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Gather the Women
un article par Sandy Gaser
In March of last year, Women of Vision & Action (WOVA) launched a project - “Gather The Women,” by activating regional meetings in the U.S. and worldwide, in 67 nations, and supporting these connections on their website, "gatherthewomen" The purpose is to connect women worldwide, to listen to each other, to learn from our multiple perspectives, and to share our wisdom for the challenge of stepping into feminine leadership roles around the world. An obvious choice exists in our world today - to see our planetary story as a hopeless crisis, or an opportunity to create a new story.
In October 2003, representatives from twenty U.S. NGO's, as well as delegates from the U.S. and abroad, were invited to attend an international Gather The women conference in San Francisco, Our intent is to become a "Hub of Collaboration" for NGO's, negating the duplication of effort and limited resources. The combined membership of the twenty organizations represented is 50,000. And, we are growing exponentially as this "hub" concept is revealed to media. I believe it is the real possibility for positive social/political change and eventual political clout that is driving the engine.
A workshop offered at the conference addressed the issue of paying attention to what is dying in our culture, i.e. the multitude of imaginary boundaries that separate us as a species, our sense of innocence and invulnerability in the U.S., and the pretense that war will "fix things." The other side of this coin is to look at what is emerging, albeit the new story for this era - a growing sense of connection with people of other cultures, recharging society for participatory democracy, the growth of spirituality, the emergence of communication enhancers, i.e. conversation cafes and cross cultural connection facilitated by the internet.
Our world is changing at a pace that can steal our breath at times. If we continue to live in the old paradigms that are failing, and look to systems that held us up in the past, our prospects are indeed grim. But, there are people, millions of them, who can see where we should be headed as societies, and we should be "talking" to each other.
Imagine a critical mass that no longer accepts the old paradigms. Imagine that we have created a new story for our time. It has begun.
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DISCUSSION
Question(s) liée(s) à cet article:
Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?,
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Commentaire le plus récent:
The original draft of the UN Culture of Peace resolution, addressed the linkage between women's equality and the culture of peace:
"As recognized by the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing 1995), there is an inextricable linkage of peace with equality between women and men. Only this linkage of equality, development and peace can replace the historical inequality between men and women that has always characterized the culture of war and violence. As pointed out at the Conference, it is necessary to promote women's political and economic empowerment and equal representation at every level of decision-making so that women's experience, talents, visions and potential can make their full contribution to a culture of peace. This analysis is becoming generally accepted in the world today; for example, the Commonwealth states in its proposals for this programme of action that, historically, women themselves have always been anti-war and against violence in view of their roles as mothers and wives, and in times of conflict, women and children have always been the victims."
Looking back over history, as well as prehistory, one can see how it has been the culture of war that has perpetuated male domination. As stated in my study, Why There Are So Few Women Warriors:
"With the advent of internal war, patrilocality, and exogamy, there came a profound shift in male-female relations. The male monopolization of warfare was instituted and extended to hunting (in order to preclude the use of weapons by women) and to the initiation rites of the young (male) warriors. The inequality of power between men and women was institutionalized in a way from which we have never recovered."
I describe the subsequent stages in my book, The History of the Culture of War:
The inequality of power between men and women was further strengthened with the origin of the state, in which war played a decisive role. The rulers of the state were those who had been victorious in war, and as a result, from its origins the state has been dominated by men. . ... continuation.
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