Foreword by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrook

Perdita wants me to write about her book in this preface, and I shall, in a moment. But first I must insist, in total disregard of her wishes, on discussing the author herself. Characteristically, Perdita wishes to remain virtually invisible, letting the story of the modern family emerge through the voices of her subjects themselves. But first a word about the author.

Perdita is an American original, born and raised in the "charmed security" of a traditional family in Maine. After college in Colorado and Paris, she married a French doctor who was drafted and sent to Algeria during the Algerian war. Living in a tiny village in the most dangerous area of Algeria, the Constantinois, Perdita turned herself into a medical social worker, doing everything from food distribution to helping deliver babies to serving as a local scribe for the illiterate. This experience began a permanent identification by this tall, brilliant and astonishingly attractive woman with those who, in her words, "have little voice and about whom the educated tend to pontificate without knowing of what they speak."

Many people try to help the disenfranchised, the voiceless, the poor. Their intentions are good, but all too often they bring theories with them that do not stand up to reality. Then, if their programs or ideals fail, they blame the very people whom they are trying to help.

Perdita, of course, is different. She listens. From the beginning, she asked questions, and did not offer untested advice. She set out to learn from the uneducated, the poor, the voiceless.

And then she gave them a voice. She published her first book in 1977, called Message from the Village. Few listened at first, but Perdita persevered.

Her second book made a tremendous impact on me. It was called, quite simply, Third World Women Speak Out. Published by the Overseas Development Council in 1978, it was, as far as I can tell, the first book that documented in women's words the unexpected negative consequences that even a good development process had on third world women. Having lived in Southeast Asia and Morocco, and worked on development programs, I thought I understood something about the development process. But Perdita's book was an absolute revelation, showing, among other things, that foreign aid in a developing economy often increased the inequality between men and women, especially in the agricultural sector. New agricultural methods and technologies would be controlled by the men; leisure time would be enjoyed by them; education programs was not offered to women; and so on. Development, wrongly applied, could actually disadvantage women.

It was a profound and prophetic book. Even today, many people do not realize how pernicious the problem has been, but exposing it was essential.

Perdita alternated between writing and action. We worked together in the Peace Corps, where both of us served in one of the most rewarding of all public sector jobs, Peace Corps Country Director (she in Mali and Bulgaria, I in Morocco).

Now this extraordinary woman has turned her attention to the changing nature of the family, from Missouri to Bangladesh. She still believes in the centrality of family, but her interviews suggest that the nature and definition of family has evolved in many ways that are not yet fully understood. Deeply traditional in her attachment to the idea of family, Perdita is characteristically open to examining the different forms it takes in the modern world. Some of her interviews will perhaps distress some people, but she wants us to see things as they really are, and come to terms with the many different types of "families" that now exist, in order to help preserve what matters at the core. The "mythical, harmonious past," she says, should not obscure us to the fact that "families of the past were no different than those of today: some were kind and nurturing, others exploitative and cruel." Literature, she reminds us, is "full of examples."

As always, Perdita is a listener. She is, in her way, still the scribe of the Constantinois, writing down the words and thoughts of the voiceless, helping give them shape and, above all, giving them to us.

Foreword | Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Conclusion