Women on the Front Lines and the Back Lines

I had the honor of being part of the Women’s Funding Network Worldwide Conference where women from Serbia, Mexico, Australia, Scotland, Nigeria, Canada, and every place in between, descended upon Brooklyn, New York for three days of convening and learning.  We spent time together skills sharing, relationship building, and listening to impassioned speeches from some of the world’s most dynamic female thought leaders. 

From the opening keynote featuring Marjora Carter, eco-entrepreneur, MacArthur Genius and founder of Sustainable South Bronx, to the closing keynote featuring Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile and first Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, we all were in the presence of the power and resiliency of women leaders and the global women’s movement.  Being part of this ‘movement’ to me means that we choose to reassert feminine perspectives (also known as ‘a gender lens’) wherever it can heal cultures and communities.   

One of the panel discussions was hosted by filmmaker, scholar and founder of the Daphne Foundation, Abigail Disney. Abby spoke about the ways in which the feminine perspective has been erased from the media coverage of war across the world. Her documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell and her four part series called Women, War and Peace, which documents war through the eyes of women in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Columbia and the Congo, shows women’s contributions to war efforts on both the front lines and back lines. 

When we think about war, we think about combat. We think about the front line. Abby’s work showcases the role that women play from the back lines in conflict and the impact that these conflicts have on women’s lives.  The work shows how women are targeted with systematic violence in wartime and how, with incredible fortitude and strength and little support, they hold their families and communities together.  Abby and her team are successful in bringing visibility to the tragedy of their invisibility and dismissal from their solutions and peace building work. 

After showing the series trailer, Abby talked about how rape is being used as a strategic tactic of wartime violence. She recounted stories of deliberations by the United Nations Assembly about whether or not to try rapists as war criminals when the acts are being perpetrated as a tactic of war.  Abby’s series, Women, War and Peace is scheduled to debut on PBS this fall. I hope you’ll all find some time to watch it and extend your role in the movement in any way that works for you.

(Photo credited to Pray the Devil Back to Hell.)