Negative attitudes to feminism

• it is Western

• it applies to women in industrial societies

• it is part of the Western feminist movement

• it was about not wanting babies

• it was about women wanting to be separate from the rest of society

• it would undermine the traditional power source of women in the Pacific, which is the family

• it was about women being discriminated against (women in the Pacifiic were not discriminated against)

• it was a white women's feminism which arose out of their experiences and their approach. This approach focussed on personal lives rather than looking at society as a whole

• it would segregate men and women.

Other Negative Points Raised

• feminism is relevant to highly educated women

• the word “feminism” is not known

• feminism is not relevant to rural women

Some remarks were indirectly negative about feminism: e.g.

• Women were all feminists in the Pacific anyway, because they were looking for the betterment of women and women's lives, and were working for the liberation of their people. There were different definitions of feminism.

• Someone thought if women went around identifying themselves as working for women, then when something went wrong, men would be quick to point a page 20 finger and blame women for not using the assistance properly.

• Someone said that she was for “anything pro-women”, but she did not necessarily need to call herself a feminist.

• Another participant said that the word “feminist” scared her; she was not a feminist. She asked: What is it? What is its meaning?, even though, from her works, people called her a feminist.

• Someone said that she understood it as Western feminism, but if she had a wider understanding of the word, she would have a greater identification with it. (This remark was bordering on the positive!)

• It was commonly said that feminism was a new word for some countries and women would be afraid to introduce it to the women they were working with. There would be some difficulty in introducing 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:

• It would produce a greater sharing, a greater sisterhood

• A Pacific feminism would be defined by Pacific women and cover issues that were relevant to them, such as cultural imperialism for example

• 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

• 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 cultural practices that contribute to their oppression.

• Someone said that men were still in charge (a positive reason for developing a Pacific feminist perspective!)

• 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.

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:

• It would produce a greater sharing, a greater sisterhood

• A Pacific feminism would be defined by Pacific women and cover issues that were relevant to them, such as cultural imperialism for example

• 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

• It would allow Pacific women to question in a different way issues such as colonialism and imperialism

• 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.

• 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.