These were some of the central messages to emerge from the women s tent, the site of Planeta Femea, a week and a half of meetings, debates and discussions among women at the Global Forum, the non-governmental conference held parallel to the official Earth Summit. The women s events were the best organized and most geographically balanced and topically inclusive of all the events held at the Global Forum. Global Forum participants stressed the importance of the networking that took place at the conference, in part because it was not clear what else they would accomplish in Rio. That networking, particularly between activists from Northern and Southern countries, was most evident in the women s tent.
Nobody talks for anyone anymore.
Women s critique The Planeta Femea activists sharply criticized the documents approved by the official conference, basing their denunciations on the everyday experiences of women throughout the world. From this perspective, the women found the documents emanating from the Earth Summit to be fundamentally flawed. In emphasizing what they called sustainable development, Earth Summit negotiators refused to break with prevailing economic, social and environmental paradigms, the women charged. The catchword of sustainable development to us in the South is a contradiction. The women also criticized the Earth Summit for failing to address a number of specific issues, such as militarism and nuclear weapons and power.