International: "Culture and Conflict" - women, religion, war

Source: 
IFOR Women Peacemakers Program
The International Museum of Women (IMOW) and the IFOR Women Peacemakers Program (WPP) have an online exhibition focusing on the theme Culture and Conflict.
“When I was eight years old, I was required to work every waking hour yet the boys could be literally sleeping while I worked. There was so much waiting around to do for the men. We the girls had to look after the babies, weed the fields, clean the houses and yards, fetch water, warm it and set it for men to bath, cook and give the food to men, and the men always got the best food. Women got battered by their husbands frequently in my village and that irked me. I was asked to be respectful to some men who did not even respect themselves. Then I would wonder why God made me a girl because being a boy looked easy - everything was given to you. I was alarmed when my distant cousin was killed by her husband and then not arrested. He was made to pay a cow to his in-laws and got a younger fresher woman. That memory from my childhood sticks out to me as I finally realized that women's situation was akin to slavery.”
(Women Peacemakers - Netsai Mushonga, Zimbabwe)
Culture and Conflict
Women, religion, war.


How are women affected by current conflicts around the world-- and how do they actively participate? Do religious values conflict with women’s human rights? In this global age, are we more united or more divided?

Join us this month for fascinating perspectives you can’t find any place else. Read journalist Lisa Ling’s experiences with anti-Americanism around the world—and share your thoughts. Hear Georgina Choueri, a young Lebanese woman; share her perceptions on the use of the veil in her country. Follow a groundbreaking dialogue between young women in Yemen, and young women in the U.S., talking about the war in Iraq. Is there hope for peace in the Middle East? How can our generation contribute to creative solutions to some of the globe’s most protracted conflicts? Join the conversation.

Get Involved: Join the Conversation

Post your own stories, comments, and reactions. To hear about what your peers from around the world are thinking click here http://imaginingourselves.imow.org/pb/Home.aspx?lang=1

What Defines our Generation of Women?

Imagining Ourselves connects women in their twenties and thirties around the globe, inspiring them to create positive change in their lives, their communities, and the world. Join us for this historic global conversation, including an online exhibit, a series of global events, and a new book.

“If you are a woman between the ages of twenty and forty living anywhere on the globe today, you are part of the most educated, most well-traveled, most professionally empowered, most international generation of women ever to have existed on this planet. It’s a story that not many people are telling yet, but it’s one of the most inspiring stories out there these days in a world full of violence and insecurity — the story of a generation of women poised to take the reins of global leadership like no other generation in history.”
(Paula Goldman, Founder and Director, Imagining Ourselves)

Take Action: Uniting Women Across Boundaries

As war and violent conflict claim more and more lives, women from across the world are joining hands to help each other through the crisis. Consider joining these efforts! You can help the effort to ensure that rape isn't used as a strategy of war-- or that women take their place at the negotiating table to create a just peace after these conflicts have ended. Please follow the http://imaginingourselves.imow.org/pb/TakeAction.aspx?lang=1 for ideas on this important subject.

Without peace, development is impossible, and without women, neither peace nor development can take place.