Self-Employed Women’s Association

Jhabvala, Renana

doi:10.4324/9780203422946_chapter_5

Cited by 27 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Jhabvala explained that the cooperatives soft ened the image of the trade union as antagonistic, "hard, " or confl ictual; the cooperative attracted allies. 45 Likewise, since the women participated in makeshift economies, combining various income-generating activities that include self-employment, contract work, and temporary hiring from multiple employers, SEWA located collective action not in the workplace but in the occupational sector. Rather than traditional collective bargaining, SEWA won tripartite boards of government, labor, and employer representatives that set the rules to "govern" various entities, like the Ahmedabad cloth market.…”

Section: Sewa's Feminism Eileen Borismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…49 While noting nineteenth-century philanthropic and religious reform that saw Indian women as objects of their largesse, SEWA traced its genealogy to the early years of the independence movement, "when, under Mahatma Gandhi, " according to Jhabvala, "women actively participated in the freedom struggle and became active in their own liberation. " 50 Nonetheless, Bhatt noted, independence from colonial rule needed a "second freedom":…”

Section: Sewa's Feminism Eileen Borismentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

SEWA’s Feminism

Boris¹

2017

Women’s Activism and “Second Wave” Feminism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

State Department for gender parity in foreign aid and international decision-making, tapped Bhatt to present on the SEWA bank at a seminar days before the offi cial UN conference in June 1975. Two years later, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation awarded Bhatt its annual cash prize honoring "greatest of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia. " She used the money to capitalize the Mahila SEWA Trust for member services. 9 Th e UN Conference exposed Bhatt to the social justice struggles of women throughout the world: she recalled how it sparked "a new feminist consciousness"not one based on the sexual politics and legal equality dominating mainstream feminism in the United States and Great Britain, but one located in the resistance of Bolivian mine and Malaysian plantation workers, that is, in the fi ght for economic redistribution within and among nations that was rocking the UN system with the membership of independent "Th ird World" nations. 10 In Mexico City, Bhatt came into contact with Ghanaian businesswoman Esther Ocloo, who was seeking to improve the prospects of market women, and US investment banker Michaela Walsh, who, "blown away by the role of women in their local economies, " spearheaded the organization of Women's World Banking (WWB) to expand access to credit to women globally, much as SEWA was doing locally. Bhatt became one of WWB's trustees. 11 At subsequent UN conferences, Bhatt and other SEWA leaders met feminist staff from the International Labor Organization (ILO). During the 1980s, the ILO would channel monies to the association not only to document working conditions under the new putting-out system, as researchers referred to industrial homework, but also to facilitate SEWA organizing, which the ILO promoted as an example to other grassroots groups in the Global South. 12 SEWA then joined with national and local groups as part of the transnational feminist push for what became ILO convention #177, "Home-Based Labor, " the fi rst international instrument to recognize homeworkers as workers, rather than housewives just earning income on the side, and thus worthy of the labor standards covering all other wage earners. 13 Th is is where I came in. In April 1989, funded by the Ford Foundation and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), SEWA and the Gandhi Labour Institute organized an "International Workshop on Homebased Workers. " 14 Th e ILO Offi ce oft en supported such eff orts to facilitate its own gathering of information used to spur the making of global conventions. As a historian of industrial homework in the United States, I was among some thirty "experts" who traveled to Ahmedabad to discuss what we knew about home-based labor and to develop a research agenda. We considered defi nitions and types of home work, organizing strategies, occupational health, legal contexts, and macro and micro economic trends. During the meeting, SEWA actively shaped our perceptions of the situation. We visited the SEWA Reception Centre, toured the slums of Ahmedabad to observe garm...

show abstract

Section: Sewa's Feminism Eileen Borismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sewa's Feminism Eileen Borismentioning

confidence: 99%

SEWA’s Feminism

Boris¹

2017

Women’s Activism and “Second Wave” Feminism

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Closely related, the report views technological changes as only a positive force, disregarding the job displacement that women can experience when technological change makes traditional female jobs redundant and there are barriers to training for new jobs. For example, the adoption of new rice-husking equipment in India’s food processing industry and new technologies in India’s textiles and garment industry led to job losses for women (Jhabvala and Sinha, 2002). In typical mainstream economics fashion that minimizes adjustment costs, the report seems to have moved on to a world of jobs in information and communications technology, mostly in services, where opportunities are to be expanded for women workers and entrepreneurs.…”

Section: Gender and Macroeconomics In Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s macroeconomic policy got to do with gender inequality? Evidence from Asia

Berik

Rodgers

2012

Global Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Alternative vision or Utopian fantasy?: Cooperation, empowerment and women's cooperative development in India

Mayoux

1995

J of Intl Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper discusses research by the author on women and cooperatives in India. The findings are supplemented by information from preliminary research by the author on a number of other cooperatives in which women were involved and from secondary sources. The research indicates that producer cooperatives for women can be successful if there are even a few women with the necessary skills and time required. Many cooperatives studied failed in part because of lack of enthusiasm of the women involved, indicating the problems the promotion of producer cooperatives involves. The paper argues that a far more wide‐ranging debate is needed about the ways in which the ideals of cooperation and empowerment can be preserved, while at the same time responding to the context in which cooperatives have to operate. There is no ‘ideal cooperative’ but a range of possible options. The varying needs of women require a participatory transformation of both state and NGO cooperative development agencies. Much greater commitment is needed to assist women in relevant ways.

show abstract

Self-Employed Women’s Association

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

SEWA’s Feminism

SEWA’s Feminism

What’s macroeconomic policy got to do with gender inequality? Evidence from Asia

Alternative vision or Utopian fantasy?: Cooperation, empowerment and women's cooperative development in India

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About