2008 Woodie Awards
Women Called to Resist Culture of Violence
Claudia Anaya
Issue date: 4/30/08 Section: News
Eisha Mason, speaker, author, and educator shed some light March 27 on "Women's Role as Activists in Today's Culture of Violence: a Culture of Wife-Beating, Workplace Shootings, Water Boarding, and War."
As part of the 10th annual women's history month, the discussion was held in Kreider Hall (SR 138) from noon to 1 p.m. Mason shared three lessons she said she learned in order to make change.
"Violence is not new, whether it is domestic violence, child abuse, war, violence against workers, or against the environment," said Mason, who stressed that women have a particular role in creating change in a world that may be regressing instead of progressing.
Power, as Mason sees it, is the capacity for people to make a difference in the community or on a global scale by following the vision people want for the world.
"Negotiators learned that when working for peace it cannot be gender neutral," said Mason.
She mentioned the fallout of a peacemaking process in the nation of Angola "where women were not at the table" to bring up concerns on social services issues that were needed at the time.
Mason, who said that she wants to be a world citizen, shared what she has learned along the way as a "teacher, student, and an activist in the school of life."
Mason first learned not to let a boyfriend, father, other women, peers, society, or a school institution define her.
"We get programmed early about what our roles are in a family, relationship, and society. Women are taught to go along to get along, what appropriate behavior is, to let other people be smarter, and to fit in a particular box," said Mason.
Mason quoted Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for founding The Green Belt Movement, a program dedicated to planting trees in Kenya to preserve the environment: "Women in general need to know that it's okay for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence."
As part of the 10th annual women's history month, the discussion was held in Kreider Hall (SR 138) from noon to 1 p.m. Mason shared three lessons she said she learned in order to make change.
"Violence is not new, whether it is domestic violence, child abuse, war, violence against workers, or against the environment," said Mason, who stressed that women have a particular role in creating change in a world that may be regressing instead of progressing.
Power, as Mason sees it, is the capacity for people to make a difference in the community or on a global scale by following the vision people want for the world.
"Negotiators learned that when working for peace it cannot be gender neutral," said Mason.
She mentioned the fallout of a peacemaking process in the nation of Angola "where women were not at the table" to bring up concerns on social services issues that were needed at the time.
Mason, who said that she wants to be a world citizen, shared what she has learned along the way as a "teacher, student, and an activist in the school of life."
Mason first learned not to let a boyfriend, father, other women, peers, society, or a school institution define her.
"We get programmed early about what our roles are in a family, relationship, and society. Women are taught to go along to get along, what appropriate behavior is, to let other people be smarter, and to fit in a particular box," said Mason.
Mason quoted Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for founding The Green Belt Movement, a program dedicated to planting trees in Kenya to preserve the environment: "Women in general need to know that it's okay for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence."
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