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From left to right, Craig Kennedy, President, GMF; Susan Scanlan, Chairperson, National Council of Women’s Organizations; and Priya Natarajan, Professor, Yale University What challenges and opportunities are global women’s networks facing at this moment in history?
Susan Scanlan, Chairperson of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, addressed this question head on in her opening remarks for the April 19, 2013, event “Global Women’s Networks: Unleashing Potential”, which was cosponsored by GMF and the Yale World Fellows Program. Scanlan’s address offered a roadmap to understand the ways women around the world are using their voices and their actions to create networks of support and change. “I am a Baby Boomer who crested the Second Wave of the American women’s movement,” Scanlan commented. An excerpt of her opening remarks is below:
That’s not only before computers – it’s before the Xerox machine! When long distance calling and air travel were prohibitively expensive, and linking up with sisters in another state, much less over an ocean, was hardly imaginable.
Despite the demise of cursive script and the good, old fashioned personal letter, I now celebrate the technological landscape. We have found and linked our voices on-line. We’ve harnessed the power to mobilize people to action on an unprecedented scale and speed — not just across continents, but across generations, classes, and races. Mile-a-minute innovation and knock-your-socks-off creativity by “netizen” activists have become game-changers during elections, for boycotts, against corruption, and in every corner of the fight for social justice.
Women seem to be hardwired for social networking. So it’s no surprise that a 2006 report by PEW Internet showed 89 percent of younger women – ages 18 to 29 – were online. That’s compared with 80 percent of men in the same age group. Online Feminism is already connecting grassroots with grass tops, policymakers with the public, advocacy groups with service organizations. And the outcomes are nothing short of spectacular.
In Washington, DC, where the decisions are made, they say you’re either “at the table or on the menu.” It’s been my life’s work to bring women to the table. But nowadays, it’s the younger generation teaching ME how to pull up an electronic chair to join the Wi-Fi feasting. Otherwise, how would I find myself on a sound stage at Farragut Square on Valentine’s Day, emceeing a flash mob of 800 dancers who’d come out for DC Rising? This was our contribution to Eve Ensler’s One Billion Rising, a global revolution against gender violence that drew huge crowds in large cities and small towns in 204 countries. This massive undertaking was organized completely on-line by women.
Yet, the first time any of us met face-to-face was that sunny but chilly Noon as America’s youngest female deejay—11 year-old Beauty and The Beats—cranked up the music and we Rose together in sisterhood and in rhythm with women around the planet. That’s networking at its most powerful. And we’re still just getting the hang of it.
“Global Women’s Networks: Unleashing Potential”, cosponsored by GMF and the Yale World Fellows Program, was attended by over 50 female leaders from around the globe.
