Word: nairobi
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Indeed, the delegates' almost frenzied effort to complete their work and not let the conference collapse in discord reflected the nearly universal feeling that the Nairobi meeting represented an important step toward an international women's movement. For most of the participants, the gathering created a synergy that transcended the protests and the eye-glazing speeches. Women not only shared their common experience of oppression and inequity but reveled in positive personal qualities: determination, humor, intelligence. Many felt that it would only be a matter of time before "the spirit of Nairobi" would translate into action back home. "There...
...political nature of the U.N. parley was echoed at the NGO forum, where the Great Court of the University of Nairobi campus provided an outdoor bulletin board for the world's causes and conflicts. A Japanese peace group displayed life-size photographs of atom-bomb victims. The Pan Africanist Congress, a black South African liberation group, tacked up a banner showing a female guerrilla fighter. Free-form discussions of war and peace went on all day in three large blue-and-white-striped tents, known collectively as the Peace Tent. There all the gathering's anxious, angry or exhausted vented...
...have children, but that goal is still unrealized in large parts of the globe. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Kenya, where men's resistance to contraception has contributed to a stratospheric birthrate of 4%, the highest in the world. Birth control was a running controversy at the Nairobi meetings, where antiabortion groups and organizations opposed to artificial contraception clashed sharply with pro-choice and family-planning advocates. "Women must control their own fertility, which forms the basis for enjoying all other rights," insisted Sally Mugabe, head of the Zimbabwe delegation and wife of that country's Prime Minister...
...Skeptics felt that the gathering, even at its most high-minded, was fundamentally unimportant and ineffective. Before the conference took place, Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, a committed feminist, dismissed it as "one giant commemorative stamp." But for many participants, particularly those at the NGO forum, the significance of Nairobi was found less in the official proceedings of the U.N. meeting than in the peaceful and joyous way the swirling mix of women from the developed nations, the Third World and the Soviet bloc worked together on a one-to-one basis. Time after time, women linked arms and belted...
Whether that temporary epiphany can hasten true equality between the sexes remains to be seen. Like most U.N. ideals, the warm feelings of sisterly unity that infused Nairobi may be difficult to translate into concrete action in the rough-and-tumble forum of international politics. But many women nevertheless voiced their determination to try. Said Filipino Irene Santiago, of the Asian Women's Research and Action Network: "We are preparing for the long haul." --By Susan Tifft. Reported by Jane O'Reilly and Maryanne Vollers/Nairobi WOMEN WORLDWIDE...