Spring 98

by Jennifer Gagliardi

Late 1994, I was sitting at my desk, keeping one eye on my monitor while reviewing some documentation I had picked up earlier in the day at a regional prepatory conference for the UN Women’s Conference (4WCW). I remembered feeling excited yet discouraged: excited by the energy generated by women coming together to set their own agenda (thereby determining are own lives—wow!), yet discouraged because one would almost have to be a professional feminist, community activist, civic/religious leader, or university student to gain access to this information &/or be on the right mailing list.

I was none of the above. I was merely a night-shift mainframe operator who had taken a summer school class three years before on ecofeminism. In this class, we had seen a film on the 1975 UN Women’s Conference. When I heard that the next one was in Beijing, my mind tilted at the “herstoricity” of such a an event & made a private vow to go. Little did I know that this vow would go public in an BIG way.

Gradually I gave up on the documents, & checked my email. Although I was on multiple feminist email list, there was nothing about the conference. D-D-D—I deleted them all. Looking at the index one more time, my mind titled again: “Hey, I’m a computer tech. I have an email acct, know unix, know some of the feminists on the net, and am a feminist myself. Why don’t I start an email list for the 4WCW?”

Stone Soup: I applied for a majordomo list from my isp, posted an announcement, and was “stoned” with subscription requests. BEIJING95-L was launched on Sunday, January 22, 1995 as a women-only discussion of the UN Conference on Women. In March, a second women-only discussion list BEIJING95-WOMEN was created, and BEIJING95-L was up to both women and men. (Late 1995, BEIJING95-WOMEN was renamed ABIGAILS-L & revamped as a general discussion list for feminist activists).

Soon the “pot” overflowed with info. Onlist discussions included: the language of the Platform of Action; the move of the NGO portion of the conference from Beijing to Huairou; difficulties with conference registration, visa, & hotel arrangements; the composition and exclusion of delegations from the Conference; the status of women in China; and international action alerts concerning women.

Although I put in countless hours managing a list which brimmed with travel plans, I was still ambivalent about going myself: where could I fit in such a conference? At the eleventh hour, Susan Mooney of IGC/Womensnet asked if I would like to go along as a volunteer—I nearly swooned! So in late Aug 95 I joined Susan Mooney, Edie Farewell, and approximately 40 other women from the international network of Association of Progressive Communication to provide free onsite internet services to the participants of NGO/UN World Conference on Women.

From the conference sites, BEIJING95-L & BEIJING95-WOMEN carried continuous news, caucus reports, press releases, documents, and personal accounts net-wide. People at home were able to immediately respond to the latest developments, contact delegates, caucuses, & gov’t officials, and influence the language of the NGO Declaration & the Final Platform.

Post-conference, BEIJING95-L has continued to disseminate information concerning the international feminist community & events plus announcement s of post-Beijing activities & resources. Discussion is inspired by current events and the 12 concerns detailed in the Plan of Action: poverty, education, health, violence, armed & other conflicts, economic participation, power-sharing & decision making, human rights, mass media, environment & development, and the girl-child. Recent threads include FGM (female genital mutilation), trafficking in women, femicide, literacy, women & microcredit, women & Islam, women in China, Bella Abzug, & UN activities.

To subscribe to BEIJING95-L please send a message to:

address: majordomo@NETCOM.COM

subject: (leave blank)

text: subscribe BEIJING95-L

For further information, please feel free to contact me,
Jennifer Gagliardi, at gagliajn@netcom.com
or check out my web page:

www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4342

Hope to see you onlist soon!

Jennifer, moderator BEIJING95-L

Follow-up to Beijing
The Fourth World Conference on Women

WomenWatch
www.un.org/womenwatch/
The UN Internet Gateway on the Advancement
and Empowerment of Women
A joint project of DAW, UNIFEM and INSTRAW
The UN Working for Women
UN Global Conferences and Women
Follow-up to Beijing, Women of the World
News and Views, Global Forum

The post Beijing Virtual Clearinghouse
www3.sympatico.ca/criaw/beijing/beijing.html
Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW/ ICREF)
Follow-up Actions, Information Sharing post-Beijing
Info and reports from UN and national post Beijing meetings

• www.undp.org/fwcw/plat.htm
  The Platform for Action is the contract with the World's women! Includes the Beijing Declaration
  
  
• www.igc.org/beijing/ngo/ngodec.html
  NGO Declaration - The Nongovernmental Organizations made a declaration too!
  
  
• www.wedo.org/
  WEDO -The Women's Environment and Development Organization
  
  
• www.un.org/Conferences/Women/PubInfo
  The United Nations and the Status of Women
  
  
• www.africapolicy.org/action/women.htm
  Africa - a great site for updates on Africa
  
  
• women3rdworld.miningco.com/msub30.htm
  A collection of articles on the situation for women in Afghanistan
  
  
• www.igc.org/igc/womensnet/
  Womensnet
  Institute for Global Communications

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