Building the Sisterhood
- Nurturing Women's Voices in the Peace Movement
by Rosalie Tyler Paul
Women's leadership is sorely needed in this war-torn world. But what does
women's leadership mean? How can we support the development of women as
leaders? What are some feminist models for power? These are some of the
questions the Peace Action women's retreat grappled with for a full day in
November just before the National Congress convened in Austin.
Eighteen national staff and board members gathered at Stonehaven, the ranch
and retreat center of Genevieve Vaughan, a radical feminist who proposes an
alternate economy, a gift economy, based on sharing rather than exchange.
Her ideal is to develop a market-free economy rather than a free-market
economy, since the market depends on creating scarcity rather than sharing
natural abundance.
Like the fish in the sea, it is hard for us to see the water we live in.
Patriarchal values surround us and become a mostly invisible veil.
We followed a circular path in our retreat day starting with looking for
what is unique in women's leadership, continuing with questions about how we
can support it and how we can build trust in ourselves and each other. We
asked how women's leadership can create change in this current situation
and, more broadly, how feminist values can transform our culture.
This second annual day-long retreat has become a Peace Action tradition. We
hope that more women will be able to attend next year when the Congress is
held in Chicago at the end of July. Our feelings are vital to our
leadership. Exploring them together is richly nourishing. Some veils were
lifted in our time together.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Winter, 2001-2002