Women Matter: International Women’s Day, Spring 2012’s Opening

By Tracey L. Hurd, Executive Director

We celebrate the start of our Spring 2012 series in just a few days. We will consider the topic, “Women’s Alternatives to Competition and Aggression,’ through film, prepared reflection, and discussion.  Sarah Roche-Mahdi will bring her history as a scholar, writer, feminist, and activist to reflection about her engagement with CODEPINK (originally called Code Pink Women for Peace).  We will view a portion of Anne Macksoud’s film, “Missing Peace:  Women of Faith and the Failure of War.”  And we will discuss together the question, “How do women deal with competition and aggression?  What strengths do women—in all their diversities—bring to these issues?”  We will name women as a focal point to our explorations and see how that opens doors to new understandings.    

We open our spring series on, March 8^th, which is International Women’s Day.  Though individually and as a group we have honored International Women’s Day in many ways, 2012 is the first year that we do so with our official name, WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  This matters.  To name is to attribute significance.  Women matter and our name, WomenExplore, makes a focus on women visible.

International Women’s Day was marked for the first time in 1911 on March 19^th in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. It was tied to political movements.  In 1975 the United Nations began celebrating March 8^th as International Women's Day and two years later (1977), the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed by Member States. 

Writers from the United Nations website ask:  “Why dedicate a day exclusively to the celebration of the world's women?”  They answer, “ In adopting the resolution on the observance of Women's Day, the General Assembly cites two reasons: to recognize the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women; and to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security.”

Just months ago, President Barack Obama and Secretary Hilary Clinton issued the US National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security.  It has many specific points about the importance of strategic continued attention to women.  They wrote:  “The goal is as simple as it is profound:  to empower half the world’s population as equal partners in preventing conflict and building peace in countries threatened and affected by war, violence and insecurity.  Achieving this goal is critical to our national and global security.” (Department of State, December 19, 2011)

Women matter.  Many gains have been made both by and for women.  Globally, International Women’s Day gives nations permission and encouragement to pause to consider “half the world’s population.”  WomenExplore gives all who participate similar license.  But we go one step further.  WomenExplore, as it was in TOP before, embodies the message that women hold great promise for the transformation of the world.  In our sessions, processes and mission we say:  Listen to women, let their words and lives speak.  Together we can understand and heal this world, always moving towards our better visions of it.   We both start and celebrate this on March 8^th, at 10 am at University Lutheran Church…there’s a great session, a small reception, and a seat for you.  See you there!

Spring 2012 WomenExplore: Join the Unfolding Story

By Tracey L. Hurd, Executive Director

The image of life as a narrative or a book unfurled captures me.  There is something comforting about envisioning us all as players in a grand unfolding, mutually held together by the weight of a solid book’s binding.  There’s progression, yes, a moving forward, but the option to go back – to return to page three—is ever-present, too.  Life as an unfolding story gently suggests a metaphor of life as change happening without true loss. 

Change as a Constant:  Adapting, Surviving, Thriving is the theme for the upcoming Spring 2012 Lecture and Discussion Forum series.  It’s the first full series that we will launch with our new name, WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  It is a lyrical but unplanned coincidence: two changes at once.  The new series name provides a larger umbrella for the variety of topics that anchor our sessions and it names a focus on women that has been part of the program from its inception.  WomenExplore signals our progression, but the pages of the Theological Opportunities Program are held dear and intact.  We are one story.

I joined this narrative of change and continuity as Executive Director on the first of February.  Muna Killingback left for full time work at U. Mass, Boston, in the late fall.  Sitting on the board of WomenExplore, she maintains her close ties with this community and program.  I come here after years in primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty member at Boston College.    The dual commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in.  I attended a session with a friend, and came back again and again.  I am honored to be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation. 

This spring’s line up is stunning.  There will be excellent lectures from leaders in fields presenting cutting-edge research that wrestle with chaos, journey, clutter, sensuality, grief, home, competition, partnering, aloneness and growth.  There will be shorter focusing presentations preceding the lectures, where we will learn about how these topics have taken shape in lived experiences of a participant of the WomenExplore community.  The focusing presentations and lectures, together offer synergy and tension.  Time for engagement, discussion and questions is therefore an essential part of each morning.

So much awaits us.  Come!  Bring a friend.   We have a truly wonderful spring series.  It will be interesting and engaging, and better with you there.  There is a place for you in the unfolding story of WomenExplore’s Lecture Series and Discussion Forum.