Early in my tenure as Secretary General at the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI),[efn_note] The WOI was founded in 1966 by a 5,000-member assembly of Iranian women from diverse backgrounds and regions, gathered through consultation, brainstorming, and negotiation. Its mission was “to raise the cultural, social and economic knowledge of the women of Iran and…
Category: Publications – Articles
Women’s Learning Partnership’s Project on Family Law Reform to Challenge Gender-Based Violence
An international network of 20 autonomous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) based primarily in transitioning and fragile states, Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) is dedicated to enhancing universal human rights and gender equality, strengthening civil society, and empowering women to be active citizens and actors of change in their societies. Our mission is…
A Personal Remembrance of Fatema Mernissi
Fatema Mernissi, the Moroccan sociologist widely known as a pioneer in Middle Eastern Women’s studies, passed away this week. It is difficult for me to speak of her – a friend, ally, and colleague of over two decades – in the past tense. I first met Fatema at the Middle East Studies Association Conference in…
The World We Seek: Human Rights in the 21st Century
Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) began as an idea at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Witnessing the enthusiasm and energy with which 35,000 NGO representatives reviewed the status of women’s rights around the globe and discussed strategies for achieving full rights for women, a group of…
Obama, Ahmadinejad, and the Women of Iran
This month, for the first time in 30 years, formal negotiations between the United States and Iran took place in a relatively positive atmosphere. As President Obama had promised during his campaign, dialogue took the place of diatribe. This is an important development. Why now and why during the term of the holocaust-denying, US-bashing President…
Women are Driving Iran Toward Democracy
The images from Iran in the last two weeks have stunned the world: hundreds of thousands of women and men marching peacefully, first in support of reformist candidates and later protesting the government’s version of the results. Women played a prominent role at every level in this movement; in fact what unfolded in Iran would…
Information and Communication Technologies for Women’s Empowerment and Social Change
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution that the world has witnessed in the past decades has been potent and widespread. Today, we are living in an information age where technologies have drastically reduced the size of the globe by practically overcoming barriers of distance and time. We connect, communicate, and collaborate at speeds and…
Leadership and Learning Societies
Most of us live in societies that are hierarchically organized and command-oriented. The locus of command may be home, community, the political arena, or the economy. The structure of command nurtures and is nurtured by a culture of obedience that at once sustains and camouflages a pecking order by producing a system of authority. The…