ABSTRACT
The group which made the greatest impact during the International Community Education Association conference Crisis and Response, held in Dublin in 1983, was the working group on community education needs of women. Their definition of the crisis was that ‘we as human beings are trapped by our gender and women are oppressed by the traditional feminine role expectations’. The leaders of this workshop were women from Belfast. Starting from their own situation, they encouraged women from other countries worldwide to reflect and to exchange analyses. Their generalisations suggested that, whatever the country, whatever the regime, women’s education and rights under the law are considered marginal and a low priority. Even where equal opportunity is part of the legal structure, practice does not match policy. Social attitudes lead to sex stereotyping which cannot be changed by policies alone. Wherever there is injustice and inequality it is women who carry the responsibility for survival. Women all over the world often have to bear a double burden of oppression: that which they share because of poverty and that which they experience as women within patriarchal structures.
