Getting a Global Perspective
My highlight of the Conference was the chance to meet with and create relationships with great women from many places in the world. I got to learn about how people in other countries live. I enjoyed seeing that what unifies us as women is not so much that we share a common oppression in different disguises but that each of us is proof that we are stronger than the oppression. I see this strength when we seek each other out and support each other across boundaries.
I listened with joy and respect to a woman from Iran who is a doctor and lives with her family in Iran. In spite of her disagreement with the official policies in her country and the difficulty this caused her, she wanted to live there and be of service to the people. She was able to listen to strongly fundamentalist people with respect.
I also treasure the friendship I made with a woman from Papua New Guinea who had gone into politics in spite of her own feelings that she was not made for something big. She has done it simply because she thought changes were needed and somebody had to do it. She expressed her motivation as love for people.
I was also very happy to meet a young woman from Nepal who was engaged in organizing support for street children. I got the feeling that the visible ones at the Conference were those who could say “We!” as much as “I!”.
Since I have come home I have been in a radio program debate on “After Beijing.” People cannot get enough. In my daily newspaper, the journalist reported that many participants were negative. Then she wrote, “This is not true of a US woman, Ellen Mason, who was advertising the celebration of Shabbat on Friday night.” So the No Limits for Women Project has reached even a Danish newspaper. What a gang!
Susanne Langer
Copenhagen, Denmark