It is increasingly clear that the building of a better world requires a much larger participation, or a much bigger contribution, by women at all levels than it is the case presently. That means, that implies, that women need to have, will have, a lot more power – political power, economic power, cultural power, social power – than presently. That is what the ‘empowerment of women’, which is happening everywhere in the world, at all levels, is all about.
The Empowerment of Women and the Building of a Better World
It is increasingly clear that the building of a better world requires a much larger participation, or a much bigger contribution, by women at all levels than it is the case presently. That means, that implies, that women need to have, will have, a lot more power – political power, economic power, cultural power, social power – than presently.
That is what the ‘empowerment of women’, which is happening everywhere in the world, at all levels, is all about. Real power is not given, but acquired, especially at the top and the middle levels, if not at the bottom or ‘grassroots’ level.
Nothing in the world is as powerful as an idea whose time has come - Victor Hugo
I will, in this Introduction, briefly present these three levels of empowerment -- the top, the middle and the bottom – all of which are important, and even indispensable. I will give two examples each of women at the top and the middle levels who are either already making a difference, or who could in the future do so under certain conditions. The two examples I chose of women at the top level are Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton. Angela Merkel was elected German Chancellor in 2006, and she became president of the European Union and of the G-8 for 2007 (these positions rotate annually between the member states of the EU). After almost two years in office, what most knowledgeable commentators agree on is that so far she has not made any major mistakes -- and that, consequently, ‘the jury is still out’ on her overall and final performance.
It is generally acknowledged that Merkel is sincere in her support of sustainable development, that is, of a balanced development that has two major dimensions: the protection of the environment and the alleviation poverty. More specifically, she is pushing for a 30 per cent reduction (from the 1990 levels) of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2-e) in the atmosphere by 2020, and a 50 per cent reduction by 2030; she also wants a 50 per cent reduction, or ‘alleviation’, of poverty by 2015.
These are significant – and, perhaps, even bold -- initiatives, but: Can they be achieved? And, if they are achieved, will it be enough? The second question especially, I believe, remains a very open one (I rather think that it will not, but that is a personal opinion). In foreign policy, Merkel’s performance is so far – by necessity some will say, possibly correctly, and not by choice – less significant, more conventional and less bold. For example, her belief that the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in the ‘Road Map’ proposed by the ‘Quartet’ (the US, the EU, the UN and Russia) is rather disappointing. The truth or reality is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is part of the larger Middle-Eastern conflict that includes Iraq, Iran and Syria, and, at a lower level, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and, as everyone knows, the US holds the key to that conflict, and it has its own particular ‘agenda’ in the region. An agenda that is inevitably that of an imperialist superpower which, in a nutshell, is about the control of oil in a region that has the world’s largest reserves (so far, that is: the melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic may change that in perhaps twenty to thirty years).
So the real question nobody wants to hear, or to face is: Can the US be made to modify its imperialist agenda in the Middle East, and HOW? The other three members of the ‘Quartet’ – the EU, the UN and Russia, plus perhaps China and India – could bring some pressure to bear the US. But will they do it? Can they do it? These are dangerous times in international politics: the US has entered in a declining phase, and other great powers – the same ones that I mentioned above -- are rising. These dangerous times may last a relatively long time – twenty, thirty years – until a new situation emerges that is clear and everyone accepts it, and adapts to it. In the meanwhile, this transition may not necessarily occur peacefully, it could very well lead to a Third World War) that could be catastrophic for the whole world (I wrote an essay on this, Rising China and Declining America …).
Which brings me to Hillary Clinton who could play a decisive role at the beginning of this transitional period – assuming that she is, in November 2008, elected President of the United States (I believe that she has a very good chance), and re-elected four years later. She could, assisted by her husband, resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the larger Middle-Eastern conflict is a different kettle of fish for the main reason that I have mentioned above – that it is about the control of oil in a region that has the world’s largest reserves, etc. The United States will not cease being an imperialist power because Hillary Clinton is President. In that respect, it does not matter WHO is President of the United States. But the style, if not the substance, could change: she could have, and will probably, adopt a far more multilateral and diplomatic approach.
But where Hillary Clinton could make a real difference is social policy, both domestic and foreign. She could have as President the clout, this time, to push through a health insurance system for all Americans (43 million Americans do not have it presently). She could also dramatically increase ODA (Overseas development Assistance) by tripling or quadrupling the budget of the USAID. Politically, things would be far more difficult, but essential. There she could try to reform the American electoral law, and thus save the American democracy. That will mean -- taking a leaf from FDR’s book – attacking the immense power of ‘Corporate America’ – expressed through 35,000 full-time lobbies and 10,000 PACS (Political Action Committees) in the United States. Can she do it? Will she do it? Nothing is less sure, and I am not holding my breath. But maybe, if the circumstances are right, she will give it a shot. It is in the well-considered American interest after all. 1
Middle level women leaders – network builders, community organisers, NGO and CSO leaders, civil servants at the UN -- are no less important than women leaders at the top. The two examples that I will mention here are: Vandana Shiva, the well-known activist-scientist and the Founding Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi, India; and Asunta S. Dominguez, the Vice-president of the Movement of Landless Women in the District of Cochabamba, in Bolivia. Vandana Shiva has been, for more than two decades, an eloquent alter-mondialist critic of neo-liberal globalisation, and a tireless defender of small farmers in India whose livelihood, and even existence, are threatened by the aggressive and profit-oriented policies of multinational corporations -- especially Monsanto, the American agro-business giant, that ‘pushes’ – in addition to expensive chemical fertilisers and pesticides -- artificial and genetically modified seeds. Asunta Dominguez has long been involved in the struggle of the landless peasants in Cochabamba, Bolivia. For decades she has had to face the indifference, hostility and opposition of the Bolivian government, but her luck has turned with the election of Evo Morales, a native Indian and former trade unionist, to the presidency of Bolivia. So now the Bolivian government supports her organisation’s fight against the latifundistas , the often absentee landlords of the very large estates. 2
At the bottom, or ‘grass-roots’, level women’s participation in, or contribution to, sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty in the very poor countries is essential. In sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, in rural as well as in urban areas, tens of millions of women are involved in hundreds of thousands of social and economic projects -- often thanks to micro-credits: growing foodstuffs and cash crops, such as maize, beans, and bananas, and raising chickens; making handicrafts, like mats and baskets; and so on. It is in recognition of this crucial role played by women in sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty that one of the nine Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- of the Millennium Program launched by the UN in the year of 2000 (see the relevant section in the essay on ‘The Political Economy of Love’) -- is precisely the empowerment of women.
WOMEN AND PEACE 3
The battle that some remarkable women have waged for the cause of peace has a long history in Europe and in America. In the Old Continent, after several weeks of bloody fighting, after war broke out between France and Germany, Valérie de Gasparin, an aristocratic French-Swiss lady who lived in Geneva, launched, on 30 August 1870, on the first page of the Journal de Genève, a noble and emotional appeal for peace, of which I present a few representative passages below:
Women of France and Germany! … Your patriotic compassion
comforts thousands of wounded. You can do better. Let us rise up.
… Antiquity shows us heathen women, their outstretched arms
separating the fighters … No more massacres! No more bodies
mutilated! No more generations cut down in their prime! …
Women of all countries, let us join hands across frontiers … If we,
the mothers, the wives, the fiancées and sisters of France and
Germany, desire peace, then peace there will be. In the name of
God, let us rise up, let us unite, let us win the battle …
In the United States, about two years later, in 1872, only seven years after the end of the American Civil War (which, with more than half million dead, remains the bloodiest conflict in American history), Julia Ward Howe proposed that a national ‘Mother’s Day for Peace’ should be instituted which would unite, or link together, the two ‘holy’ concepts of motherhood and peace. Julia Howe was ‘a tough lady’ and, in her ‘Proclamation’, went even farther than her European ‘sister’ Valérie de Gasparin, declaring that:
‘Our husbands will not come to us reeking of carnage for
caresses and applause. … We, women of one country, will not
allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs … From a devastated
earth a voice goes up … Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder
is not the balance of justice.’
It took a long time, forty years, for Julia Howe’s proposal to be finally accepted, in 1912, by President Woodrow Wilson. But in a truncated form: the essential tie between motherhood and peace was dropped, probably out of fear that it may somehow have a negative effect on the nationalist and patriotic feelings of young Americans of the male sex – those who do the fighting in the wars precisely.
After the Great War – the Second World War -- broke out in Europe in 1914, thirty women of different nationalities got together, again in Geneva, on February 9, 1915, to form the World Union of Women (WUW) for International Peace. The ‘Union’ grew rapidly and by the end of 1917 it had 6,530 members, mostly in Switzerland. Beginning in 1928, the WUW started a journal, called Youth and Peace in the World, which was published in 14 languages, and distributed in the schools of fifteen countries.
After the Second World War women continued to be active for the cause of peace all over the world.
WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT
To give but one example, women’s participation in, and contribution to the Millennium Program – whose first phase will end in 2015, and the second, in 2025 -- will be decisive in the success or failure of the MDGs. Several evaluations undertaken by the UNDP, CSOs and NGOs emphasize that point. The same conclusion can be drawn from the various Social Forums held around the globe, including the worldwide gathering in Nairobi in January 2007: women are increasingly very active in developmental issues. In 1995, no less than 189 national delegations participated in the fourth meeting of the United Nations World Conference on Women (UN-CSW) held in Beijing. Ten years later, in 2005, the conclusion of the ‘Beijing Platform Implementation’ of the UN-CSW to Review the Millennium Program insisted that: 4
(A)ttention be paid on to how both women and men are being impacted by the MDGs, and to the critical role of women in achieving all of the goals, and to ways in which targeting women
and girls can expedite their achievement.’
Meanwhile, the same issues were discussed at the 47th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women held in New York, in March 2003.
CONCLUSION
In Lysistrata, a play by Aristophanes, women decide to refuse sexual favours to their men if they continue waging war and killing one another. The idea here is that women, by ‘disengaging’ sexually, acquire the power to ‘wage peace’. Admittedly Lysistrata is a comedy, and it is not to be taken literally (I admit that I may have an axe to grind here), but only metaphorically and symbolically, or as an indication of the formidable powers that women have to initiate a better world.
In the old days there were in many places of the world matriarchical societies which were more egalitarian, caring and peaceful. [5] The patriarchical societies that succeeded have a dismal historical record: war, greed, inequality, the humiliation of the weak, and a planet on the brink of destruction. Alas, the patriarchal organisation of society is too deeply entrenched to suddenly change into a matriarchal one. But the reality, content and substance of patriarchy will have to change in the future, integrating the good matriarchal elements into the system. And that is what the empowerment of women ultimately means. The time has come for women to play a more active and effective role in world affairs. A new age is unfolding in which women everywhere in the world will play at all levels a significant role. Human civilisation is at a crossroads. If it ends up surviving, not a foregone conclusion, it will be in no small part thanks to women.
Notes:
1 Ségolène Royal was the socialist candidate in the last French presidential elections of April 2007. She lost, getting 47 per cent of the vote, as opposed to 53 per cent to her victorious opponent. Sighs of relief could (metaphorically) be heard in liberal and conservative circles on both sides of the Atlantic, because she wanted to introduce into the French politics a new element: participative democracy (as opposed to representative democracy). That was dangerous for the powers that be, the extremely rich especially. That could change the way politics is perceived. It was not ‘more of the same’. She was critical of the United States and neo-liberal globalisation. There are other women at the top who are also trying to change things in the right direction. For example, Ellen Sirleaf who is President of Liberia, she is a strong supporter of women’s empowerment in Africa.
2 Vandana Shiva is the author of, among many other publications, of , Stolen Harvest: the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; in August 2004, she gave a remarkable lecture at UC, Santa Barbara on, ‘Women’s Struggle against Corporate Control of Biodiveristy: Planting the Seeds for Change. Asunta S. Dominguez has been involved in a large number of demonstrations, land occupations (of latifundia) where new peasant communities were created.
3 See the bilingual : Geneva a Place for Peace / Genève un Lieu pour la Paix. Efforts, Attempts and Challenges. A Few Moments of History / Efforts, Tentatives et Défis – Quelques Moments d’une Histoire. This was the 100-page Catalogue of the Exhibition on Peace held in Geneva in the Fall of 2001.
4 See, ‘UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 47th Session’, in WWSF’s (Women’s World Summit Foundation, Geneva), No.2, July 2003, p.4. Global Newsletter
5 Heide Goettner-Abendroth is considered to be the ‘founding mother’ of ‘modern matriarchal studies’; she has, in 1988, published, in several volumes, a path-breaking master work entitled Das Matriarchat. Goettner-Abendroth argues that matriarchical societies are peaceful, caring and egalitarian because they are need-, consent-, and spirituality-oriented. After decades of hostility from the male-dominated academic establishment, she was able to organise, in 2003 and 2005, two international congresses on matriarchy, the first called ‘Societies in Balance’, the second, ‘Societies of Peace’
