Agree to Disagree

AWID Forum, 14th to 17th Nov 2008, Cape Town – Forgotten Voices: Women with Disabilities and the AIDS Pandemic – Sex Workers Meet Feminism – Measuring the Success of Our Movements

This phrase has been bandied about for so often and so long that I’m increasingly confused as to what it really means. Women’s rights groups have often said, it’s best to “agree to disagree”. But what are we agreeing to disagree on except for the fact that we cannot come to a concensus? WIth rising conservatism and fundamentalism and women’s rights groups seeing the work and the gains they’ve achieved fast dissipate during political, economic and social crises, can we continue to afford to “agree to disagree”? Are we still agreeing to disagree on strategies or issues? Are we still agreeing to disagree on “what’s the right set of rights”? Today I heard that it’s not about coming to a concensus but agreeing on the highest common denominator. What if this highest common denominator still marginalises the issues and rights of the minority—sex workers, women with disabilities, indigenous women, lesbians, bisexual women, and the transgendered women, and do, or should we still include transgendered men, if we are involving men? Are we really supporting “the powerless” though our movement? Already, we’ve witnessed tensions within the women’s rights movement on “the right set of rights”, what more if our movement includes faith-based organisations, and organisations that are more inclined towards the political position of governments?