New Internationalist

Women’s rights are human rights and despite Western women’s liberation movements making great strides, poor and marginalized women in the Third World are still losing out - at home, in education, in work and in health.

October 1977, Issue 056

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Features

Women hold up half the sky
Women's rights are human rights. A New Internationalist editorial.
Waking up to women
Western women's liberation may have turned the spotlight on sexism in the developed world. But extraordinary misconceptions still prevail about the role of women in Third World societies. Ideas about 'integrating women into development' reverberate regularly round the conference halls. But what do they mean, and what should they mean? By Maggie Black.
Women in the world
The facts about the ways women are losing out: at home, at work, health-wise, education-wise.
One pair of eyes
In North Yemen, one of Islam's most conservative countries, women never go unveiled. But in the seclusion of her house, Fatima talked to Iain Guest.
Old ways die hard
In their overalls and Chairman Mao caps, the women of China have become the symbol of modern industrialized, liberated woman. How far along the road to emancipation has the Chinese revolution really brought them? By Delia Davin.
Against two foes: the Portuguese and the men
Ana Marie Gomes, a child in Portuguese-ruled Guinea-Bissau, finds her future entirely transformed by the liberation struggle. Will women's position continue to improve now that independence is won? By Stephanie Urdang.
Man is, woman does
'If there were no men in Ziare, it would be the best developed country in Africa.' One case study of sex roles in the Third World: an illustration by Richard Willson.
Employer power
Is there something special about women that makes them intrinsically better at nursing, teaching and assembling calculators? And if so, is it purely a coincidence that their jobs are always worse paid than men's? Kate Young thinks not.
Home from home
When people leave their own countries to live elsewhere, they take with them many of their customs and ideas. Women immigrants from Asia, Europe and the Caribbean, now living in London, talked to Graham Hancock and Ros Franey about what they keep and what they throw away.
Roshana
'Do you want to hear my story, sister? If I tell you, maybe you will understand my sorrow?' A village woman in Bangladesh speaks to Betsy Hartmann and Jim Boyce.
Remember all our women
In the big townships of South Africa, women are very 'liberated'. They all go to work. They are extremely independent. But can you really call 'liberation' the sufferings that apartheid has thrust upon them? Joyce Sikakane spoke to Maggie Black.
Action
How did Spare Rib become an unofficial mouthpiece of the Western women's movement? What is the Consumers Association up to in Penang? And Enver Carim joins the demonstrations in Lewisham against Britain's neo-Fascist political party. Edited by Graham Hancock.

Regulars

Book reviews
Why poor people stay poor by Michael Lipton; Population Target by Bonnie Mass; A Window on Soweto by Joyce Sikakane; and Aid and Development in Southern Africa by David Jones.
Readers' Letters