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Book Review: Creating A Caring Economy By:
Coral Wynter - Green Left Weekly Creating a Caring Economy: Nora Castaneda and the Women’s Development
Bank of Venezuela. This
is a great little publication of 72 pages which carries a biography of one
of Venezuela’s most devoted fighters on behalf of women, Nora Castenada.
Nora, an economist, was a lecturer for over 30 years at the Venezuelan
Central University. Her commitment to women led to her appointment by
President Hugo Chavez as the first president of the Women’s Development
Bank, BANMUJER, in March 2001. Women were demanding access to microcredits
so that they could start small cooperatives as part of the process of
ending poverty. In 60% of poor homes in Venezuela, the head of the
family was a woman, on her own without a partner, acting both as mother
and father. Research had also determined that 65% of Venezuelans live in
conditions of poverty and that 70% of these were women. Nora
was also a consistent advocate of Article 88 of the Venezuelan
Constitution, which recognizes the unwaged work of the often despised
housewife in the home, looking after the family. Article 88, which would
give women a small wage for home duties, has not yet been implemented, as
there is massive opposition from many quarters. INAMUJER, the National
Women’s organization, is fighting for Article 88 to be discussed and
implemented as soon as possible. Nora maintains that Article 88 recognizes
that housework is an economic activity that produces wealth and welfare,
and is basically anti-imperialist. The
pamphlet describes how BANMUJER operates. A group of women who are living
in poverty, who are neighbours, decide to hold a meeting. They contact the
Women’s Development Bank. They get in touch with allies, who could be
the mayor, the governor or an organization for grassroots sectors. It is
the duty of the bank to go to the poorest areas. The bank will let
the community know what it has to offer them, while the community decides
what it requires. The bank doesn’t grant credits for housing or
mortgages. After
the first meeting, a process of training, follow up and technical support
begins. But what is taught in the workshop is what the community wants to
know, perhaps how to do book-keeping, not what the bank official wants to
teach or preconceived stereotype notions of economics. Women tend to
forget to take into account the value of their labor power, and forget to
add the cost of electricity, and don’t know how to properly calculate
the value of the raw materials used or the cost of cleaning. “I see now
why I always lost out; it’s because I didn’t include the value of the
kitchen gas, let alone my labor power.” Nora
also talks about her own life. Her mother had six children, without any
support from a male partner, and always worked in other people’s homes,
cooking and cleaning, holding down three jobs to feed her young family.
Nora’s father was a well known lawyer, landowner, and political leader
in Lara. Once her mother was pregnant, the father took her to Caracas and
placed her in the house of a relative, with Nora’s mother expected to
cook and clean to earn her keep. Most women in Venezuela have this
experience. Nora
is very concerned about racial discrimination. Her young daughter has
frizzy hair, but when she was small, the teacher said she had “bad”
hair. Nora told her, “Your hair isn’t bad, it isn’t greasy, you
don’t have dandruff. Your hair is Angela Davis’ hair. We had heard the
stories of Angela Davis and Cassius Clay reclaiming their Blackness and
this seemed a very good thing to us.” She relates in her biography how
Venezuelans do not accept that they are Black or Indigenous. “They say
they are mestizo -- mixed race. But by saying this, they are acknowledging
their white ancestry and not their other ancestry.” This
is a terrific introduction to the women of Venezuela, their situation and
the steps being taken to change their reality through the Women’s Bank,
another initiative of President Hugo Chavez. The bank is part of the
Bolivarian process of revolutionizing Venezuela’s economy: promoting
grassroots activity backed by the oil revenue. Nora
Castaneda, in this booklet, describes how BANMUJER is providing a
path-breaking framework for building a movement which is ``creating an
economy at the service of human beings.’’ As Selma James explains in her introduction to Creating a Caring Economy, “Those of us immersed in the movement need to know how they’re doing it in Venezuela so we can learn from them what we have to do wherever we are. She is a fantastic spokesperson for the revolution and for women everywhere.” |