Horner's 10th

A series of panel discussions aimed at challenging the conventional wisdom on women and the Third World met yesterday to honor the 10th anniversary of President Horner's inauguration.

The goals of the conference were to present finding's of completed and ongoing research on the Third World and women and to review the effects of the research on current policy.

A group of distinguished scholars discussed these issues from sociological economic and political science perspectives. John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics. Emeritus, delivered the introductory remarks for the conference.

But according to panel member Larry W. Bowman, professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, many of the research conclusions do not enter into foreign policy making. "Research is going in one direction and policy is going in the other," he said.

Pennsylvania State University Professor Constantine Salilios-Rothschild, pointed out that context is crucial to understanding perceptions of women in the Third World. "You have to look at the microcosm in which the woman lives," she said.

"People see the Third World woman as being irrational for having so many children. Actually this is very rational behavior, because there is so much domestic work; the children help to divide it up," she said.

Yesterday's conference was a follow-up to one Horner coordinated in 1973 on the subject of women and families.

Its purpose "is to look past 'developing' and 'developed' nations and realize that we are all interdependent rather than dependent," Horner said.