Document 20: "International Perspectives: World Peace is a Women's Issue," from National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 185-91.
Introduction
While the NWC was a conference dedicated to the status of American women, international perspectives were welcomed and the National Plan of Action included a plank dealing with women's status on an international stage (see Document 42). In the 15th plank of the National Plan of Action, the NWC promoted women's greater participation in the peace movement and worldwide military issues. Many formal and informal meetings on peace and military issues were held during the NWC at which foreign women attending the conference as official visitors participated. In particular, on Sunday November 20th, during the Fourth Plenary Session, a series of peace and disarmament hearings took place parallel to the main meeting in the Coliseum.[66]
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INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES:
World Peace is a Women's Issue
"If women are the civilizers of the world, why aren't they civilizing it?"
Margaret Mead put the question to the women of many nations attending an unofficial congressional hearing on peace and disarmament at Seneca Falls South in the convention center on Sunday morning.
Her answer: Because there aren't enough women in "positions of power and negotiations" to get action "for the things women care about." Women are nurturers, she added, and one of the things that they care about is life.
"Everything is done in the name of protecting women and children," Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder of Colorado said. "But no one gets around to asking the women and children how they want to be protected."
In their own countries, women have always been in the lead in urging peace and disarmament. As the nuclear arms race quickens, they remain a massive source of support for nonviolent, humanistic solutions to conflict among nations.
Women from different countries discovered how many concerns they shared when they met together officially and cross-culturally in 1975 to draw up a World Plan of Action for women at the United Nations World Conference of the International Women's Year in Mexico City. The National Women's Conference at Houston and the 56 State and Territorial meetings that led up to it were an American response to the call for a Decade for Women issued at Mexico City. One of the purposes of the Houston Conference as spelled out in the law was "the assessment of the participation of women in efforts aimed at the development of friendly relations and cooperation among nations and to the strengthening of world peace."
The Commission sought outside support for the "International Perspectives" program at Houston and the participation of women from other countries. Those who took part were not only to explore how women can work together for peace and disarmament but also to relate the Conference to the worldwide advancement of women.
Eighty-three women from 56 countries came to Houston. Some came on their own. Others were official observers for their governments. Still others were sponsored by various organizations, including the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the German Marshall Fund, and the African-American Labor Center. Cuba also sent its first delegation of women.
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AD HOC HEARING
The role of women in achieving international peace and disarmament was the subject of the Sunday morning ad hoc hearing chaired by Congresswoman Schroeder, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, who was joined by Congresswoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke of California, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
These policymakers heard testimony from experts – all women – who were on hand to explain the intricate technical issues facing disarmament negotiators, issues on which it is sometimes claimed that women are not qualified to speak.
Randall Forsberg, a fellow of Harvard University's Program on Science and International Affairs, questioned the need for the size of the U.S. military establishment, now the single largest employer in the country. She suggested that this force is designed for intervention in international crises rather than for the defense of the continental United States against an invader. Our present system, she said, is designed to give us the capability to wage any kind of war anywhere in the world across the full spectrum of military power, including nuclear arms. In her view, this buildup makes us less safe than we would be if we settled for a smaller military force.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, a Boston pediatrician, described the clinical impact of nuclear radiation on human beings, including nursing mothers and unborn babies. The neutron bomb causes brain cells to swell, she said, creating a period of lucidity for the victim before she dies painfully – within 48 hours. She called on women to organize politically to ban this weapon.
Dr. Anne Cahn of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency warned that the $370 billion spent collectively by all the countries of the world on military forces in 1975 was a drain on the pocketbook of every family on earth. She noted that on the average, 60 times more is spent to equip a soldier than to educate a child. The world's budget for military research is more than six times its budget for energy research. Developed nations spend 20 times more for their military programs than they do for economic assistance to developing countries.
Military spending is one of the least effective ways to create jobs, she added. It requires spending on technology and machinery rather than on wages for the kind of worker who is often unemployed.
Dr. Betty G. Lall, professor at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, defined the task as finding a safe and sure way to
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A number of women described citizens' efforts to promote public discussion and action. Peggy Carlin, Vice President of the United Nations Association, talked about "Operation Turning Point," sponsored by the Institute of World Order, which aims to inform the public on the issues coming up at the special United Nations Sessions on Disarmament in May 1978. Josephine Pomerance, U.N. observer for Americans for Democratic Action, spoke of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy. With a membership of more than 50 national organizations, it is one of many lobbying groups trying to develop support for limiting the arms race.
IWY Commissioner Ethel Taylor, national coordinator of Women Strike for Peace, urged women crusading for women's rights to include peace campaigns in their agendas. Kay Camp, president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, reported that international conferences of women's organizations are paying more attention to peace and disarmament.
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A VOICE FOR WOMEN
A practical way to get the voices of women heard more directly in military and disarmament policy, as well as in foreign policy generally, is to encourage more young women to undertake the technical training that leads to high level Government positions. At a Saturday panel entitled "A Greater Voice for Women in Foreign Affairs," experienced professionals advised young women to study the newer fields of diplomacy such as food, population, energy, science and technology, environment, and arms control and urged that women Foreign Service officers be recruited on college campuses. They said women's organizations can help by recommending individual women for specific posts, urging Government agencies to put more women on U.S. delegations to international conferences, improving the flow of information on the world outside the United States, and monitoring U.S. aid to developing nations for their impact on women.
The other objective of the international program, to relate the Conference to the worldwide advancement of women, could advance the cause of peace as well. Some behavioral scientists now believe that polarized sex roles are the root cause of violence, and there is anthropological evidence that the least violent societies are those that make the least differentiation between the roles of men and women, while the most violent, such as our own, encourage a "macho" masculinity that glorifies war. If this is true, equality for women would reduce the root cause of violent attitudes that lead to military buildup and war.
In private conversations and panel discussions, American women learned how women in other countries deal with many of the issues under consideration at the Coliseum. Many American women were surprised, for instance, to learn that some of the less advanced countries had more women in elective and appointive office than the United State does.
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Health care in some countries is organized so that childbirth is managed by women. Some believe that women are able to contribute more to the physical and psychological comfort of the mother than the male obstetrician can. American women who would like to see women trained as midwives for home deliveries can profit by the experience of foreign countries where this is the practice.
American women have learned that lack of child care is less of a barrier to women in traditional cultures because there are always relatives available to care for a child while the mother works outside the home. Women in these countries have been supported by their culture, too, in the personal sacrifice of leaving their children to go abroad for study or diplomatic assignment.
CHILD CARE ABROAD
In a panel discussion on International Child Care Services sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, specialists from Israel, France, and Sweden described the services provided by their countries, all of which differ from the United States in assuming that the community shares with parents a continuing responsibility for children from their birth.
Dr. Rivka Bar Yosef of Israel reported that her country holds itself responsible to and for every person in it, and that no distinction is made between the welfare of parents and the welfare of children. Factories give mothers special breaks for nursing.
In France comprehensive maternal and infant health care is provided through the national health insurance plan. Creches for children up to age 3 are run by the Ministry of Health Care, while 90 percent of the 4- and 5-year-olds and all of the 6-year-olds attend "Ecoles Maternelles," operated by the Ministry of Education.
Annika Baude of Sweden described the rapid growth of publicly founded services for children of working parents in Sweden, where quality child care is subsidized by the Government. Both parents are allowed paid leave and a stipend to care for their child.
All three countries were judged ahead of the United States in providing child care for working parents and in their commitment to the well-being of children by members of the Coalition of Labor Union Women who visited their child care facilities, according to a summary of their findings presented by Joyce Miller, head of CLUW. Only an insignificant amount of child care is provided for profit in these countries, because all of them support child care systems at Government expense.
American women learned that there was much they could do to improve the lives of women in other countries. Again and again, the foreign visitors urged that American women use their newly won political power to work for peace and disarmament and to stop all the nuclear testing that has polluted some of the areas in their homelands.
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Americans learned too that they can help by monitoring the impact on women of U.S. development assistance programs and U.S. commercial development in poor countries. Women from developing countries described the effect of industrial development on their cultures. When a military base or other large installation is built, for example, the men are recruited to work on the project and receive training that brings them into an industrial economy, while the women are left at home to take over all of the work of family and village. Although they become conservators of the traditional culture, the women lose ground, and the gap between men and women widens.
WOMEN IN UNDERDEVELOPED NATIONS
At a symposium on "Women, Development, and Change," Mrs. Mary Kazunga of Zambia pointed out that women in her country rarely benefit from new technology because it is the men who are trained; "development" for the women too often means discouraging the production of native crafts which bring them income, she said.
Programs aimed at speeding the development of rural economies are directed by men who teach the new agricultural methods to the men rather than to the women who actually produce the food crops. In Kenya, for example, women grind the corn, but only men were taught to use an improved mechanized corn grinder because "women don't understand machinery!" In West Africa, men took over the management of stores that replaced the market stalls where women had traditionally sold their goods.
In a session on the media, many women complained that television programs from the United States have affected the native cultures by introducing Western stereotypes. Efforts of American women to limit violence and sex-role stereotyping on television ultimately help women in the developing countries where the imported shows have a big impact.
In formal presentations, the international guests described the uneven impact of change on women. In Mexico, for instance, there are good labor laws guaranteeing equal pay for women, pregnancy leave, and child care centers, but women are paid less than men in agriculture and they do not get equal treatment in family and property laws.
In Botswana, women are still expected to do the heavy work, to carry water and sand on their heads. In countries like Thailand and Indonesia, they are regarded as the "weaker sex." Law and custom have traditionally given women position and status in the family, but they have been largely denied the expression of their own individuality and independence anywhere else.
All the panelists agreed that the gap between "elite" women and women in rural areas is being widened by social and economic change and that they need better education to cope with the changes. For many, the priority was literacy at least equal to that of men.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead summed up the discussions. "Whether we come from a civilization that is a thousand years older than ours, or from a civilization that has only recently come into the United Nations society, we are all dealing with the same issues," she said. "But let us be ever alert to the danger in trying to force the same solutions on everyone."
FOREIGN GUESTS IMPRESSIONS
Much of the participation of the international visitors was informal. In the International Lounge set aside for them near Seneca Falls South, they could talk with American women and each other all during the Conference.
They talked of the multiple burdens and responsibilities of women in their countries seriously and with surprising optimism. Many talked about what meeting American women meant to them.
"I was really struck by the confidence of American women," a woman from South Africa said. "We must learn this if we are to get what we want."
"The entire experience has opened my eyes to what is involved in creating a women's movement," a woman from India said. "I was also struck by how many of your issues as seen in your National Plan of Action are central to us in other countries – issues like education, planning of families, training for jobs, concerns of rural women."
"I will take back this utmost honesty, frankness, courage of American women," a woman from Bangladesh said. A Zambian visitor was impressed with the enthusiasm of American women and wished she could convey it to the women in her country. "We can go back and emphasize that women must unite, do things together, and depend on themselves for the things that they want to do," a woman from Botswana added. "I hope the spirit of Houston will carry on."
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Many women were impressed with the willingness of American women to tackle broad social problems. "I thought it would be purely cultural," a Nicaraguan confessed. "I thought the U.S. woman was too pampered and didn't realize she uses her liberty help others."
Several were heartened by the promise of more understanding for their countries and the cause of world peace in general. "How wonderful it would be if an international conference of this sort could be made to solve issues that are truly global," a woman from Egypt exclaimed. "I'm thinking now of the food problem, overpopulation, and arms trade."
A Fiji woman summed up the feeling of most: "American women can do a lot for the world if they would make world peace their issue."
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