Comment by Zanny Begg
and Sujatha Fernandes
The Network Of Women Students Australia (NOWSA) conference in Sydney in July attracted 400 women from around the country. The conference was organised by a cross-campus collective of women from NSW. It was decided at the conference that the 1995 conference would be held in Melbourne.
On November 30 a meeting of the NSW NOWSA collective was called, and it was revealed that the July conference had made $25,000. This is an enormous sum of money, which it is rare for activist networks like NOWSA to come across. How we spend this money is an issue that deserves serious consideration from women activists. A meeting has been scheduled for January 10 to make a decision.
At the meeting on the 30th, attended by about 10 women, we argued that this money belonged to the NOWSA network and that the next NOWSA conference should decide what the bulk of that money would be spent on (minus a small amount to cover putting together conference proceedings and the cost of next year's conference, and minus 10% for a donation to the Aboriginal Women's Legal Service to pay the rent to Aboriginal people as agreed at the 1991 NOWSA conference). This would mean the money going to the NOWSA 95 collective.
However, around half the women present argued that the money did not belong to the NOWSA conference and that they had the authority to make a decision to give almost all of it to the Aboriginal Women's Legal Service (minus a small donation to next year's conference and a small amount to cover compiling conference proceedings).
What is at issue here is not whether the Aboriginal Women's Legal Service is a worthy organisation — everyone at the meeting would agree that it deserves funding. Neither is this just a question of money. What is at stake is democratic decision making.
The right to decide who spends NOWSA's money (especially when it is such a large sum) belongs to NOWSA. It does not belong to a small handful of people left in the collective after the conference is over. Other women might favour supporting a different service — why not give the money to East Timorese women, or disabled women or Aboriginal women's groups in Darwin or women from non-English speaking backgrounds? How can this handful of women make a decision for the whole of the NOWSA network on these questions?
The conference might decide to run a campaign that demands that the government adequately resource Aboriginal women's services. It could decide on a number of different campaigns. The key point is that the maximum number of women would have been involved in making that decision.
What became clear during the discussion, however, was that the women who were arguing to give the money away did not want to involve others in the decision. They claimed that it was equally democratic for six people to make a decision as 400. They questioned whether democracy was important or whether we could even define it.
We disagree with this attitude. Only by involving as many women as possible has the feminist movement ever won any gains. Women at NOWSA are there not only to listen to talks; they also have the right to make important decisions about financing activities and campaigns. If the money is given away, this right will have been denied them.
[The writers are members of Resistance who helped to organise the July conference as part of the NOWSA collective.]