On March 8, 2001 millions of women and men around the world celebrated International Women's Day. In addition to recognising recent gains and ongoing demands, the occasion marked the escalating presence of a new influence. Increasingly, the women's movement is challenging the impact of global neo-liberal policies on their lives. This new coalition speaks to a new brand of activism, which hopes to redefine the direction of globalisation to acknowledge women's realities.

Gloria Steinem was recently quoted as saying: "Seattle is the women's movement". Some basic figures help inform this connection. Women make up half the world's population, own less than 1% of the planet's wealth, furnish 70% of the work hours and receive only one tenth of the income. Findings of Beijing +5, a UN Special Session of the General Assembly on Women, held in June 2000, reveal that the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on 1 dollar a day or less are women. In addition, the gap between women and men caught in the cycle of poverty has continued to widen in the past decade, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the feminization of poverty.

The common explanation for this condition describes women assuming the brunt of the impact for privatisation of health and education as well as social spending cuts. When applied uniformly, gender blind neo-liberal policies fail to recognise the household and community work done by women, which according to the International Labour Organisation amounts to 31 to 42 hours a week.

NAFTA and its big brother, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an agreement which aims to remove remaining limits on the free flow of capital, labour and investment between every country in the Americas, save Cuba, by the year 2005, are themselves the very symbols of the prosperity promised by current globalisation trends. FTAA advocates state that it will "promote the fulfilment of women's potential, enhancing their productivity through education, training skill development and employment".

A feminist interpretation however translates this promise of increased productivity and employment into a fundamental deterioration in the quality of many women's lives. The monopoly of land and manufacturing resources often force women, into precarious and unprotected labour including work with cash crops, sweat shops and the informal sector.

This alarming portrait of the global village woman has galvanised women long mobilised against poverty and violence. Recognising the high price women pay under corporate globalisation, women's rights activists are organising alongside the increasing opposition to debt and structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and IMF and trade agreements like the FTAA.

A staggering display of this mobilisation was last year’s World March of Women in the year 2000. This global movement, initiated by the Federation des Femmes du Quebec (FFQ), united 5,300 organisations in 159 countries around the demand for women’s equality. Speaking to the importance of incorporating a feminist platform, the March's site states: "Within the protest movement that has grown in reaction to globalisation we have the ideal opportunity to restate the importance of our analysis." And according to Pam Kapoor, organiser of the Canadian Women's March Committee, " Globalisation hurts women and we have a critical role to play….Recognising the grassroots-based nature of the anti-globalisation protests, women are marching alongside a rejuvenated movement of diverse activists."

On October 17, 2000, the campaign culminated in a Global Rally at the UN Building in New York. Signalling the new direction of the global women’s movement, international women’s delegates held unprecedented meetings with leaders of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. There, spokeswomen presented their demands which included "transparency and accountability of these institutions; integration of gender analysis in their policy and programs; increasing financial resources for women; debt cancellation for developing countries; and the end of structural adjustment programs and their clones."

According to FFQ organiser, Diane Matte, the meetings were critical for exposing the movement's willingness to incorporate different tactics. In attempting a dialogue with representatives of the IMF and World Bank, Matte, who insists on the "need to work at different levels," states that the meetings showed that the World March, and the anti-corporate globalisation movement in general, was both willing and capable of taking their demands "off the street".

Unfortunately, the response they received was "both disappointing and paternalistic". Mr. Köhler, new managing director of the IMF "concluded by saying he did not share [the March's] political analysis, remarking on the depth of [their] differences and regretting that [they] came with preconceived notions about the IMF."

In Quebec City, from April 17 to 21, 2001, the FFQ, groups from the World March of Women and women from across the Americas have little expectation of enjoying a similar audience with top decision-makers. A 3.8 kilometre wall and the largest police presence in Canadian history will shield leaders of 34 states as they meet privately to negotiate terms of the FTAA at the Third Summit of the Americas.

Citizens, protestors and civil society groups will instead have the opportunity to participate in the Second People's Summit, which will be held outside the wall's perimeters to coincide with the FTAA meetings. Of the eight forums planned for the event, Women and Globalisation will be first, which according to organisers is not accidental. Women's issues clearly belong on the agenda in all of the Summit's forums, including environment, education, agriculture and labour. As described by FFQ representative Alexa Conradi, the opening forum will act as a "prepartoy session for the rest of the Summit."

After April, Quebec will be elevated to the status of Seattle in the parlance around the "anti-globalisation movement". Few hope to shut down the Summit of the Americas. Instead, the People's Summit along with actions planned for the week will work towards the developing more just alternatives to the destructive elements of the FTAA. And increasingly, such alternatives are incorporating women's voices, raising expectations for a strong and integrated women's movement in Quebec and beyond.