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UW-EC official finds cooperation at U.N. womenIforumBy Mary Howardder-Telegram staffLeaWhile American and European women carried on dialogues about political issues, Zionism and apartheid, women from developing countries sought information about raising poultry.Despite the contrast, Sarah Harder of Eau Claire, who attended the United Nations-sponsored forum and conference in Nairobi, Kenya, noticed that women who sharply differed in ideology were ready to listen and learn fromothers.Harder, special assistant to the vice chancellor for educational opportunity at the University of Wis-consin-Eau Claire, has been active in national and international organizations designed to improve economic and social conditions for women.She returned to Eau Claire earlier this week after participating in forum workshops on such topics as the needs of rural women and older women, reproductive health and services, maternal andchild health, and poverty.The forum and conference, which closed Friday, drew about 14,000 people, including 3,000 of-deleeatesficialtries.elegates from 157 coun-Harder moderated three 50-minute briefings each day withthe 37-member U.S. delegation headed by Maureen Reagan, President Reagan’s daughter. Through the briefings, the 2,000 American forum participants had access to official action of the delegations.However, Harder said she spent most of her time in the courtyard outside the conference center watching and talking to women of all races and economic classes.She was fascinated by a “tool and tech’’ display that helped women of Third World countries learn how to build fuel-efficient, one-pot stoves, latrines and durable water containers.“That tool and tech place was a living example of appropriate technology for women in developing countries and made me recognize the incredible labor of beSarah HarderTaste of the Third Worlding a woman in the Third World,’’ Harder said.She watched a woman use a grinding stone to prepare a porridge of millet, sorghum and root. “It took her two hours a day togrind porridge for breakfast,” Harder said. That burden of labor — you can smell it, sense it, feel it. It’s moving and depressing to recognize the burden of so many women, who bear it with such matter-of-fact good humor and such optimism that one must have hope.In a conversation with two college-educated women, Harder learned what middle-class life is like in Kenya’s western region.The women were high school teachers in their mid-30s — one had eight children, the other, six. On a typical day, they rose at 5 a.m., looked over the field work and organized the agricultural laborers. Before leaving for school, they arranged work for the domestic help, who cared for the children and made meals. Without the servants, it would be difficult to work outside the home, the women told Harder. The husbands also were teachers and only returned home on weekends.Although Kenya has a strong, emerging middle class, Harder contends that an uncontrolledbirth rate will continue to create economic hardship. The average number of children is 13, Harder said.“Birth control is hardly practiced and the results of a population explosion are horrifying',” said Harder, who took a special tour of Nairobi rather than the government-approved tour.“We saw mansions that rival anything Hollywood has to offer on a tour that also took us to a tin-roofed valley of outcasts of Nairobi society.“The settlement is owned by black Kenyans and is not racial in nature but in class distinction. The people rent small spaces and build shacks of tin and cardboard. Without warning, owners send in bulldozers to ram it (the settlement) all down. The tenants pay rent again to rebuild.“There is no water, only a muddy stream ?t one end of the settlement. The children are clothed and there is not abject starvation, but for a child to survive to the age of 3 or 4. because of the unsanitary conditions, is a miracle,she said.The settlement is a harsh example, Harder said, of rural displacement when there is no longer the possibility of living off the land.Harder said she is optimistic that delegations to the conference will issue resolutions dealing with poverty and economic strife. However, little has been achieved since the World Plan of Action was developed at the U.N. Conference in Mexico City in 1975, she said.“Buried in every country’s traditions are both discrimination against women and discounting of the roles and work performed b women. And discounting of wor can be as devastating as overt discrimination, Harder said.“In no country of the world does the Gross National Product record the value of the unpaid contributions of work of women, she said.Other issues of worldwide significance are yet to be confronted, Harder said, citing illiteracy, domestic violence, women as refugees and economic development.
Newspaper Details
Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US
Sat, Jul 27, 1985
Page 3
Full Page
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USA 21 Oct 2019
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