Gathering the Women

 

Quotes from the website: http://gatherthewomen.org/

March 3-9, 2003 marked the beginning of a movement.
During that week, millions of women gathered around the globe
to unite in their common desire
to create a balanced, peaceful, harmonious world.
The women are gathered... the movement has begun.

 

This is a momentous time in history...
a time when women worldwide
are hearing the Call...

The Call to demonstrate a new way
of world leadership...

Weaving a World of Balance,
Partnership,
Justice
and Peace

Gather the Women is evoking at a profound level
an experience of our own woman's worth to the world.

As women we bring life forward.
We are in touch with the cycles of life
and we function in a context that is deeply relational.
This realization is allowing women to risk leaving
the safety of our comfortable conformities.

We have the capacity to generate
creative solutions that benefit
all life on the planet.
Gather the Women is creating
a rich exchange of cultural values
to dissolve the ties that bind us to the illusion
that one segment of our human family can win
while another loses.

Together we women are contributing
to a new collective wisdom
and we are lending our strength
to that which we wish to embrace.
From this emerging balance is being born
a new dimension of our humanity.

Preamble

In a world gone mad, where the balance of qualities said to be masculine or feminine have become dominantly masculine, the dominator model rules in governments, corporations, health and education, and other institutions. Even though women make up over 52 percent of the world's population, only 10 percent hold leadership and decision-making roles. Therefore, feminine qualities have been largely repressed or ignored when decisions are made that affect the welfare of the planet. We are committed to changing this ratio and to bringing the world into balance and partnership.

Using the Internet as an electronic hub, Gather the Women is a grassroots movement that calls women to stand together in solidarity to create a balanced world where feminine energy tempers the masculine and masculine energy powers the feminine. Creating a balanced society that works for all begins by recognizing the importance of achieving balance within each individual man and woman—where each individual is not only encouraged but expected to express the full spectrum of his or her emotional and intellectual capacity regardless of gender.

It is the ideal of Gather the Women to live in a New Way of cooperation that includes all women. In the pursuit of this ideal, we, the members of the Guiding Circle, make every effort to reach consensus on matters that come before us. We all reject war. We—as in the women we represent— hold different views, however, as to the wisdom of singling out specific conflicts, such as the impending war on Iraq. We make this revelation to acknowledge and to honor differences of perspective, and to continue moving forward in the New Way.

DECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY

As Women of the World:

WE support international cooperation, diplomacy and a strong United Nations.
We reject unilateral pre-emptive strikes, war for the sake of dominance,
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
the use of landmines, the targeted rape of women,
and the killing and maiming of innocent civilians and children.

WE support a just and sustainable economy
that recognizes the labor of all workers,
including homemakers and immigrants,
and the interests of children, elders and the displaced.
We reject a Darwinian economy that makes expendable
vulnerable segments of society.

WE support the right to peaceful dissent and its system of checks and balances.
We reject government corruption in any form.

WE support worldwide equal representation
and participation in government
with a proportionate voice for women and minorities.
We reject a political campaign process dependent on wealth and alliance with powerful special interest groups.

WE support businesses and corporations that contribute to
and are accountable to society.
We reject misguided legal structures
that allow multinational corporations to wield powers
that exploit workers, desecrate the environment,
and traffic in an arms trade that perpetuates war.
We deeply grieve and reject the trafficking in women and children.

WE support a practical reverence for our planet Earth
and the ecological systems that sustain us,
and a recognition that her natural resources belong equally to all her inhabitants.
We reject the destruction of her ancient forests,
the poisoning of oceans and rivers, the maltreatment of animals,
the privatization of water and crop seeds,
and the polluting of the very air we breathe.

WE support a responsible and independent news media
committed to giving a full, unbiased analysis
of local, national and world situations
necessary for decision-making by an informed public,
and committed also to reporting positive news.
We reject irresponsible, biased reporting
by media dependent on the dictates of its multinational corporate owners
driven by profit, fear mongering, war propaganda, and sensationalist violence.

WE support legal and enforced protections of women's and children's rights,
and reject all violence against women and children.

As Women of the World

WE are willing to look at the cost of our silence
and to now speak with courage and conviction
in calling for justice for ourselves and for all.

WE are willing to activate that which we have long denied—
our power to influence, to change and to model a new way.

WE are willing to walk a middle way,
knowing that extreme world views lead to polarization and separation.

WE are willing to be the change we wish to see in the world.

THIS IS OUR DECLARATION.
THIS IS OUR COMMITMENT.
THIS IS HOW WE SHALL LIVE.