Women’s Space

Wars are fought over words, art, and the ways in which we represent the world. And peace, equality and social justice, will, in the end, also be made through representing the world authentically anew.

I invite you to join in this remaking. As Arundhati Roy so eloquently puts it, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.” It is up to us to give that breath voice.

–Masum Momaya, Masum Momaya, Curator of Women, Power and Politics Exhibition , International Museum of Women

I’ve received two e-mails now from Laura at the International Museum of Women introducing me to this online museum’s very fine exhibitions and work. I’ve finally taken some time to take a look and I am inspired! What an amazing collection of art, video, essays and photographs about a world as women are reinventing and recreating it.

Following are some parts of the Exhibition that caught my eye.

Campaign Against Domestic Violence in Norway

For six years straight, the United Nations Development Programme had rated Norway The World’s Best Country to Live In. Norwegians’ homeland was seen by the world, and by themselves, as a utopian place where people were happy and full-bellied. Children were safe and educated, the sick were insured, and the elderly were respected. Unemployment and poverty were merely concepts studied in elementary school history classes rather than realities of everyday life. All this, in a place where women hold 40 percent of all leadership positions and enjoy equal rights.

Norway is that country, but many have been unaware of the living reality for a shocking number of women — domestic violence. Link

Norwegian Sami Parliament Attains 50-50 Gender Balance

Today, Norwegian women occupy 37 percent of the seats in the Norwegian National Parliament. Few other countries in the world, namely Sweden, Rwanda, Denmark and the Netherlands, can boast such a high percentage. But as we congratulate Norway on this truly rare and remarkable achievement, it is important to note that a perfect 50-50 gender balance has been achieved in Norway’s own back yard.
The parliament of the Sámi people, Norway’s indigenous ethnic group, recently achieved the coveted 50 percent balance, an event unaccompanied by media fanfare and street parades, with many Norwegians unaware of it.

How did this Norwegian minority parliament achieve, by today’s standards, the impossible? Link

The Women of Greenham Commons

Is there anything more personal — and political — to women than their bodies? Aware of the political charge of their bodies, women have physically hurled themselves in public spaces to protest wars, human injustice, and abuse of power. One of the most vivid and longstanding examples of women using their bodies to take up space in non-violent protest is the Women of Greenham Common. Link

So spend some time at the International Museum of Women. It’s inspiring and we need to be inspired right now.

Thanks, Laura!

Heart