Difference between revisions of "Women's NGOs"
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| − | The Women's movement has much to teach about sheer will, spirit and conviction as well as organization, lobbying, and fundraising and perhaps most significantly, the ideals of equality as an inalienable right of all citizens in a civilized and progressive society. While the network of women’s NGOs has evolved to encompass local, regional, national and international influence, with many successes to its credit, its goals to make education accessible to all continues to be the cornerstone of its vision. Nonetheless achieving gender equality is more than stating policy or mandating law; it challenges a deeply entrenched human attitude that prevails in many societies and cultures, and justifies the community of agencies dedicated to bringing social enlightenment. | + | The Women's movement has much to teach about sheer will, spirit and conviction as well as organization, lobbying, and fundraising and perhaps most significantly, the ideals of equality as an inalienable right of all citizens in a civilized and progressive society. While the network of women’s NGOs has evolved to encompass local, regional, national and international influence, with many successes to its credit, its goals to make education accessible to all continues to be the cornerstone of its vision. Nonetheless, achieving gender equality is more than stating policy or mandating law; it challenges a deeply entrenched human attitude that prevails in many societies and cultures, and justifies the community of agencies dedicated to bringing social enlightenment. |
==Select Bibliography== | ==Select Bibliography== | ||
Revision as of 11:39, 4 August 2008
This article is based on an article written for the NGO Handbook by Kate Perchuk titled "Women and Civil Society."
The modern landscape of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to causes and issues critical to women is the legacy of human rights activism in times of historical crisis and is rooted in the fundamental principles of equality first articulated by philosophers in the age of Enlightenment.
Early women’s rights groups challenged the prevailing social order arguing that all individuals were born with natural rights that made them free and equal; that all inequalities that existed among citizens were the result of an inadequate educational system and an imperfect social environment and that these inequalities would be justly remedied by improved education and more egalitarian social structures.
Among these thinkers was Mary Wollstonecraft, a British author best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which was one of the first to claim that women should have equality with men. The book was inspired by the democratic principles of the French Revolution (1789-1799). Wollstonecraft argues that the quality of women’s lives was directly related to their inferior educational opportunities.
Riding the momentum of the American Revolution, the nascent campaign for women’s rights in the U.S. was born from the passion of patriots with a mission to improve American democracy by helping to deliver on the promise of better, more egalitarian lives for all its citizens, outlined in the Declaration of Independence (adopted on July 4, 1776). A small group of educated women, known to one another through their work in the Abolitionist movement , gathered in a corner of New York State in 1848 to address “the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of woman,” and invoked the powerful language of the seminal document to make their case. The positions articulated in their “Declaration of Sentiments” echoed the hallowed predecessor: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
