(Painted by c.David Tribble, used with permission)
I wanted to create this new section because of the importance of women’s ethical leadership now and in human history. Women have been the main architects and catalysts of almost every major social movement for good in the U.S.
Some examples include the peace movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the environmental movement. These and many other social movements have been started, led, or primarily organized by women. These were ordinary women, perhaps inspired by their own needs or the needs of their families and communities, who became passionate and began a journey to make a difference in the world. Their dreams, courage, and tireless hard work changed the world forever! I will share more details about these movements in future posts, but you can read more about them now if you go to the link to read my book, Conceiving a Peaceful World: Women’s BodyWisdom, Leadership, and Peacemaking. (Do a search in the file for the topic—like “Civil Rights Movement” in the search field right above the book document.) Women have also been central to many social movements in other countries around the world.
The peace movement and the women’s rights movement in the U.S. were both started by women and were originally one movement inspired by and modeled after Iroquoian women and the Iroquois nation and culture as a whole. In the Iroquois nation, women were considered to be the Life-givers because of their ability to carry and give birth to children. For this reason, Iroquois women were considered to have the authority to be the decision-makers over peace and war with the sole power to declare war or peace. The gantowisas (or Clan Mothers) could forbid or declare war, appoint warriors, overrule the war chiefs, and negotiate peace. Iroquois women leaders were required to make three substantive attempts at peace through diplomatic negotiation with other nations before war could be declared. Iroquois women leaders had more or equal power than their male counterparts, according to Barbara Mann, and thus their leadership inspired the suffrage movements in both the U.S. and France. Barbara Mann’s book, “Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas” is one of the best books I have ever read. Women and men chiefs had equal power, so their society was considered to be “galany.”
Notably, it was the responsibility of women leaders in the Iroquois Confederacy nations to kept peace among these nations—and they did so—for 500 years. These nations are the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later the Tuscarora. The leadership of Iroquoian women, the Gantowisas was and is no small thing. The leadership role of the Iroquoian Clan Mothers is described by Mann: “To the Iroquois, past and present “woman” connotes high status, goodness, intelligence... Clan Mothers were always “matrons”: mature, wise, experienced women.”
Barbara Mann writes that the U.S. and French suffrage movements were inspired by the examples of Iroquoian women chiefs. Colonial women in the U.S. saw Iroquoian women and men chiefs going into negotiations together behind closed doors with male colonial leaders to negotiate treaties and other issues, while colonial women were left out. This ignited the suffrage movement. Iroquoian women leaders also traveled to France, which ignited the French suffrage movement.
Modeled after Iroquoian women, the early women’s suffrage and peace movements were one combined movement in the U.S. that developed organically. In the 1900s, they split into 2 separate movements, with many women members and leaders remaining central to both.
Mother’s Day was originally created by Julia Ward Howe in 1872 to speak out for peace. Julia Ward Howe was also author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Her 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation, “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World,” was the first Mother’s Day proclamation.
Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
—Julia Ward Howe
This is not naive. Women peacemakers created the International League for Peace and Freedom in the early 1900s to send teams of women on diplomatic missions to world leaders to entreat them to take action to stop World War I, including President Woodrow Wilson. Many of Woodrow Wilson’s famous 14 points came from recommendations to protect peace and prevent future wars that these women sent to him. The WILPF is over 100 years old and still active today.
Research on women’s diplomacy shows that when women are included in diplomatic negotiations they are more successful. A recent study by the Graduate Institute of Geneva revealed the power and effectiveness of women’s influence on peace processes. The institute studied 40 peace processes in 35 countries, notes Lila O’Brien-Milne, of Women’s Actions for New Directions (WAND) on www.wand.org. She writes that “when women’s groups had influence over negotiations, agreements were reached and signed 98 percent of the time.”
Julia Ward Howe’s words are especially important right now. It is a fact that most U.S. wars from 1900 on have been fought over fossil fuels in some way. The current president, Trump, ditched a working treaty with Iran (during his first presidency) and has now attacked Iran—which has massive oil reserves—illegally as a first strike, violating international law and the U.S. Constitution which requires prior Congressional approval for war. This is another war over oil, as well as a grand distraction from a horrific “budget” bill packed with other unconstitutional and harmful laws.
The Women’s Movement and Women’s Right to Vote, granted in the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was won by women.
During World War II women in the labor force increased significantly, a trend which continued over the coming decades. The 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote was passed in 1920. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted it in 1878 and it took 41 years before Congress finally sent it to the states for ratification. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify it. It was called the “Perfect 36” (Tennessee was the 36th state to support it.)
Now some “radical right” pro-corporate greed men are not supporting women’s right to vote—outrightly saying that women’s vote is a frustration to corporate interests. In addition, the Republicans’ SAVE Act makes it harder for women to vote if their birth certificate does not match their married name.
Why would voting women (and environmentalists also named as problematic) be frustrating to corporate interests? Corporations are mainly and too often ONLY interested in profits—at any cost. When women stand up for the health and safety of their families and communities, that often means confronting the actions of corporations—whether it’s unlivable wages, cancer-causing pollution, poor landlord practices, price-gauging, discrimination or racism. Environmentalists are also “frustrating” to corporate interests for similar reasons. People living near fossil fuel plants—oil, coal, or gas—experience higher rates of cancers, respiratory diseases, and other health issues because of air pollution like methane and carbon dioxide releases from these factories—groundwater pollution, unlined coal ash ponds, etc. That is why one area of Louisiana filled with fossil fuel plants is called “cancer alley.”
In her description of Iroquois communities, Mann describes in great detail a culture abundant in community care for its members, equal and open participation, valuing of dissent and dialogue, complex but egalitarian governance and democracy in which everyone voted. They value traditions and oral history, farming and other cultivated practices, and created abundant stores of corn and other crops grown and shared by the community. In fact, she cites early American sources that document George Washington’s astonishment at the abundance of food stored throughout Iroquoian lands. Washington’s troops burned and destroyed them as they marched through.
In the Iroquois communalistic system every person is of ultimate worth and value, contributing as they are able, and participating equally in the governance and prosperity of the nation. Everyone votes. Effective women leaders in general, value the ultimate worth and dignity of all human beings.
The U.S. did not begin its journey as a nation founded on the equal value of every person. One of the little-known, but main motivations for the American Revolution was “the colonists’ intention of retaining slavery against Great Britain’s act outlawing the slave trade in 1772,” notes Mann. She adds that Iroquois leaders were “deeply aware of the colonial push to enslave all non-European peoples, with Native Americans high on the list...”
The Founding Fathers modeled our U.S. Constitution on the Iroquois Constitution, the Great Law of Peace—with its checks and balances—but they intentionally left out protections for valuing each person’s rights and worth, especially the right to VOTE—which was imbedded in Iroquois culture and government. In the white male colonists’ view, only white men with property should be allowed to vote. This horrible legacy has created tragedies and trauma for our country for over 200 years.
Women, children, apprentices, Native and African Americans were considered exploitable--as slaves by John Adams and many other white males during the colonial period, notes Mann, who cites John Adams’ biting reply to his wife’s letter asking him to “Remember the Ladies” when he and others drafted the fledgling U.S. Constitution. In the letter he replied to his own wife by concluding, “Depend on it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems,” notes Mann, and he further stated that the rights of women, natives, and apprentices would not be acknowledged. The intentionality of protecting “masculine systems” and dominance that this letter reveals is shocking--these do not sound like words of an unaware man trapped in unconscious cultural practices, but rather intentional perpetuation of an oppressive system of domination over others. This history is a legacy which the United States is still struggling to recover from. Those persons who were not among the original privileged group, (adult white males owning property,) have historically had to struggle for acceptance and equal rights--and still struggle today.
When people experience discrimination based on embodied characteristics like gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, weight, or age, it leaves people feeling excluded and devalued if they don’t have positive support systems and structures.
The early colonists despised the monarchy of England and the corruption and poverty created by what were basically sweatshops. England was plagued with businesses and laws that allowed child labor, debtors prisons, and other horrors in England. Because of this, the early colonists did not trust corporations, so they made it so that corporations could only legally exist for 10 years at a time. Corporations had to have corporate charters that were approved by Congress every 10 years. Congress could dissolve a corporation and seize its assets if the corporation was a bad actor—for example if they were badly polluting, acting illegally, etc. Congress DID actually dissolve some corporations.
Now we have corporations that are so powerful that they operate all over the world (transnationally) and create billions in profits (often by paying low wages and limited benefits or by monopolizing and driving out small businesses.) These corporations still fear the voices of particularly women, environmentalists, and others who speak up for a culture and a way of life that puts people and communities before profits.
Speaking of profits, the U.S. is the number one weapons producer and seller in the world. For these and many related corporations, war is a profit-making industry.
Women’s actions for peace—to protect their families and communities and the families and communities of other nations—threaten those profits.
Women’s rights and feminist peace movements “burst on the scene” as distinct independent movements when World War I broke out. International women made a spectacular effort to organize and prevent World War I through mediation and negotiation, writes Sybil Oldfield. Well-known social worker and anti-child labor activist Jane Addams received a cable from women in the Netherlands, during February of 1915, asking U.S. women to join together to form an International Women’s Congress to stop the war. “The original objects of the Women’s International Congress were to (1) to demand that international disputes shall in the future be settled by some other means than war and (2) to claim that women should have a voice in the affairs of the nations,” notes Oldfield. Women of the congress offered concrete, practical alternatives to violent, competitive warfare. These resolutions for war prevention included the following, she adds:
a more just and cooperative regulation of international commercial, nonmilitary trade;
open diplomacy instead of covert intrigue and secret treaties;
and self-determination for small nations.
They also supported the creation of international bodies for arbitration and conciliation once conflicts had broken out.
These resolutions anticipated and influenced Wilson’s 1918 Fourteen Points--a fact that is often left out of history books. These women “presented a peace petition to the UK government in July 1914 on behalf of 12 million women in 26 countries,” writes Vickers. The women’s congress sent envoys to all the capitals of Europe, both neutral and belligerent, notes Oldfield. Jane Addams was sent to accompany “Dr. Aletta Jacobs and Dr. Alice Hamilton in meetings with the foreign ministries in London, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Bern, Rome, Paris, and Le Havre.” Oldfield describes the resistance met by these courageous women: “All the belligerents claimed they were fighting in self-defense and must carry on to the bitter end. To be seen willing to negotiate would look like weakness.”
This happened before women had the right to vote. Women exercised tremendous power—even without the right to vote! Not all, buy many of these women, throughout history and now, care about their communities and world peace because of their religious faiths and spiritualities. They are not christian nationalists, but rather women of many healthy faiths, spiritualities, ethical commitments, and/or love for humanity and nature.
Despite Jane Addams’ efforts and her pleas to president Woodrow Wilson, he escalated U.S. involvement in the war.
Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and she was the only member of the U.S. Congress to vote against U.S. participation in WWI. Barbara Lee was the only Congressperson to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. Women are more skilled at diplomacy, typically favor disarmament and nonviolence. Gandhi learned nonviolence from watching Boer women use it successfully against the British occupation. Most of the people participating in Gandhi’s famous march to the sea were women. More details on these things later.
Effective ethical women’s voices value human lives over profits. Peace over war. Healthy people, families, communities, and ecosystems over money. Not all women ethically value human life—as we see in the actions of some of our current women leaders, but overall, historically and en masse, women’s leadership holds promise for a world that values people, communities, peace efforts, human rights, socioeconomic and environmental justice—the building blocks of lasting peace.
(Footnotes and bibliography for all of my newsletters are in my ebook “Conceiving a Peaceful World: Women’s BodyWisdom, Leadership, and Peacemaking.” It took me decades to research and write this book, so I am drawing from it now for these newsletters.)