AFRECON Regional Conference
Public
Service International
PSI Women’s
Seminar
Workshop
on Globalization
September 23, 2003
1:30 – 6:00
Participant Handouts
-- Page
Break --
1. Starting
with Women’s Lives
Objectives:
·
Determine
ways that globalization is affecting women’s lives.
·
Recognize
the power we have as union women to make change.
·
Experience
a tool for doing a gender analysis of the economy.
Facilitators: Bev Burke and Suzanne Doerge
Participants introduce themselves. Facilitators present the objectives, the
workshop plan and the “Wall”.
Identify changes that have taken place in jobs and
social services in the last 5 years.
Note differences and similarities among countries.
Explore how these changes in the economy are
affecting women in their homes, communities, workplaces and unions.
Explore the role that women’s work plays in today’s
economy. Discuss how women are affected differently than men and the
differences among women.
Identify the global events and trends that are
creating this situation.
Recognize the power we have to create positive
change. Look at what is needed in order
to ensure that women’s work is valued in the economy. Name key actions to take.
-- Page Break --
1. Gender
Analysis seeks to:
·
Make
women’s experience visible;
·
Look
at both paid and unpaid work;
·
Recognize
women’s work is often undervalued, invisible and underpaid;
·
Explore
difference between women and men;
·
Recognize
differences in power and privilege among women;
·
Affirm
women’s power and leadership.
-- Page Break --
0. Task:
Changes to Jobs and Public Services
·
Work
with your partner to review the list of changes below.
·
Put a
check beside the changes to jobs or public services that have
taken place in your country in the last 10 years.
·
Add
to the list, other key changes you have experienced.
You have three minutes.
|
Changes to Jobs |
Changes to Public Services |
|
1. Public sector jobs moved to
private sector. 2. Increase in informal sector. 3. Health and safety
legislation weaker. 4. Increased workload. 5. New jobs highly skilled or
low paying. Other changes: |
1. Cuts to publicly funded health care. 2. Privatization of services
(water, electricity, etc). 3. Housing cost increased. 4. Women’s programs cut. 5. Increased cost of medicine. Other changes: |
-- Page Break --
4. Small Group Task: Impact
on Women’s Lives
- Spend 15 minutes discussing
how changes to jobs and public services are affecting you or women you
know, in the area of your life you are discussing (home, community, workplace
or union).
- Then identify four key experiences and headline them on the paper stones (using
very few words).
-
Assign two people to report back.
--
Page Break --
5. The Work Women Do
5.1 Mopping Madly
It is the end of your workday, but you still have
to get one last floor mopped. You are worried about finishing on time to be
able to get your son to the doctor. Right
then, a co‑worker walks up and begins to talk to you about the importance
of attending a community meeting on AIDS. You feel you should be there to
represent your local. You find yourself:
-
Mopping
very fast
-
While
checking your watch
-
And
talking to your co‑worker
5.2 What's Cooking
You live with a family working as a domestic
worker. You are stirring a pot when the two
year old toddler knocks the clothes of the line you had just hung up to dry. Startled,
the toddler starts to cry. You are worried about all the commotion and
try to calm things down.
You find
yourself:
- Stirring
the pot to prevent the food from burning
- Hanging
the clothes back up on the line.
- While
consoling the two year old at your feet.
5.3 Baby's Burping
As you had an important meeting at work today, you
wore your new blouse. After picking up your baby at your mother’s, you went
straight to a union meeting to discuss cuts to education. You are raising your
hand to make an important point, when your baby burps on your new blouse that
you know you had better wipe off immediately.
You find yourself:
- Juggling
your baby
- Trying
to wipe off the stain
- While
keeping your hand in the air to make your point.
5.4 Jostling Along
You
are taking your aunt to the doctor on the bus.
You find one seat for her so you stand up beside
her holding onto the bar with one hand. In a shoulder bag, you are carrying union
leaflets. Your aunt is telling you another one of her
very long stories, when the bus starts to make sharp turns. As you sway back and forth, your leaflets
fall to the floor.
You
find yourself:
-
Holding
onto the bar while swaying back and forth
-
Picking
up the leaflets and placing them back in the bag
-
While
nodding at your aunt to show you are listening.
-- Page Break --
1.
Women’s Work
1.1
Unpaid
-
Women
do $11 trillion of unpaid work globally each year.
-
In
6.2 Underpaid
- Worldwide
women earn on average 75% of the wage that men earn.
-
Worldwide
women contribute 66% of the hours worked each day, earn only ten percent of the
world’s income and own only one percent of the world’s property.
-
More women than men are being pushed into informal
sector
2.1
Undervalued
-
All
the unpaid work women do in caring for family and raising food is not
considered in assessing a countries economy.
-
When
women are paid to do domestic work in someone elses home, the pay is very low.
-
Worldwide
women hold only 14% of the administrative and managerial positions, and less
than 6% of senior management positions.
-- Page Break --
7. Women Earn Less Than Men Earn
Worldwide women earn an average
of 75% of the wage that men earn.
|
AFRICA-ARAB COUNTRIES |
Women’s average earnings as % of men’s |
|
|
- |
|
|
69 |
|
|
60 |
|
|
65 |
|
|
68 |
|
|
- |
|
|
61 |
|
|
58 |
|
|
37 |
|
Democratic |
55 |
|
|
- |
|
|
37 |
|
|
75 |
|
|
47 |
|
|
29 |
|
|
89 |
|
|
29 |
|
|
70 |
|
|
62 |
|
|
36 |
|
|
50 |
|
|
59 |
|
|
43 |
|
|
- |
|
|
68 |
|
|
52 |
|
|
44 |
|
|
43 |
|
|
71 |
|
|
47 |
|
|
35 |
|
|
66 |
|
|
61 |
|
|
60 |
-- Page Break –
8. GAINS
Some gains have been made. Having used quotas to promote women’s
leadership, some African countries now have a higher percentage of women in
government than wealthier countries.
Percentage of Women Leaders in
Government
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What other gains have women made?
-- Page Break –
9. Privatization
–Who Decides?
·
International Financial Institutions –
IMF and World Bank.
In return for new loans in order to pay the
interest on the old loans, countries must undergo Structural Adjustment. This includes:
·
Cutting
government spending (including health and education)
·
Privatizing
government enterprises
·
World Trade Organization (WTO)
·
Sets
international rules of trade.
·
Member
countries are currently negotiating new rules to liberalize trade in public
services (health, education, water and social services).
·
This
means more public services will be privatized, leaving less control in the
hands of national governments.
* Transnational Corporations
·
Transnational
corporations with large profits to gain from proposed new trade rules are
regularly consulted and actively influence other decision-makers.
-- Page Break --
10. Globalization
Corporations are able to move
to countries with:
‑ lowest
taxes;
‑ lowest
wages;
‑ lowest
labour and environmental standards.
Governments are pressured to:
|
lower wages, labour and environmental standards to attract business |
lower taxes and reduce spending by cutting social programmes and
privatizing services |
Decisions that affect our
lives are increasingly being made by corporations.
1. Globalization – Who Benefits?
·
50%
of the hundred largest economies in the world are transnational corporations
(TNCs), who do not have to be accountable to the public.
·
The
BENEFITS for globalization flow mostly to the corporate elite in the “North”,
most of whom are white men. The BURDENS of globalization are borne mostly
by people of the “South”, the majority of whom are
people of colour.
·
TNC’s
are not job generators. Over the past 10 years, the top 500 corporations let go
over 400,000 workers per year.
-- Page Break --
12. NEPAD-
New
Partnership for
Promoters say:
Ø It is an African response, launched by African
heads of government.
Ø It seeks to eradicate poverty and promote
sustainable development.
Ø One of its goals is to promote the role of women.
Ø It addresses women’s income-generation, access to
credit, education and training.
Critics say:
Ø It repackages old and unsuccessful strategies like
Structural Adjustment.
Ø It promotes a state whose role is to be open to
foreign business.
Ø It will benefit the wealthy class of people.
Ø NEPAD
is Gender Blind as it:
·
Ignores
the fact that structural adjustment has deepened poverty for women and the poor.
·
Fails
to address fundamental causes of women’s poverty: discriminatory laws, land
reform, and public expenditure.
·
Ignores
needs of small enterprises – where women predominate.
·
Leads
to further exploitation of women’s unpaid labour.
Ø
Source:
-- Page Break –
13. Three Kinds of Power
Power – over
one
person or group has power over another person or group. Ex. racism, apartheid,
sexism.
Power – within
our
inner strength, self-confidence, sense of determination or a spiritual source.
Power –with
solidarity, sisterhood, community. We increase our power as we join with others.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
14. Task
· Think of an action you want to take based on your learning from this
workshop.
· Write it on the pink woman and consider where you want to post it on
the Wall