Art, Activism & Global Change

I spent a great deal of time in the offices of Women in International Development (WID), now the office of Women and Gender in Global Perspectives (WGGP) as a child where my mother worked and became more interested in its programs and international efforts as an adolescent. Too old for a babysitter and too hot and bored with park district day camps, my afternoons dwindled away in the air conditioned resource room, watching documentaries on confident feminist activists and strong African women advocating for basic human needs. These global tales of injustice and pursuit of human rights fed my artistic and educational interests throughout high school and college. A plethora of resources at my fingertips enriched my understanding and fueled my critical voice.

Women in every part of the world are organizing to confront locations of power and seek social justice in light of the destructive practices of transnational corporations and accommodating governments. Globalization of the past thirty years has adversely affected all regions of the world and has caused the obliteration of progress made in the reproductive rights movements, and thus establishes the context in which organizing occurs. Globalization "evokes an overpowering transnational economy that engenders the homogenization of culture, the feminization of poverty, the annihilation of political autonomy for the relatively disempowered, and, ultimately, ecological catastrophe, as an untenable consumerist model is spread around a globe that can ill afford it" (Shohat 1998).

In the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have both contributed to the unimpeded power of transnational corporations and the weakening of nation-states. President Bush's misleading argument that the 1997 Kyoto treaty unfairly exempts developing countries like China and India led to U.S. withdrawal from the treaty on greenhouse gas emissions. The lack of public query into these policy decisions may stand as evidence that policy makers were uninhibited in determining the role of the U.S. in the world.

In addition, the resurgence of power of the conservative far right in the U.S. has caused unprecedented infringement upon what must be considered the inalienable human rights of women and men in both the public and private sphere. Women are faced with decreasing wages, lack of sufficient benefits and maternity leave, a rise in temporary employment, loss of jobs and an increase in homelessness and poverty. At the same time, Americans have lost faith in the democratic process as fewer people vote and participate in the political process.

The potential for women to use human rights language as a tool to extend the impact of international legal principles depends on our ability to organize the efforts of women of all disparate backgrounds and agendas. It is critical to understand and appreciate the heterogeneity of cultures and beliefs and utilize this knowledge to create a dialogue between feminist communities. Through an informed dialogue we may deconstruct the power structures and socioeconomic practices that give precedence to the exploitive capitalist regime embedded in the hierarchies of global superpowers.