Women, Development and Empowerment: A Pacific Feminist Perspective
Positive Attitudes to Feminism
Positive Attitudes to Feminism
Listed as positive were comments indicating Pacific women should try to work out their own ideas of feminism, a Pacific feminism, and that there were benefits to defining and identifying with a particular feminist perspective:
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It would produce a greater sharing, a greater sisterhood
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A Pacific feminism would be defined by Pacific women and cover issues that were relevant to them, such as cultural imperialism for example
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Pacific women needed to develop a feminist ideology to analyse the wider issues of women's struggles, which were important to them as women and as Pacific people - for example, all forms of dominance, social inequalities, and the role and influence of institutions such as the church
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It would allow Pacific women to question in a different way issues such as colonialism and imperialism
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Having a feminist perspective would influence the questions Pacific women asked about institutions and enable women to challenge conditions and cul tural practices that contribute to their oppression.
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Someone said that men were still in charge (a positive reason for developing a Pacific feminist perspective!)
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It was important women identify with “feminism” if it represented what they stood for and the changes in society women wanted.
A neither negative nor positive response from some participants was that they wanted women to be seen as persons, as human beings, and that was their perspective.