Leader says women want peace, equality

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 10, 1995 by Patricia Lefevere

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- Action to remove "obstacles to woman's equality" is the most urgent need to emerge from the Fourth U.N. World Conference on Women, said one of the leaders of the gathering that was held in Beijing, China, in September.

Gertrude Mongella, secretary general of the conference, targeted immediate removal of discriminatory laws against women, the improvement of health care and educational facilities and the allocation of existing or new resources to fund such actions as the immediate follow-up to the conference.

Mongella spoke to some 200 women and men students -- many of them from developing countries and minority communities -- at St. Peter's College here Oct. 23.

Why is it, she asked, that a rural woman in the developing world gets up every morning to no water, no food, no supermarkets, no electricity and no babysitter and yet "at the end of the day, everyone eats?" Mongella, 50, who was educated by Maryknoll Missionary nuns in rural Tanzania, said she has known families who took their girl child or children out of school because they could only afford to send one child -- a boy. Often she said, the mothers of such families deprived themselves of food so that their husbands and sons could eat.

Still, Mongella said, she has never read a constitution that does not recognize the equality of men and women. "But in practical terms, equality hasn't existed since the world was created," she said. She agreed with a student at the Jesuit college who asserted that society -- including church leaders, theologians and scripture commentators -- have "taught us that women are subservient."

Yes, "there are some things in the Bible that put women down," she said, adding that religious authorities have used both biblical passages and sentences from the Quran to justify ill treatment of women.

For centuries, she said, women have been regarded as dumb and unable to make decisions, but "God cannot create a stupid woman if we're made in God's image. ... God would not have made woman inferior if she's to be the mother of men," she said.

Mongella said she loved talking to Pope John Paul II when she met with him May 26 at the Vatican. The two discussed the upcoming women's conference. She added, however, that women need more dialogue with him. "Sometimes he does not know what's going on outside. He needs to talk to others besides his bishops."

Among Beijing's greatest accomplishments, Mongella said, were that the conference broke the silence on such crimes as rape, sex abuse and domestic violence. These subjects could not be broached at the First U.N. Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1970, she said, because women saw such actions as part of the spoils of war and of patriarchal culture. She praised the United Nations for being a forum where difficult issues, which often cannot be aired nationally, can be debated globally.

Beijing produced a desire for peace among women, Mongella said, because they said aloud to one another: "How does development profit us when war and conflict destroy our homes, our lands and our schools?"

The secretary-general said it is "moral for poor nations to wage war," when war benefits the few and deprives the many of food and education. Moreover, "it's immoral for big nations, who've made great strides in science, medicine and technology," not to share these advances with the developing world and to "spend money on arms instead. You are poisoning other nations by giving and selling arms," Mongella said, calling such actions "the great immorality that no one wants to deal with."

She suggested that men ask themselves whether women are "invitees on the planet" or permanent residents. If they have as much right to be here as men, then "they have a right to participate in decision-making and in economic activity."

In an interview with NCR, Mongella said that if every nation would devote 1 percent of its national budget to women and girls, some $3 trillion would be available. "This would have a tremendous impact on women's lives," she noted. In real terms, it means, "Are countries willing to shift resources from underwriting a brewery to building a school for girls?"

Mongella's remarks came on the eve of the United Nation's 50th anniversary. On Oct. 21 and 22, leaders from the major faiths of the world -- from Buddhists to Zoroastrians -- gathered for worship and for a peace ceremony in honor of the U.N. milestone at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and at the Armenian Cathedral in New York.