People sometimes wonder why it matters that women are more illiterate than men, particularly in the South. If women "only" do a little traditional agriculture, and have babies, and cook the food, why do they need to be literate? While it is true that women around the world do the majority of domestic labour, it is now recognized that the majority of the world's women also participate in the cash-based labour force, whether through a job or through small - scale trading or agriculture. I do not believe that there are any people left on earth who are not in the grip of the global economy, and who do not, in some way, require cash to negotiate their relationship to day to day life (11). The reality today is that women would feel more competent, be less likely to be cheated, more likely to benefit from modern medical treatments, and be better able to manage their own affairs if they could read and write. Illiteracy is a barrier to a woman's ability to exercise control over her destiny.

Literacy is a fundamental human right, and needs all the protections and encouragements that such a right entails. The upcoming World Conference on Women's Rights in Beijing will be another occasion for us to affirm our commitments to "gender equity and maximum resource development in the field of women's literacy" (12).

Bev Suderman is currently past-president of CCLOW, and represented the organization at the ICAE conference in Cairo, September 1994.

1. I am using the term "South" to indicate countries with a history of colonialism and severe poverty for the majority of their citizens in these times. Other terms for this group of countries have included Third World, under-developed nations, and so on.
   
   
2. The most recent Statistics Canada study, defining literacy as the ability to function with reading, writing and numeracy skills at a level of comfort day to day life, found that approximately 38% of the Canadian population has difficulty reading and writing. Earlier studies, based on years of education, indicated that 25% of the population was illiterate, on the basis of having 8 or fewer years of education.
   
   
3. Rosa Maria Torres of UNICEF's Education Cluster in New York made this point during her presentation in Cairo. Reported in Blais et al. p.15.
   
   
4. Lind, p.3.
5. Manandhar & Leslie, p.103.
6. Mishra, Ghose & Bhog, p.126.
7. Aksomkool, p.2.
8. Lind, p.2 & p.10.
9. Limage, p.38.
   
   
10. Features of the industrial revolution in England must have looked much the same as much of the South looks today; i.e. people forced to participate in cash economies through the imposition of taxes, forcible evictions from the land and therefore from subsistence activities, immense poverty, disease, starvation, and the immense wealth of the few.
    
    
11. By "people" I am referring to groups of people. For example, before I traveled to Zambia, I believed that Zambian peasants were relatively free from the constraints and pressures placed on people by the cash economy, but I found that I was wrong.
    
    
12. Limage, p.30.

References
Aksomkool, Namtip (1994) "The Place of Literacy Materials in Development." Unpublished paper presented at the International Council for Adult Education's Fifth World Assembly on the theme of Women, Literacy and Development, Cairo, September 1994.

Arigbede, M.O. (1994) "Critical Issues in Women, Literacy & Development." Unpublished paper presented in Cairo.

Benjamin, Lehn and Walters, Shirley (1994) "The Women can also dig the graves: The Centrality of 'Power' and 'Resistance' for Gender Training in South Africa" in Convergence 27, pp. 167-173.

Bhola, H.S. (1994) "Women's Literacy: A Curriculum of Assertion, Resistance, and Accommodation?" in Convergence 27, pp. 41-50.

Blais Madeleine et al, (1994) Report to the National Literacy Secretariat about the International Council for Adult Education's Fifth World Assembly on Women, Literacy and Development, held in Cairo, September 15-22, 1994. Unpublished report.

Limage, Leslie (1994) "Women's Literacy in World- Wide Perspective" in Convergence 27, pp.33-40.

Lind, Agneta (1994) "Women and Literacy with Particular Reference to Southern Africa." Unpublished paper presented in Cairo.

Lloyd, Betty-Ann, Ennis Frances & Atkinson, Tannis (1994) The Power of Woman- Positive Literacy Work: Program- based Action Research. Halifax: Fernwood.

Manandhar, Udaya, and Leslie, Keith (1994) "Empowering Women 3. and Families through Literacy in Nepal" in Convergence 27, pp. 120-110.

Mishra, Renuka, Those, Malini, and Bhog, Dipta (1994) "Concretizing Concepts: Continuing Education Strategies for Women" in Convergence 27, pp. 126-137.