The Wash Rag Issue 3.5 November, 1995 WHAT WAS RIGHT ABOUT IT NGO ‘95 HUAIROU, CHINA Despite the many inconveniences and disappointments, I still don’t regret going to the NGO Forum. The tours of the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and the Beijing Zoo, though all too rushed and short, were a tantalizing glimpse of China’s political and cultural greatness. The many crafts sold at every place we stopped were inexpensive and made by skilled craftsmen. The opening ceremonies of the NGO Forum were held at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, and the evening started with an amazing ride in a convoy of busses down a highway closed to all traffic but us. The road was lined by Chinese watching the spectacle of what must have been two to three hundred busses rolling down the highway into Beijing. One couldn’t help but feel like a celebrity. The stadium held 15,000, according to the gossip, and it was filled by the time the event started. The anticipation and excitement were high, and the entertainment was very well put together with school children, native Chinese musicians and dancers, the Beijing Opera, a balloon release and of course the spectacular release of 10,000 doves at the end of the event. Not to be out done by Goodyear, a blimp circled overhead inscribed with the conference aims, “peace, development, equality” in both Chinese and English. I was able to tape most of it before my camcorder batteries gave out, unfortunately missing the Beijing Opera and the release of the doves, quite an emotional few seconds. Of the four workshops I was able to attend, all were excellent and I gained understanding for women from other countries from them, as well as useful information about sexual harassment, working with the media, and fund raising. One of the workshops was held by a group of Pakistani women about working women in Pakistan. Having followed Benizir Bhutto’s rise and fall and rise to power, I was interested to find out that most working women in Pakistan hold high level jobs and very few work in factories or as clerical workers. It seems that Pakistani husbands don’t want their wives to work outside their homes so they mostly have cottage industries which are passed on from mother to daughter. Of course, this excludes them from all forms of state control or benefit as well. There were representatives from academia, labor unions, clerical workers and government workers. The clerical worker described sexual harassment as being very similar to how it occurs in the US. The teacher described how young single teachers are well received but when they marry, they are often let go as the school directors do not want teachers who have husbands and children to interfere with their work. She also told of how they are trying to raise the literacy of young women by encouraging the parents of young women working at home in cottage industries to send their daughters to school. The Japanese women who talked about their first successful sexual harassment case were all aglow with the success. What a great idea, to form a support group for a woman who has filed a sexual harassment complaint against an employer. We have a lot to learn from those women, and I have a lot of reading about it to do when I have time. But the workshop from which I got the most information was one that never took place. There were about 40 of us in a tent waiting for a workshop to take place when a woman in the audience got up and asked if the presenter was there. Nobody was, so she said she was tired of going to workshops that never happened and why didn’t we at least hold a discussion group. Everyone agreed and participated enthusiastically. I especially got two extraordinary ideas from this workshop. The first came from some Scandinavian women, a number were Norwegian and Swedes, but I believe that there may have been some from Denmark and Finland. They have had extremely good luck fighting sexual harassment through the unions. Their unions are apparently very strong and have refused to allow the sexual harassment of women members. The other was from an American woman, also a union member, who wanted us to understand that in order for her to get the cooperation of fellow union members, mostly men, she had to have good relations with them which excluded the vilification of men in general. It is good to hear that these women have found something that works. Unfortunately, the membership of unions in the US is down and does not constitute the majority of people working and management has done much in recent years to weaken them. I don’t at all fault them for their successes, but rather applaud their resourcefulness. But this will not do much to help the many who don’t have a union or anyone else to go to bat for them. In fact, most US women must fend both financially and politically/socially/emotionally for themselves when faced with a sexual harassment situation. The revelations of Clarence Thomas’ activities when EEOC director as well as recent news about the Captain Everett Greene, who headed the Equal Opportunity Division of the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington and has been accused of having an “unduly familiar personal relationship with a junior subordinate” and of “Creating a hostile work environment,” serve to emphasize that the US government bureaucracy is hamstrung and ineffective because of incompetence and the pervasiveness of the “old boy’s network.” This was brought home to me on receiving the resolutions from the UN after the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing. The UN resolution states, “Sexual harassment is described in the Platform as ‘an affront to a worker’s dignity” that prevents women from making a contribution commensurate with their abilities.” However, the US Commitment contains not a single word about sexual harassment. Unless sexual harassment is to be lumped with domestic violence, rape, and child abuse under violence against women, which is not spelled out, the US government has no intention of doing anything at all about sexual harassment in the US during the next five years, when the next UN conference on women is to be held. We should all write the US delegation to make known that this is not acceptable. A list of the members of the US delegation to the 4th world conference on women is attached. Not a single one of the abortion rights workshops I tried to attend took place, though I went and passed out fliers for my pro-choice book. My favorite place to go at the Forum at times when I found a workshop was not going to take place or between workshops was the Grass Roots tent, where there was always something interesting going on. The people there were friendly and interested in you, and eager to share their own special interest. I recall with pleasure a presentation there by a half dozen African women about their self-help projects which ended with an enthusiastic song in some African language. One felt that these women could change the world from listening to their rich powerful voices. LOOKING THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY Ever since I got back from the NGO Forum in Huairou, China, I’ve been thinking about all of the workshops that did not take place and wondering what ever happened to the six presenters out of the eleven workshops that I tried to attend that did not show up. While still there, I heard of people whose visas were too late for them to make their presentations, workshops scheduled before the presenter had told the NGO forum that they would be able to arrive, presenters who knew they had a workshop but were never informed when or where, and were frantically searching through the ±3,000 workshops listed in the Schedule of Activities to find out when and where they were to present. But of course my mind could not help but turn to the Minnesota NOW whose workshop I held, for better or for worse. Since Minnesotans (the state directly east from South Dakota, for those unfamiliar with US geography) are at least as serious and committed as we are, I found it hard to believe that they would schedule a workshop and then not bother to hold it. (I think it is the Scandinavian roots we both share.) I finally could not control my anxiety over my high phone bills and called information in Minneapolis/St. Paul and got their phone number. The phone call was a bit clumsy at first, as I didn’t know quite how to break it to them that they had broken the code of “doing the right thing” and missed their own workshop, but I finally just blurted it out. The Minnesota NOW representative, Beverly Swenson, was surprised at my news, as according to her, they would have been glad to give a workshop if anyone had asked them, but nobody did. We chatted a bit about the forum, (they had been as disappointed as I was at how many workshops did not take place — one member reported four in one day!) and exchanged names and addresses. Before I hung up, I reminded her that if they got compliments or complaints about the workshop, I could be blamed for either. Now it has all become clear. Somewhere in a cubbyhole in China or at the UN was a wizened old woman or man with a list of organizations represented at the NGO forum inventing workshops to put on the Schedule of Activities, thinking perhaps that it wouldn’t matter much as so many people were being refused visas, then when most got them, were faced with the embarrassment of the workshops not taking place. And those of us attending, plodding the mile or so from workshop to workshop (I never had two I wanted to attend any place in close proximity, they were always at opposite ends of the grounds — perhaps there was another person assigned to make sure of that) arriving out of breath, hot and weary, to find a back row seat in a tent of women expectantly awaiting the never to take place arrival of the knowledgeable and expert presenter, learned to check our watches — if there was no presenter in fifteen minutes, there probably would not be one. I was a computer programmer/analyst and consultant for six years. The programs I worked on at times controlled billions of pieces of information. I later was managing editor of the Pasque Petals Index, which included many thousands of poems by thousands of authors. When I took on a project, it was letter perfect. I guess that I am like those Minnesota NOW members, nobody asked me to help. Not that I am in a position to do so, but I know that if I have the skills to take on a job like that, there must be many other women more capable of it than I am. Apparently nobody asked them, either. We were all the worse for it. I can guarantee you that if I had been working for the UN, and 39,000 people had sent me $50.00 to request an invitation to the NGO Forum, each and every one would have gotten a post card acknowledging receipt of their request within a week or two. And if I would have been scheduling events, the catalog would not have been printed on the eve, or even during the Forum, but long enough in advance so the presenters could have been informed of the time and place of their event, and so those attending would have had time to study the Schedule on the plane, not sneaking moments on the bus to the hotel or after dinner. And if the one million nine hundred fifty thousand dollars they collected wasn’t enough to hire a couple of extra temps to keep up with the volume, maybe they should have charged $51 apiece instead of $50. One would like to hang this all on the China Organizing Committee, but I think there is plenty of blame to go around. There were problems from the get-go getting information, and one has to suspect that the UN didn’t have the most competent personnel assigned to planning the NGO Forum. Many of these discrepancies could have been and should have been foreseen. If Minnesota NOW had gotten a postcard or letter telling them when and where their workshop was taking place, they could have either put one together or informed the Forum that they were unable to present it. Ditto for the other situations. Everytime I see such examples of some organization falling short of their goals, I can’t help but harken back to the old days when I was putting one foot in front of the other, three steps forward, two backward or vice versa. Whenever I saw incompetence around me on the job, I usually could spot some person hired because of who they knew instead of what they knew, perhaps a relative or friend of the boss, or maybe some woman who was leveraging her position with sex rather than job skills. I feel like I am experiencing déjà vu all over again. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT IT COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH MORE When a person has traveled halfway around the world to attend a function like the NGO Forum, you can overlook a lot of inconveniences. But I don’t think that is necessarily the right thing to do. Because I studied mathematics, I know how important it is to understand the problem in order to solve it. Therefore, I think that those who were at NGO ‘95 in Huairou, China, should convey to the United Nations what we thought was wrong with the event. Other than the many workshops that did not take place, which was far and away the most frustrating, there were a number of other aspects of the Forum which I felt could have been easily improved. The map of the forum area given at the back of the Schedule of Events was very hard to compare to the actual site, and in some cases was downright incorrect. The site was enormous for transversing from workshop to workshop. I am 59, but I know there were many women in their 80’s and even a few in their 90’s attending. To expect anyone over 50 to walk that area to attend workshops is unrealistic. And that doesn’t even address the problems of the handicapped, of whom there were quite a number present. There was absolutely no transportation from the bus stop to or around the Forum. Having caught the little train that runs around the South Dakota State Fair Grounds, I know how convenient it is to hop on and ride to the parking lot. A similar arrangement at Huairou would have made attending the Forum much more pleasant. I believe that older women are even more invisible in China than they are in the US, and this may explain why no accommodation was made for older women. I believe I only saw one older Chinese woman and that was at the Beijing Zoo. I believe that all the Chinese women at the forum were between 20 and 50. Perhaps I missed something. The Forum area was impossible when it rained. Many if not most workshops took place in tents, and when I tried to attend a workshop in a tent when it was raining, I and others were chased back out into the rain by Chinese volunteers who told us that people had been killed by tents collapsing under the weight of water on the roof. One area of the forum had obviously been thrown together at the last minute with temporary sidewalks, and when it rained, this area was a veritable swamp. Two or three days after the first rain, my daughter, the cyber shopper, went into a tent to look at some articles. I sat down on a folding chair by the door. Feeling that the chair was unsteady, I shifted it around thinking it was just an uneven surface. But one leg was actually off the blocks, and when I shifted, the leg sunk into the mud to within an inch or two of the seat, and I was on my back precariously poised over a mud bath. Suddenly I was surrounded by laughing women, one snapped a picture, several hauled me to my feet before I actually fell in. My daughter told me that the area smelled of sewage when it rained. I have no sense of smell, so was spared that sensation. Now I am at the mercy of the COC on this one. I am not familiar with the climate of China, so they have to think for me. There were no alternative plans made for the possibility of rain. Since the area around Beijing and Huairou was beautifully green, I must assume that it rains there regularly. What did the organizers expect us to do when it rained? The second time it rained, after standing in the rain for an hour and a half to try to get in to see Hillary Clinton, we went back to the hotel. It seems to me that if they had reduced the workshops to the ones that actually took place, which was about a third of them, they would have needed a third of the spaces, and might have been able to hold them all inside buildings, or at least more of them, which would have also reduced the area we would have had to walk between workshops. Since there were three general areas for workshops, they could have had only one general area, and walking would have been tolerable. The single experience which made us the most angry was Hillary Clinton’s appearance. We caught the first bus from the Yan Xi to Huairou and got to the convention center around 8:00 am. It was raining when we got there, and there were around 500 women amassed on the steps. She was supposed to arrive at 9:30. Just before 9:30 one of the two or three doors on the front of the convention center opened and 40 or 50 were allowed in and then we were told that there were no more seats. This surprised us because we knew that the auditorium seated 1,500. We later talked to one of the women who was let in. She said that they were led to an ante-room that was supposed to have remote TV hookup but it didn’t work, so they just sat there (at least they were out of the rain). A woman who was at another door that did not open said that she got there at 6:00 am and that nobody got in. Someone said that she thought that the auditorium was full of media, but I doubt that very much. I suspect that tickets were given out to selected individuals for all the seats and they went in a different entrance. Nobody had the guts to tell us we weren’t selected, but just let us stand in the rain until we were soaked while they kicked back inside and were dry and comfy. I heard from my sister who saw the US coverage that most audience members were men. For shame! We were left standing in the rain so a bunch of men could enjoy the First Lady’s appearance at a conference for women? It seems so bizarre as to be unbelievable. What I think of whoever was responsible for that is not even printable here, and I don’t believe that they were Chinese. Before we even signed up to go to China, the travel agent, Sunlight Express tours of San Francisco, promised both me and my daughter a room on the third floor or above. We not only did not get a room on the third floor or above, but it was on the first floor right next to the gate where the busses that went to Huairou turned around every twenty minutes all day long. My daughter told me that she smelled mildew every time we went into it, and of course I am allergic to mildew. By the time we realized how really awful the room was, every cranny in China was full of Forum participants, and we heard of people living in partially finished rooms, so we tried to tough it out, but both got sick and had to come back five days early, missing tours of Xian and Shanghai. The agreement with the travel agent included dinner every night while at the Yan Xi, but they defaulted and we had to get our own dinner every night. Dinner at the hotel cost about $25.00 and we were there 9 days. They gave us back $45.00 apiece. Lunch in Huairou cost about $4.00. Why the hotel was so expensive I don’t know. I do know that we were originally supposed to stay in the Friendship Hotel in Beijing, but the China Organizaing Committee changed us to the Yan Xi despite the protestations of the travel agent. While Yan Xi was a beautiful hotel, they sent me home with pneumonia and disappointed because the tour had to be cut short. Also, the travel agent took us to Yan Xi and left us. There were very few people at the hotel that spoke English, only one that we found. So when we had some problem, we had to find him or wait for him to get to work. By signing on with a tour, we thought we would have someone around to help us with communication. But this was not the case. We could just as well have gone on our own. The travel agent defaulted on our agreement and we didn’t get the room we were promised, we had to pay for our own dinners, and we didn’t have anybody to help us when we had trouble communicating. The group that contracted for the tour, the Women of Color Resource Center of Berkley, California, were useless, and when we got sick, could not even get us into contact with the travel agent. Since this was just two days before we were to leave for Xian, it is really hard to believe they had not been in contact with the travel agent. We had to wait for Wong to get to work, and he called around and found our travel agent at another hotel with another group. It verged on being a fiasco. I suppose I was spoiled by living in Germany for two years where I spoke the language, but I would never go on another tour. We could hardly have been worse off on our own, and may have gotten a decent hotel room if we hadn’t depended on the travel agent to do it for us. The schedule of activities listed constant entertainment at both Yan Xi and what was called “the tea and coffee area” in front of the convention center in Huairou. I finally found the “tea and coffee area,” but there was no entertainment taking place, nor was there tea or coffee for sale. I saw a notice in the forum newspaper a day or two later that the entertainment had been moved to a large area where hundreds of tables and chairs were set up in a parking lot. I crossed this area probably a dozen times, as it was in the center of the Forum, but only once heard any entertainment going on. One would be more likely to hear entertainers performing on the street between the bus stop and the Global tent. Finally, I wanted to protest the conditions under which the workshops were held. When I went looking for the workshop held by Minnesota NOW, I had trouble finding it, as it was in some kind of a balloon contraption. The workshops scheduled in T-1 through T-69 were in tents. They were canvas with a center pole and tiedowns staked around the sides. T-70 through T-90 were in these balloon contraptions kept blown up by an air compressor, that was why I had earlier not been able to find T-75, because it was not in a tent but in a balloon! Since the presenters did not show up, I held a discussion group. This was constantly punctuated by the compressor cutting in to keep the balloon fully inflated, and even worse, groups of shrieking women dragging rags they had sewn together galloped around trying to distract us from our discussion. If these women had something to say, they should have scheduled a workshop and invited anyone with an interest to come and hear them. If we did not go to hear them, that means we were not interested. We should not have our workshop interrupted, and I think ours was several times, by women screaming about something irrelevant to our subject. Demonstrations should be banned during workshops in the workshop areas. I found little constructive in such displays anyway. Perhaps the participants got some kind of emotional high from them but did nothing to change my opinion of their interest, whether it was Iraqi women protesting the US blockade or Lesbians wanting everyone to support their sexual orientation. I’m not much interested and feel they should grind their own axes and leave me to mine. God knows there were workshops on every conceivable subject. One my daughter and I passed on was this one: THE ROLE OF INFLATABLE LIFESIZE PLASTIC DOLLS AND DILDOS IN IMPROVING HEALTH The inflatable life-size plastic doll will take the brunt off women and help to solve many global problems Workshop Community Development Services It was tantalizing, but we were afraid someone would see us there. I’d still like to know what happened at it. Unless I misjudged other Forum participants, it was pretty lively. Perhaps this was also fabricated by whoever made up Minnesota NOW’s workshop. TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE Women hold up half the sky. Chinese Proverb The WASH RAG is published by Women Against Sexual Harassment, P. O. Box 505, Hudson, South Dakota 57034-0505. ISSN 1068-2449. Subscription price is $10.00 a year, $15.00 outside the US. © 1995 Tesseract Publications. One Woman One Vote, frrom the public TV series The American Experience, is still available for loan to anyone who would like to show it at a meeting or to a group. Call (605) 987-5070 for more information.