Do It Anyway

When I started as director of the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership (CWIL) in early 2021, I had just returned from parental leave and was in the thick of juggling work and parenting two small children through a pandemic. If being a working mother in the United States has always been impossible, the pandemic has made it soul-crushing. The impacts of the pandemic on single parents, under-resourced, and minoritized communities have been even more staggering. The pandemic has reminded us what Black, Indigenous, people of color, and transgender people, disabled people, and women have always known: that inequality and injustice are embedded in every fiber of our global community. And that we are, and have always been, a global community.

Our global interconnection was evident at a Women’s Global Leadership panel that I recently attended. Among the panelists was Natasha Salifyanji Kaoma, M.D., founder of a reproductive and menstrual health awareness organization called Copper Rose Zambia. On my Zoom screen were women from around the world, all selected to participate in the Women’s Leadership Study of the U.S. Institute (SUSI), a program that CWIL has participated in since 2012.

In attendance were women I had grown to cherish and admire during the Saint Mary’s 2021 Summer Global Women’s Leadership Institute. During the program, 25 of the most accomplished undergraduate women from Saint Mary’s, the Middle East, and North Africa met daily on Zoom to take classes from Saint Mary’s faculty on topics including gender, feminism, inclusion and intersectionality, racial and social justice, politics, and global human rights. During the institute, they identified and addressed key issues facing women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in their countries. Each day they showed up—not just to our Zoom class, but to doing the work.

Disruption Didn’t Win

Despite the dedication of the women in the SUSI program, it wasn’t always easy. The pandemic upended their lives: educational progress was disrupted; job opportunities vanished; family obligations increased; government instability and social unrest were boiling over; inflation skyrocketed; rolling blackouts and limited access to Wi-Fi swept through the region; and through it all was the constant worry of COVID-19 in a region of the world with minuscule access to vaccines. When Dr. Kaoma said, “Be afraid, but do it anyway,” the Zoom room lit up with emoji hearts from a group of women already well-versed in having the courage to show up and work hard, not in spite of, but because of the ballooning difficulties facing women in our intra-pandemic world.

What does it mean to combat gender inequality in the context of this “new normal” we find ourselves in? 

CWIL is a women’s center which specializes in women’s leadership; research on gender, women, and girls; global education; and diversity, inclusion, and equity. In the years since its founding in 2000, CWIL has at various points emphasized one of these specializations over the others, responding to the pressing issues of the time. Our programming is guided by our “Women’s Intercultural Leadership Model,” which argues that “the problems of the 21st century require leadership that purposefully seeks to be informed by and situated within the experience and lens of gender and culture” (Bazata, et al, 2011). Key tenants of this model are a belief that leadership is inherent in every woman, a commitment to amplifying the voices of women of color and women from underrepresented groups, and a priority on advocating for more equitable, inclusive, and just communities.

Demanding Equity for Everyone

In my work with CWIL, I am motivated by two additional guiding principles. First, that working toward gender equity, racial justice, and social justice demands an inclusive, intersectional, and decidedly global approach. This requires that we expand our understanding of a women’s center to include the gender identities of all our students, and that we understand gender discrimination within the historical and contemporary context of global conflict, oppression, and colonization. Although the lived experiences of women differ from place to place, our histories and cultures are deeply interconnected and shaped by global systems of power. As feminist scholar Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

My second guiding principle is that working toward more just and equitable communities requires a careful and nuanced knowledge of people and the communities, cultures, and histories that shape them. Here at the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership, we learn and lead, research and act.

Research First

To support this goal, CWIL has expanded research opportunities. In fall 2021, we created the Faculty Research Fellow program to support Saint Mary’s faculty who are doing innovative research on gender, women, and/or girls. Our inaugural fellows are a phenomenal group of scholars whose research and teaching span the globe. 

Assistant Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies Suyun Choi researches South Korean “marriage migration” and gendered labor systems within global migration and economic systems. “My analysis highlights how neoliberal forces and migrant women’s desires are woven together into an entrepreneurial ethos that reinterprets nationhood, family, cultural differences, and citizenship in economic terms,” she said.

Jessica Coblentz, assistant professor of Religious Studies and Theology, examines the limits and affordance of empathy within the context of Christian feminism and social activism. Her project Love Your Enemies: A Feminist Theology of Love at the Limits of Empathy is “an interdisciplinary work of Christian feminist theology that explores how recent feminist, philosophical, and psychological perspectives on the relationship between empathy and morality can inform Christian perspectives on divine and human love.” 

Our third fellow, Nell Haynes, visiting assistant professor of Global Studies, conducts ethnographic research in Bolivia on Indigenous women’s performance of lucha libre wrestling, examining the ways this celebrity-like platform enables Indigenous women to become advocates against domestic violence, support women’s education, and “challenge preconceived notions of what Indigenous women should do and be.”

Although geographically and topically diverse, a common thread throughout their research is a dedication to examining how gendered systems inform people’s everyday lives.

From Learning to Action

This April, Saint Mary’s College will host its first symposium on sexual violence, organized by the President’s Committee on Sexual Violence. The highlight of the symposium will be a virtual lecture by Chanel Miller on Monday, April 11, at 6 p.m. (ET), followed by the annual Take Back the Night event on Wednesday, April 13. As CWIL works to highlight the role of research as the foundation of leadership and action, we are proud to partner with the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and Belles Against Violence Office to host a research panel on Friday, April 8, showcasing the activist research and creative works of our current students and alumnae.

Equally pressing of an issue is the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and the implications of the Taliban takeover on the lives of women and girls. Saint Mary’s commitment to women’s education, social justice, and gender equity compels us to act in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan. Yet, as Laura Elder, associate professor of Global Studies, urges, we must not “assume that what Afghan women need is the same as what we think is needed.” Elder was addressing a group of students, faculty, and alumnae in a virtual CWIL lecture called “Feminist Approaches in Afghanistan & the United States.” Instead, Elder says, we must “pay attention to connected histories, ask (don’t tell), speak out, and work hard. Accept that the hard work of recognizing and respecting differences—as the products of different, but intimately connected histories—is the vital beginning of working in solidarity.” †