WILPF at CSW59: Celebrating 100 Years of Women Peacemakers

Date: 
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
General Women, Peace and Security
United Nation Theme: 
Events

Panellists/Participants: Featuring a performance piece Talking with our Grandmothers, Madeleine Rees, Secretary General of WILPF; Catia Confortini, author of “Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Methodology in WILPF”. 

Organised by: WILPF

Summary: 

On March 11, WILPF-US hosted a celebration of WILPF’s 100th year. Entitled  Celebrating 100 Years of Women Peacemakers,  the celebration featured performances by the The Raging Grannies who led the audience in song to open the evening’s event. After opening remarks by 

WILPF US President  Mary Hanson Harrison, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Publisher of The Nation joined in celebrating WILPF’s 100th year. She spoke of the intertwining histories of the two entities - The Nation and WILPF- through the work of Emily Green Balch, one of the founders and the first international Secretary-Treasurer of WILPF (for which she won a Nobel Peace Prize) and a former editor of The Nation. 

Next was a performance piece by Robin Lloyd and Charlotte Dennett - Talking with our grandmothers - based on the lives of their grandmothers Lola Maverick Lloyd and Elizabeth Redfern respectively, especially during WWI. For more info on the performance piece, click here. 

Catia Confortini, author of Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Methodology in WILPF next introduced the main speaker, Madeleine Rees who gave a keynote address entitled “The World in Crisis: How Women are Challenging Traditional Peacemaking.” In her address Rees reminded that in 1915, the women who went on to found WILPF sought to identify the root causes of war, challenge militarism and promote world peace. Today we do the same thing but slightly differently because the context has changed she continued.  WILPF’s programs, Rees explained, continue to do all these - addressing peace and disarmament - and seamlessly work together to identify the root causes of war within the multilateral system.

In speaking of her Bosnian experience and WILPF’s work with Bosnian and Syrian grassroots women, Rees insisted that we develop a system where grassroots narratives/descriptions/voices inform the responses of the UN and other international bodies. 

As she closed, Rees invited all to come to the Hague in April for WILPF’s 100th anniversary ‘Women’s Power to Stop War’ conference so as launch a new global movement  which will critically analyze the economy and its power structures and how these construct masculinities, violence, conflict and militarization within the multilateral system.

In speaking of her Bosnian experience and WILPF’s work with Bosnian and Syrian grassroots women, Rees insisted that we develop a system where grassroots narratives/descriptions/voices inform the responses of the UN and other international bodies. 

As she closed, Rees invited all to come to the Hague in April for WILPF’s 100th anniversary ‘Women’s Power to Stop War’ conference so as launch a new global movement  which will critically analyze the economy and its power structures and how these construct masculinities, violence, conflict and militarization within the multilateral system.