Gendering September 11th, 2001

EDITOR’S NOTE: The terrorist attacks on the United States of America and the consequences of those attacks are already being committed to memory as a date - September 11th, 2001. Six days after the attacks, Peggy Antrobus, one of the early members of CAFRA and a founding member of Development Alternatives for Women in the New Era (DAWN), presented a paper on women’s response to globalisation. Following are those excerpts of her paper in which she makes links between globalisation, fundamentalism and women’s lives.

One thing is shared everywhere – the horror of what has happened, and the understanding that the events of September 11th, 2001 have changed our world and our lives irreversibly. This was not just an attack on America but a wake up call to all of us. It was a message to a world that has for too long ignored the pleas and claims of millions of people whose realities are very different from those of the people of the US, Canada and Europe – people whose lives and livelihoods have been stunted by a global economic system geared to place the well-being of the powerful and privileged above those of the majority of the world’s peoples, and for whom today’s integration of global markets ushers in not a golden age of opportunity but an intensification of the pressures that place at risk the livelihoods and security of millions of people and the planet itself.

As hard as it is to fathom and justify, there is a kind of inevitability about the use of US technology to destroy the symbols of patriarchal capitalism in the cities that are the centre of the military-industrial complex in the heart of today’s Superpower. There is a frightening logic; for many this kind of shocking terror is perhaps the only logical response to the increasing use of technology to continue the destruction of the lives of millions of people and the planet itself. The destruction of the lives of thousands of innocent people in New York and Washington was criminal, but we need to know that this kind of terror takes place on a daily basis in many parts of our world today. We need to know that there is a link between the structures that produce and perpetuate this kind destructiveness and those that subordinate women. And we need to know that when women’s lives are sacrificed for the sake of political and economic power and privilege, the consequences for all humanity are terrible! I want to make the link between the terrorism unleashed on innocent people in New York and Washington and the policies of the West toward people who live in the Third World, and the impact of both events and policies on women everywhere.

Political struggles are always about the control of resources. The division of the world between one group of countries that use their power and privilege to command the resources and productive capacities of another group of countries by exercising control over political, cultural and social structures used to be called colonialism. Today it is called globalisation. The globalisation of the economic, political, social and cultural structures is not new. What is new is the pace and extent of this process of integration. Facilitated by rapid advances in information technology and biotechnology, the world has become a single market-place where the gains go to those who have the means to take advantage of the opportunities presented for unprecedented wealth and privilege.

This process has been going on for a number of years, resulting in an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, within countries as well as between countries, but in a sense it was accelerated in the Decade of the 1980s, the decade termed by Latin Americans The Lost Decade. This decade saw the reversal of many of the gains made in the 1960s and 1970s as countries adopted the policy framework of Structural Adjustment, the conditions under which they received assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as they struggled to repay their international debts. Structural Adjustment policies go by different names – the Washington Consensus is one, neo-liberalism is another, but the package of policies is the same everywhere. These policies are not just economic, but have political, social and cultural consequences. The social consequences are well known. The cultural consequences of increasing violence and the turn to religious fundamentalism have been less so. But the political consequences are perhaps the most fundamental: these policies resulted in the restructuring of the role of the state, and the relationships among states, markets and civil society.

Women everywhere bore the brunt of these policies, which often resulted in cuts in social services and loss of jobs for women who predominated in these sectors of the economy. At the same time it was women, especially those in poor households, who had to fill the gaps created by these cuts, when states transferred responsibility for the care of the sick, the disabled and the elderly to the market, by the privatisation of services.

Accompanying the increased burden for women was an increase in the level of violence, including domestic violence. The increase in violence is related to a number of factors, but one factor that contributes to domestic violence that is related both to the increased sense of insecurity as well as to the struggle for economic resources is the rise in religious fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism exists in most religions, but one thing they all have in common is the control of women, and especially women’s sexuality, and the use of violence to impose this control. Violence is not only physical, but also psychological and even spiritual. Even the threat of violence is sufficient to control women.…Insecurity and loss of control drive many people to the certainties and promises of fundamentalism within their own faiths. Increasing poverty has also strengthened fundamentalist groups in many countries as parents use the educational and health services provided by these groups in the face of reduced access to public services in these fields.

Political power is reinforced when it can be linked to religious beliefs, and religious group use political connections to protect their interests. The symbiotic relationship between religion and politics can be lethal to women, as we have seen in many countries, and not only those in the Muslim world.

These groups used religious fundamentalism in two ways in order to secure and reinforce their political power– by adopting a code of conduct that offered a way of controlling their followers, and by espousing religious teachings that would guarantee control over women. As the carriers of the culture, the backbone of the family and the people on whom future generations depend, women support is critical for any revolutionary movement. In many countries women have suffered horribly at the hands of religious fundamentalists. The treatment of women by the Taliban is just the most publicised example. But women in India and Pakistan, Algeria, Sudan and Iraq all suffer from patriarchal interpretations of the Koran.

The policies of structural adjustment that were/are so devastating to women have their parallel in the political struggles waged over resources when religious fundamentalism was used to mobilise and reinforce political forces. When capitalism is unchecked, the vulnerable suffer and women, more so than any other goup, suffer since they have primary responsibility for the care of people. When patrarchy is unrestrained, men lose their humanity and a rule of terror is launched on the world.

At this time we need information, reflection, analysis and dialogue to find solutions that will stop the violence, not escalate it. We need a different perspective and women, speaking as women (as distinct from women speaking as politicians or experts of one sort or another) - can take the lead in this, in partnership with men who understand that patriarchy robs men of their humanity as it dehumanises women.

Peggy Antobus’s paper was presented at St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, on September 17th, 2001. Her presentation was sponsored by Development Studies, Women’s Studies, and The Coady International Institute.