Women'space: Volume 1 #4 Part 3

• Feminist Bookstores Online
  
• Electronic Witches
• Native American Resources on the Internet
  
  Part One
  Part Two

WHAT A GIFT to discover feminist bookstores on the Internet. For those of us who live outside the big cities, one of the things we really miss is a great feminist bookstore. No longer do we need to ponder how far we would have to travel to browse in the ambiance of women's books, magazines, art, music and bulletinboards. It may not be the same as being there, but it sure is the next best thing!

Orlando Books

You will find Orlando Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and on the Internet. Included here is a What's Hot At Orlando page for each month's staff book choices. Connecting you to a broad range of topics are the book and literature links, feminist links, health links, gay and lesbian links, food and drink links, some fun odds and ends and of course, Virginia Woolf links. You can also jump from here to Internet search engines to explore your specific interests.

For those who are within physical reach of the bookstore you will find the regular program of Friday Night Readings, and tickets to Upcoming Events, useful. (The rest of us will have to read with envy, and wait for future technology to reach us with such events!)

Orlando Books welcomes special orders and mail orders. There is a also a Preferred Customer program of discounts. Tel: (403) 432-7633, or Email

Little Sister's Book And Art Emporium

Little Sister's is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Little Sister's specializes in materials by and for gays and lesbians, including texts on abuse, recovery, sexism, racism, coming out, gay and lesbian parenting, theoretical and erotic materials, and a comprehensive AIDS/Health related section.

Web Direct book orders can be placed in the new on-line store. You will also find an on-line catalogue, highlighting resources for HIV(+) individuals, PWA'S, AIDS Organizations, Activists, Educators, Health Professionals, Caregivers, Counselors, Librarians and anyone who is involved with youth. Tel: (604) 669-1753, Fax: (604) 685-0252, Email

Little Sister's Bookstore in Canada has challenged Canada Customs who regularly seize, detain, or ban books, the majority coming from the US. Links are provided for the latest Supreme Court Case information.

Once Upon a Time: Alternative Books & Gifts

Included here are Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Books, Music, Videos and Gifts. Tel: (309) 828-3998. Fax: (309) 828-8879, or Email

Sisterspirit Bookstore and Coffeehouse

You can visit Sisterspirit Bookstore and Coffeehouse on the WWW or at their home in San Jose, California. In both places they are providing a space where women's community and cultures are celebrated and encouraged. Web Features include news, book reviews, Readings and Events schedule, coffeehouse Performance schedule, Sis herstory and a Reference section of useful resources and links. Tel: (408) 293-9372 Email

Sisterspirit has included a valuable article: Putting Your Bookstore on the World Wide Web by Leisa Fearing, published in Feminist Bookstore News, November/December 1995. Leisa suggests some of the best ways to use a Website, and offers ideas on creating and maintaining your web pages.

Feminist Bookstores Lists

Lists by Lee Anne Phillips, Oakland, California. European bookstore research by Karen Sloan.

This is a wonderful resource! If you want to know how to find feminist bookstores wherever you are and wherever you go, this is the place to visit first.

Also check out Lee Anne's other lists:

• Gay & Lesbian Bookshops
• Women's Books Online -A Cooperative Book Review by Women Around the World

Email: Lee Anne Phillips

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I am passionate about Email because of the potential it affords women to surpass politically induced barriers to communication, to access the right information at the right time, and to build relationships.

Electronic networks facilitate women's basic human right of access to information and then, fully informed, women can meaningfully participate in decision making processes. To quote Alexandra Jones a human rights activist living in southern Croatia, "e-mail is all about liberation."

The Electronic Witches project was initiated in the spring of 1994 to broaden women's access to electronic mail. The project began within the Women's Information and Documentation Center in Zagreb and became an independent project within the feminist movement in the Yugoslav successor states with special support from the Zagreb Women's Lobby and the women's human rights group B.a.B.e. (Be active Be emancipated). This project continues to receive invaluable support and encouragement from the system operators across the ZaMir network and has received financial support from the DanishPeace Council, Oxfam and the STAR project.

Anti-war Communication

The Zamir Network aims specifically to provide affordable and reliable communication services to people working for the prevention of warfare; the protection of human and civil rights; the achievement of social and economic justice; the promotion of sustainable and equitable development; and the advancement of participatory democracy.

ZaMir is literally translated as For Peace and it began operation within the context of the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. During this time, many public leaders were stirring up prejudice, hate and fear between people of different ethnic backgrounds. The media were under State control or influence rendering silent the alternative voices of tolerance and cooperation. Anti-war groups formed and worked to coordinate activities in Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo.

Domestic Violence

Regardless of the level of military activity women's rights are under attack, women have less visibility in the public sphere and are virtually excluded from State-level decision processes including mediation to end armed conflict. Masculinity is militarized demanding a deeper machismo and a display of patriotism through military service. Correspondingly femininity has been constructed into sexualized woman or that of Patriotic Mother. Several women's organizations have received the blessing of the State for their provision of a variety of social services to the survivors of war-induced trauma and relocation. This stands in contrast to the invisibility of women's calls to end domestic violence or for appointment to leadership positions.

Due to widespread coverage, there is international awareness that rape is used as an instrument of militarized nationalism, yet people do not learn of the persistence of male violence in the home. Images of rural women displaced from their homes by threat or force are often featured in television reports and news articles from the region. Women do comprise a majority of the refugee and displaced population of this region but we also comprise a majority of anti-war, human rights, environmental and social reconstruction activists. With the periodic exception of groups who are working with women survivors of sexual violence much of women's work for peace is unreported in the mass media.

The Culture of Email Technology

As is common throughout the world, email technology on the Zamir Network reflects the masculine culture of technology. The system was designed and developed by men and then the services were made available to women. Male dominance of this technology is not the same as active or purposeful discrimination against women and availability is not the same as access.

There are three components to having access to email technology. Hardware and software must be obtained, motivation and ownership must be developed and confidence raised. While women in the former Yugoslavia work under a range of economic circumstances one could cynically argue that obtaining the technical resources is the simplest part of access; it merely requires funding whereas motivation, ownership and confidence require time, commitment and changes in attitude.

The Electronic Witches Project

Over the course of eighteen months Electronic Witches has worked with more than one hundred women from thirty organizations throughout former Yugoslavia. These women come from a wide variety of backgrounds - different ethnicity's, religion, sexual orientation, education, class and profession. Threaded through this diversity in life experience runs an overwhelming similarity in their approach and experience with information technology. Women understand the power of information, its potential to enhance their social change goals and the need to share it widely. This group, however, also share the effects of traditional gender roles in society. Generally speaking, women have not enjoyed regular availability to computing resources, training that is appropriate to their needs, nor encouragement to creatively explore the potential uses of the computer.

Electronic Witches approach to training includes the provision of materials that are relevant and easy to understand with a minimum of technical jargon. It also focuses beyond skills transfer to the alleviation of women's fears and low self- confidence that have been ingrained through life experience of gender-based discrimination. Women quickly feel familiar with this technology once they are free from the prejudice of traditional gender roles, receive skills training related to their needs and can practice in a supportive environment. Exercises used during our training do not exalt the technological wonders of email or the computer but are focused in daily, practical applications that are relevant in women's lives.

The pattern that I have observed is that women are quick to utilize computer communications technology for the exchange of email messages with colleagues, funders, friends and family and to access a broad base of information related to their work.

Email in Women's Lives

An activist in Yugoslavia is using e-mail in her education program with women and girls in a community where, until recently, women were sold into marriage. Until this program started, girls in the community were denied their basic right to education.

E-mail's ability to reduce isolation is well-known by lesbians living in the region. Living in strongly heterosexist societies we are keenly aware of our invisibility in public life and, though we are individually accepted, within the alternative media, feminist, and anti-war communities. E-mail reduces our isolation as we can connect with each other throughout the region and mailing lists such as euro-sappho and euro-queer connect us to lesbians throughout Europe.

On 25 May, 1995, the Day of Youth in former Yugoslavia, the center of Tuzla was shelled resulting in the deaths of sixty seven youth and injuries to one hundred and twenty eight. Citizens of Tuzla used e-mail to express their rage and grief at this deliberate killing of the next generation and ineffectiveness of the international community to prevent such violence. Women in Belgrade, Zenica, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Europe and North America used e-mail to send messages of solidarity to people in Tuzla. While the international media had moved on to the next story, the hostage-taking of UN soldiers, E-mail messages of solidarity and support continued to flow into Tuzla and countered a general sentiment of their grief having been too quickly forgotten

The Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September of this year provides a remarkable example of women's global electronic networking. Women in former Yugoslavia benefitted and made great use of information available on conferences through the APC Women's Networking Support Program. APC ensured that prior to the conference women received timely information that enabled women to contribute in the planning of the world conference and drafting the platform for action.

Communications and information play a strategic role in every realm of social, political, cultural and economic life. Email can enhance the participation of women in public life as it enables the production and broad distribution of information by environmentalists, gays and lesbians, the elderly, civil and human rights activists, single mothers, people with disabilities, anti-war campaigners, and others who are on the margins of traditional power structures.

E-mail can bring to light the violence that is embedded in silence.

Email Electronic Witches at ELECTRONICWITCHES_ZG@ZAMIR-ZG.ZTN.APC.ORG

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NativeWeb is "a project of many people. Our vision touches ancient teachings and modern technology. Our purpose: to provide a cyber-place for Earth's indigenous peoples."

This is a well developed site organized by Subject, Geography, Nations, Languages, Education, Literature, Organizations, History, Events and more. It includes UseNet groups and Mailing Lists.

One highlighted link is with Karen Strom's outstanding collection of Native American Resources on the Internet Here you will find an award winning set of links to WWW sites of Native American Resources.

The Web pages include:

• Culture (by Tribe/Nation and multicultural sites),
• Art (collections of groups and individuals, as well as online art galleries),
• Music (artists and bands, sources, organizations promoting aboriginal music, and instruments),
• Education (schools, resources for teachers, student groups and related programs) ,
• History (oral and written, searchable databases, maps) and Archaeology,
• Electronic Texts (journals, presses, books and articles online),
• Native American Organizations and Information
• Legal Resources
• Commercial Sites
• Videos, Museums, and much more.

You will want to make time to explore this impressive and comprehensive set of Web pages.

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Women'space Home Page
Part One April/May 1996, volume 1 #4
Part Two April/May 1996, volume 1 #4