Feminist world-building: Creative energies, collective journeys
SHOBHA SHUKLA - CNS
... So goes the theme of the 4th Asia Pacific Feminist Forum (APFF) which will be held in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand next month. This theme is a pointer towards channelising the energies of people of all genders who work to defend human rights and promote gender equality to collectively resist the patriarchal, militarised and greed-driven world we are living in, and envisioning a feminist world order.
What is a feminist world order?
A feminist system means having a different kind of development model that is based on sharing and caring. As opposed to the current patriarchal systems which use power and violence against most other people in order for a few to gain power, feminism uses care and solidarity to share and redistribute power. A feminist system is one that is socially just and ecologically sustainable for everyone - everywhere, and it is rooted in development justice.
For Abia Akram, founder and CEO of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities in Pakistan, "a feminist world is a place where women and all diverse genders can feel their strength and be engaged meaningfully at grassroots level to bring about systematic changes, where we can see the engagement of the feminist approach through transformative laws, and legal practices that are shaped according to human rights perspective."
Sharing her personal experience, Eni Lestari, a migrant rights activist and the Chairperson of International Migrants Alliance says, "I have been involved with women migration and feminist movements for more than two decades now. I have seen how neoliberal globalisation has intensified structural exploitation, and how every new crisis brings more poverty, displacement and unemployment. I moved out of my country Indonesia as a migrant because of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. At that time, me and my colleagues had thought that this displacement would be a passing phenomenon. But sadly, since then more and more people have been forced to displace as migration has become part of the economic development project for many capitalist countries. Today, the number of migrants has reached nearly 300 million- which is equal to the whole population of my country."
"In a feminist world there would be such an economic and political environment in every country where everyone will be treated fairly with equality and where no one will have to migrate or get displaced just to survive. A feminist world is a world where women will lead, facilitate and ensure that everyone in society is treated with justice and equality," added Eni Lestari.
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