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A Woman’s World Beyond the Headlines by Mary Van Lieshout (Oxfam,
£6.99, ISBN 0 85598 349 3) brings together the main issues that arose from
the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. As its title
suggests, the work eschews sensationalist media banners, concentrating instead
on the daily struggle for fundamental rights that women in southern countries
face. This is tackled in three parts: the impact of the globalisation of world
trade, conflicts and war, and the feminisation of poverty (70 per cent of the
world’s absolute poor are now said to be female). Personal accounts drawn from
conference speakers impart a touching reality to the facts.