National student women's conference
By Jen Crothers
SYDNEY — Over 400 women gathered at Macquarie University from July 11-15 for the annual Network of Women Students in Australia (NOWSA) conference, the theme of which was "Women working together: you ain't seen nothing yet". Participants came from university and TAFE campuses around Australia, with some women from secondary schools also attending.
Major plenaries focussed on issues of feminism, the family, race and racism, sexuality, body image and women in education. Unfortunately, however, at most of these, discussion from the floor was limited by time. Between plenaries, workshops covering an extremely broad range of topics from post-modernism to prisons, spirituality to sexual harassment allowed women to network and to form concrete plans for action.
The NOWSA conference is one of the few opportunities student women have to exchange experiences about the issues that affect them. One of NOWSA's aims is to encourage women to become more effective activists through the process of pooling our collective knowledge on what has, and has not, worked in campaigns and women's collectives.
The network is truly national with women from isolated and rural campuses also attending. The Northern Territory, Perth, Hobart and Launceston were well represented.
One of the action-oriented workshops "Campaigning for the repeal of abortion laws", attempted to organise a national campaign, based on campuses, for the repeal of abortion laws. The workshop was well attended and five demands were worked out: fighting for the repeal of all abortion laws, an end to forced sterilisation, access to affordable contraception, funding for women's health services, and non-judgemental sex education.
The workshop decided that each campus would organise an action to coincide with the Abortion Rights Network of Australia (ARNA) national day of action on August 8. Unfortunately, time restrictions meant that the conference as a whole was unable to discuss, and thus endorse, the workshop's proposals.
The conference was a positive and empowering experience. However, considering the ongoing systematic discrimination that women face, the conference didn't spend enough time discussing and working out how best we can organise to defend our rights.
[Jen Crothers is the Women's Officer at the University of Tasmania.]