Understanding Women's Work: Steps toward Transformation—An Introduction

Abstract

A session at the 2005 Delhi Congress on Women, Work and Health was entitled “Social movements and research on women, work and health: How can researchers and community members work together on current problems?” and described researcher-worker collaboration to gain recognition for the constraints and requirements of women's jobs. Suffering in the workplace may appear to come primarily from such visible aggressors as toxins and heavy weights, but its ultimate cause is the powerlessness, isolation, and denigration that sap workers' ability to fight back. Participatory research projects described here have promoted solidarity and encouraged the transformation of working conditions.