An Overview of No Limits for Women
No Limits for Women is an international organization of women (with men as allies) dedicated to eliminating sexism throughout the world. Using the tools of Re-evaluation Counseling, No Limits offers a system of ongoing mutual support in which women can help free each other from the emotional harm done by sexism.
No Limits provides perspectives on issues facing women worldwide, such as violence against women, girls and young women in leadership, women ending racism, and women in partnership with men. It also encourages and assists men to become strong and independent allies of women.
NAIROBI, KENYA 1985
In l985, No Limits for Women conducted its first going-public project. A few RC women leaders, led by Diane Balser (the International Liberation Reference Person for Women) and Barbara Love (the International Liberation Reference Person for African-Heritage People), went to Nairobi, Kenya, for the non-governmental organization (NGO) conference connected to the United Nations Third World Women’s Conference—the first women’s liberation conference held in Africa. No Limits did introductory lectures, reached many women leaders, and played an instrumental role in bringing RC to Kenya.
1985 – 1995
Between l985 and l995, No Limits sponsored one-day workshops, introductory lectures, and gather-ins in many parts of the United States and sometimes in other countries. Co-Counselors reached out to women new to RC. They organized concerts, with women’s liberation songs, to which non-RC women and men were invited. They raised money, with smaller going-public projects, to get a No Limits delegation of women and men to Beijing, China. (See below.)
BEIJING, CHINA, 1995
In 1995, a delegation of three hundred RC women and a few RC men attended the NGO conference held in conjunction with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing, China. This was the largest women’s liberation conference in the world up to that point, and the RC delegation was one of the largest delegations there. We led many workshops on RC and women’s liberation issues. We organized support groups for non-RC women from many countries. Co-Counselors participated in many activities and constituency meetings and often helped them go well.
At the parallel United Nations conference, the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted. Its mission statement included, “The Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s empowerment. It aims at accelerating the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share in economic, social, cultural, and political decision-making.”
BEIJING+20, 2015
In March 2015, at Beijing+20, in New York City, New York, USA, the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women was tasked with reviewing the progress made on the Beijing Platform for Action. They also launched the “He for She Campaign” that invited men and boys to raise their voices for change and speak about equality between women and men.
A diverse No Limits for Women delegation attended the NGO Women’s Forum held in conjunction with Beijing+20. Our delegation of forty people included young women, young adult women and men, women and men targeted by racism, and several women and men from outside the United States. Our goals were to help update and re-energize the global women’s movement, to support the newly launched United Nations effort to build a men’s movement allied to women, and to bring RC to the wide-world women’s liberation activists at the forum. Our team worked together elegantly and collaboratively. We demonstrated the growing role RC can and does play in the ending of sexism and male domination.
Prior to the first day of the Women’s Forum, many delegates plus other RCers from New York City attended a United Nations Women’s March through parts of Manhattan, New York, carrying a banner that read “No Limits for Women, No Limits for Girls.” Throughout the week, delegates reached out to people with listening projects, carrying signs in both Spanish and English that said things like, “What would it be like for you to have a world without sexism and male domination?”
We led six workshops at the forum: Young Women Ending Sexism with Young Men as Allies, Women Ending Racism, Men Ending Sexism and Male Domination, Women Ending Sexual Violence toward Women with Men as Allies, Women and Men in Partnership to End Sexism and Male Domination, and Women and Leadership. We did support groups and sessions after the workshops. All our activities were well attended. Members of the delegation and local RC volunteers handed out a pamphlet about RC and the No Limits project.
JANUARY 22, 2017
Our most recent going-public project was attending, as No Limits for Women, many of the women’s marches held on January 22, 20l7—the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated president of the United States. We went to at least twenty local marches in the United States and several in other countries. Altogether, the U.S. marches were the largest protest in U.S. history. (To read more about No Limits at these marches, see pages 11 to 19 of this Present Time.)
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, USA
(Present Time 187, April 2017)