By Tuntuni Bhattacharyya
MELBOURNE — More than 20,000 women attended the sixth International Feminist Book Fair and concurrent literary festival, held July 27-31. Three days of discussions, panel seminars, readings and storytelling made for a very busy weekend.
This year the IFBF focused upon indigenous, Asian and Pacific writing and publishing. There was a diverse range of topics: from ecofeminism to women and war.
During a session on women's health, Bangladeshi women's health policy researcher Farida Akhter discussed the often coercive strategies used by health workers in rural Bangladesh to control women's reproductive rights. She spoke of the humiliation and suffering of women persuaded to have IUDs inserted. Further, they are told to be grateful that are receiving such expensive devices for free!
By the time women began to suffer from the possible side effects of the IUD, the doctors who inserted the device would have moved on to the next village, leaving women with no trained staff to remove the problematic IUD.
Other speakers included Manjula Padmanabhan, an Indian feminist cartoonist who shared her difficulties of being published in a traditionally male-dominated field. Padmanabhan went on to add that US-made cartoons, which are cheaper to buy, dominate the Indian newspapers. As a result, Indian readers are more familiar with the unfamiliar themes depicted in such cartoons.
Cartoons drawn by Padmanabhan feature a young female protagonist and deal with Indian issues. They are sometimes confronting to a readership raised on tame, non-threatening, foreign cartoons.
An interesting panel on women's health, "What Women are Dying of and Patient Healing", drew a large crowd. Speakers included Zohl de Ishtar from the Lesbian Cancer Council, who pointed out the link between escalating environmental irradiator levels, nuclear testing and global increases of cancer. She called for greater government accountability and for the nuclear profession to recognise the profound effects of various forms of pollution on human health.
Other speakers discussed the importance of culturally appropriate medicine together with self-healing and commercial drugs. Rina Nissim, a health activist currently based in India, discussed natural forms of healing for women.
The discussion that followed included a comment of "get rid of patriarchal medicine and replace it with women-loving healing". In view of the important role both alternative therapy and traditional methods play, the concept of doing away with the latter seems ludicrous.
During a panel of women writing on navigation, Anna-Maria Dell'osso expressed a sense of frustration at being frequently asked to speak as a token migrant woman writer. This was a sentiment echoed by many women at the conference. A number of women, including Lisa Bellear, expressed dissatisfaction with what they felt was the tokenistic nature of their presence at the fair.
One of the shortcomings of the festival was the lack of opportunity to fully discuss issues raised during panels. There was a strong feeling of solidarity between women, but there was no focus on future projects from the IFBF. Much of the energy, excitement and interest generated may, unfortunately, have dissipated.