Heavy and Hopeful
The following is an invitation to the No Limits for Women and Sustaining All Life forum “Women’s Voices from the Frontlines/Invitación a las voces de las mujeres desde el frente.”
We are writing, with both heavy [sad] and hopeful hearts, about current conditions for females. As we have been preparing for our forum, the violence and threat of violence, a normalized part of women’s and girls’ everyday lives, has visibly reared its ugly head in many places around the world. In the United States, there was a mass shooting in Georgia that killed seven women, including six Asian women. A female environmentalist was killed by police in the United Kingdom, spawning protests there. Violence disproportionately targeting Indigenous and Global Majority women and girls continues to escalate.
These hard things happen on a day-to-day basis, but there are many reasons to be hopeful. In Australia, a hundred thousand people marched across the country protesting the violence and sexual assault. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women Conference is convening workshops and forums with twenty-five thousand women as part of International Women’s Month. On March 8, International Working Women’s Day, hundreds of thousands of women, girls, and allies took to the streets, with #ChooseToChallenge, to end sexism, male domination, and male preference in our societies.
[At the time this was written] No Limits for Women, along with Sustaining All Life, just completed three workshops as part of our International Women’s Month. The workshops included “Ending Violence Against Women”; “Women, Girls, and Climate Justice”; and “Subversive Catwalk: Fast Fashion, Women, and Climate Justice.” The workshops were attended by over two hundred people. Women newly introduced to Co-Counseling tools felt the safety and could openly share their personal stories. They were thrilled by the listening exchanges and how they enabled them to connect with women from all different backgrounds.
TAKING ON THE BIG CHANGES THAT WE NEED
Every day, and in every “corner” of the world, we as women play key roles in the fight to end the climate emergency. Our leadership, intelligence, and hard work are the foundation of our families, communities, and societies. We are playing a central role in addressing the climate crisis while at the same time battling a ferocious oppression that has targeted us throughout our lives. One year into the pandemic, the ways women and girls are targeted with violence, the threat of violence, economic hardship, sexual exploitation, and layer upon layer of systemic challenges are increasingly visible. All of this has limited us.
Our hurts are deep, but so is our capacity to heal and take action together. We are taking matters into our own hands and, along with our allies, making bold moves to transform our world into one that sustains all life.
Through our shared struggles, we have developed a clearer picture of the challenging terrain we have to navigate from the moment we are born. It is also clear that RC tools and processes make it possible for every one of us to break the silence, isolation, and separation forced upon us by oppression. As we do this work together, we come into deeper awareness of our inherent power.
As females, we have limitless ability to take on [address] the big changes that are needed.
In sisterhood and solidarity,
Queens, New York, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 204, July 2021)