English translation of the preceding article:
Listening, Leadership, and Sisterhood
I was a member of the No Limits for Women delegation at the non-governmental-organization Women’s Forum held this March in conjunction with the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women Beijing+20, in New York, New York, USA. I still feel the excitement of the work we did together there.
I loved distributing flyers about our workshops, and meeting women and listening to them. One afternoon we did a listening project.1 I wrote on a sign in Spanish, ¿Cómo sería para ti tener un mundo sin sexismo ni dominación masculina? Queremos escucharte. (What would it be like for you to have a world without sexism and male domination? We would love to listen to you.) It was my first experience doing a listening project. It was great.
Inspiring for me was the leadership and sisterhood modeled by our beloved Co-Counselors and leaders Diane Balser, K Webster, and Diane Shisk.2 The three of them were the organizing group for our delegation, and Diane Balser was the overall leader. The way that each of them, with her own leadership style, worked together with the others as a team was a contradiction to the internalized sexism we carry within us as women.
The work we did as the No Limits delegation was the result of the discharging and thinking people have done under the leadership and strategic vision of Diane Balser, who for many years has been leading the RC Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshops. These workshops have made it possible to understand with more clarity what is happening with women’s oppression and liberation all over the world.
María Lorena Cuéllar Barandiarán
San Salvador, El Salvador
Translated by the author and Pamela Shepard García
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion
list for leaders of wide world change
1 In an RC listening project, several Co-Counselors go to a public place and offer to listen to passersby about some important societal issue. They may hold signs that invite people to share their thinking about it.
2 Diane Balser is the International Liberation Reference Person for Women; K Webster is the Regional Reference Person for five boroughs of New York City, New York, USA; and Diane Shisk is the Alternate International Reference Person for the RC Communities.