CSW 59 recap, WILPF 100 invitation, & WPS Global Study survey––PeaceWomen March 2015 ENews

20 Years Since Beijing: What does Transformation look like?

By Abigail Ruane, PeaceWomen Program Manager
 

In a year of anniversaries, where much is promised and more expected, “transformative” is becoming a buzzword—even a meme. But what does it mean?

In the context of dismaying violence in Yemen and Tunisia and qualms over a two-state solution in Israel, entrenched violence and injustice seems more apparent than transformation.

After a whirlwind last couple of weeks at the 59th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 59) and the 20th anniversary of Beijing (Beijing+20), the question of what transformation looks like lingers in my mind. As Isabelle Geuskens of the Women Peacemakers Program asked, “We got our resolutions, but what about our revolution?”

Transformation is a tricky term. It has almost unlimited potential. However, its ability to live up to this potential is ultimately anchored to it’s user’s privilege and perspective.

This year’s CSW political declaration is a case in point. The declaration calls for “transformation” of gender stereotypes, yet WILPF joined over 900 organizations in pointing out that the declaration threatens a major step backward and that efforts must be substantially ramped up “to achieve the goals of fully realizing gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of all women and girls everywhere.” Echoing this, current negotiations over the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have promised “transformative” change that “leaves no one behind”; yet the SDGs are at risk of being corrupted by an expansion of corporate power in the name of sustainable development. As WILPF has repeatedly reminded states, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda commits to addressing root causes of armed conflict; yet countries continue to fail to put their money where their mouth is: global military spending ($1.7 trillion) is thirteen times more than development aid (about $130 billion), much less development justice.

How can we move forward and go beyond adding women to changing the whole war system for peace? How can we take action for change that women human rights defenders can see and feel?

At CSW 59, WILPF Secretary General Madeleine Rees put out a call to action: it is time, she demanded, to “rethink, strategize, organize and make a difference.”

Feminist human rights and peace leaders at CSW 59 refused to accept a stagnating status quo and reignited their determination for creative mobilization for structurally transformative change.  With the Post2015 Women’s Coalition, we launched a vision of feminist sustainable development that rejects the current militarist, extractivist, neoliberal economic model and instead invests in development designed for gender justice, gender equitable distribution of power, wealth, and resources, and sustainable nonviolence, environmental restoration and peace. WILPF’s events at CSW 59 created space to cultivate a conversation on what addressing root causes of violence can look like.

At WILPF’s 100th anniversary Women’s Power to Stop War conference in the Hague 27-29 April 2015 we will take the next step to mobilize feminist peace leaders for creative action for peace and gender justice.

To change the world, we need all of us!

We invite you to join us as we craft a vision and strategy for the next century for gender justice and peace activism.

See you in the Hague!