Integrating L2G with G2L: Reflections on the 63rd CSW

Photo credit: From www.unwomen.org.

By Mary Ann Koch
Des Moines, IA Branch

Having spent several days in New York City attending CSW63 (the 63rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women) from March 7-17, 2019, as a L2G (Local to Global) representative, it is a challenge to integrate the experience within oneself. There were the people and the cars constantly moving, Consultation Day with an introduction to CSW, the thrill of an official UN pass, attending numerous presentations, meeting the practicum students and women from around the world, and last but not least, a hot dog off a food cart in Central Park at the Children’s Climate March. And these are just a few of the experiences I had those ten days.

As an activist and a member of the leadership team of our WILPF Des Moines Branch, how shall I take a global experience and integrate it into the local arena which is my life? Since I have returned home, I have been grappling with that until I viewed the experience through the feminine lens of what is at my heart’s center—oneness and wholeness.

Some presentations that still stand out to me are Infrastructure and Sustainable Development, Leadership Development for Women and Girls, Unpaid Care-Work and Its Consequences, and Northeast Asian Women Lead Peace on the Korean Peninsula. After I attended an introduction to Women, War & Peace II while in New York, and viewed the episodes about the work of women in bringing peace to table in Northern Ireland and at the first Intifada, I was awed. Over and over,, it was brought home to me the tremendously unique and significant contribution the feminist approach makes in our world.

We each have our own role to play in our daily lives. My calling to local activism looks quite different than the calling of the practicum students who were also sponsored by WILPF. They seem to be called to more global activism. One calling might be seen as more significant than the other, however, where would one be without the other? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant once said that the whole is an “integrative relational structure” in which we are all parts. It is my firm conviction that we are each absolutely necessary in bringing about the common good.

One last thought that I would like to share comes from Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil in Rethinking Activism in the Face of Catastrophic Biological Collapse. They are writing about our climate crisis, but their words can easily be applied to working for peace and freedom:

What if all the fixing and mitigating and adapting fail? Perhaps we will have become worthy human beings, having acted during this time of crisis with extraordinary love and integrity. We will turn toward one another and all the beings on the planet, with clear and humble love, knowing we are one living whole. On bended knee, we will weep in abject gratitude for the gift of life itself entrusted to us. In this is profound meaning and purpose.

For more information, contact me at: kochmaryamm2014@gmail.com.

Inset Photo: A panel discussion entitled “Northeast Asian Women Lead: Peace on the Korean Peninsula” was presented by Women Cross DMZ and the Nobel Women's Initiative. Kozue Akibayashi, past president of WILPF international, is seated second from the left.