An air of collective grief and the consistent chatter of a community joining together permeated the 5th floor of the SIE complex on May 1. The Wednesday night panel highlighted some of our time’s most accomplished female academics. It marked the beginning of a three-day summit in which women from all over the country and globe joined together to ask, “Why does feminist peace matter now?”
The Feminist Peace Summit was directed and organized by Professor and Director of the SIE Cheou Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, Dr. Marie Berry. Dr. Berry also acted as the panel moderator, highlighting notable scholars Cynthia Enloe, Toni Haastrup, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. The panel and the women representing Madre, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Women Cross DMZ, Feminist Peace Initiative and The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative cultivated a safe space that facilitated discussion, inclusion and recognition of past and current global issues.
The discussion of a range of topics, from police brutality in America to the conflict in Gaza and the militarization of land in Hawaii, reinforced a few main themes throughout the conversation. Primarily, these themes were notions of love and community in the context of research and political action against militarization. Political theorist, writer, and professor, Cynthia Enloe, began the conversation with some advice.
“We are not one struggle. We are not smart enough to take on all of these struggles at once,” said Enloe.
Enloe encouraged the audience to be curious about each other’s struggles, research and action. It is the militarized and elite powers that want us to compete with each other; we are stronger when we come together, Enloe explained.
Professor Emerita, writer and social activist, Margo Okazawa-Rey, encouraged the audience to focus more on understanding and not just knowledge, saying we are quick to react to knowledge. Still, a lack of understanding has kept parts of the feminist peace movement stagnated. She explained that the ‘elite’ capitalist systems use women to silence women by placing them in higher positions in a performative manner so the general public won’t continue to question the systems in place.
“The biggest solidarity movement is the movement of the elites,” said Okazawa-Rey.
They affirmed that it is our job to work to change that reality and question what these powers present to us.
Social scientist and professor, Toni Haastrup, called on the audience to focus inward. We are quick to look at and dissect international problems and continue to move forward, unaware of what is happening in our own backyard. According to Haastrup, at times, our government’s focus on foreign policy is a tactic to distract from violence and problems within the state. Haastrup explained that to make a notable change; we must focus on both internal and external dynamics because they are interconnected.
The topics discussed by the panel cultivated sadness, discomfort and urgency, so it was fitting that Okazawa-Rey called upon the audience to sit with themselves and their bodies and think about how they had been affected by the discussions that all had just witnessed.
“What are you feeling?” “What values are you willing to live for?” “What are your red lines, your boundaries?” asked Okazawa-Rey during a moment of silence.
This acknowledgment seemed to center the audience, bringing forward thought-provoking questions. Some topics addressed during the Q&A were how the feminist movement can move forward in including men, looking at the climate crisis and how people can stay grounded when dealing with such serious issues every day.
