressed section of society; a section of society which has at various points been told it can't participate in formal work in the workplace. And that its role, the role of women, has to be restricted to taking of the sick; taking care of the elderly; taking care of children; taking care of the home; taking care of men in this society. And it's in particular led to the fact that women are very often engaged in forms of labor, forms of work, which relieve the state, relieve society of having to meet those basic needs of caring for the next generation of workers; of caring for the elderly; of caring for the sick. So women find themselves in a position often of engaging in unpaid and underpaid work. In addition, when they do enter the workforce, as more and more women have been doing and increasingly the pattern of women's participation in the workforce is growing globally, you find then a double bind. That women are less paid in the workplace, face sexism and discrimination in the workplace; but then continue to face oppression, sexism, sexual violence, domestic violence outside of the workplace, in home, in the society. And the society actually benefits from that. The society under capitalism has a material interest in keeping women in that relegated place; keeping women and men separated; keeping women in a role of providing services, providing benefits to the society that the society or the state is not providing. And so, I think we have to understand in historical terms, and then understand why today it persists.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 10:15:00 AM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Because the gender and women are still disadvantaged in many countries are still [inaudible] because gender and inequality still exists [inaudible] second class citizen. In many countries, women are called second class citizen. They do not have education, there are no job, there are no job placement for them. When they say women [inaudible] and then I think [inaudible].

by Anuradha Koirala