The Third International Feminist Dialogues was held on January 17-19 at a Nairobi hotel, bringing women from all over the world to deliberate on matters affecting them and coming up with common positions for the World Social Forum 2007.

At first, the Feminist Dialogue was meant to strengthen the feminist presence within the WSF; later the objective broadened to providing a space for trans-national feminist discussions, strategising and alliance building as well as linking up with other social movements in the politics of global resistance.

The Feminist Dialogues 2007 was organised by a Coordinating Group of 12 international, regional and national feminist networks and organisations under the theme ‘Feminists Transforming Democracies: Visions and Strategies’.

The Feminist Dialogues was conceptualised as a gathering of various women’s networks and feminists that would work towards revitalising a trans-national women’s movement and its solidarity actions with other social movements.

It was hoped it would contribute to enhancing feminist advocacies that reflect an interlinking of recognition-based issues and distribution-based issues as political actions that reproduce women’s oppressions and subordination.

It was hoped it would eventually build strategies that focus on establishing inter-connections between women’s partial experiences, weave in new actors, sites and political actions that sustain women’s openness and vitality for continuous movement building.

It was also hoped that it would to promote new relationships between feminists and other social movements — especially the excluded ones — even as women continuously debate and critique one another within an uncertain and changing critique of resistance and change.

The first feminist dialogues were held in Mumbai, India in 2004. It was entitled ‘Building Solidarities’.

The 2007 forum had the sharing of personal experiences and the attempt to formulate strategies for change.

The sub-themes were Globalisation; Fundamentalism and Body Politics; Feminist ways of Working and Articulation; Democracy and Militarism; and Global Feminist Strategies, Challenges and Common Approaches.

Many issues that were common to women of all continents emerged. The most common was the lack of access to land and property.

Participants from Brazil spoke about racial discrimination and Catholic fundamentalism that oppressed women.

A woman from Kenya spoke about how young single mothers were marginalised from the local feminist movement.

Participants had various reactions at the end of the feminist dialogues.

Juliet Victor Mukasa (31) a Gay, Lesbian and Transsexual Rights advocate from Uganda said: “There is too much talk here. If this world is to change we must act and not talk.”

Mildred Shara, a lawyer from Malawi said: “I appreciate that we have women of all ages and from all backgrounds. This is important because it provides a forum to share the vision for the future.”

She added: “However, I didn’t see grassroots women speak here yet they too have valid issues.”

Nosipho Twala (35) from South Africa refers to herself as a grassroots woman. “The dialogues has engaged women from all over the world to share their ideas and strategies. However, not enough time has been given to the aspect of health despite HIV being a big issue in Africa today.”

She explained: “I hoped other countries would have the chance to share their experiences on how they eradicated it and brought it to low levels as is the case with Uganda.”

Twala also felt that the language being used was too technical and not enough emphasis was put on the landless yet this is where women’s struggle begins. “As a grassroots woman you cannot do anything without land. On the positive side I learned a lot about gay rights and abortion,” she reiterated.

For Fernanda Grigolin, 26, the dialogues were important because for the first time young women were put on the platform. “In Latin America, young women make intergenerational dialogue with older women,” Grigolin said. “The previous feminist dialogues didn’t have young women on the plenary as speakers and for me the fact that this one had is important.”

Bernadette Muthien, 40, from South Africa found the process fulfilling. Muthien who is the Executive Director of Engender, an organisation that engages in research and capacity building in Gender, Sexuality, Justice and Peace said: “We have managed to ensure a connection. It was good but I thought there is a lot of talk but too little action. We are simply rehashing things. We need to do things in a more radical manner.”