Hot off the presses, the Summer/Fall issue of Rights Now, UUSC’s biannual newsletter, brings you stories of some of the remarkable, courageous women that UUSC works with every day to make our world a better place for all. In its pages you’ll meet Iris Munguia, a union organizer in Honduras; Rose Anne Auguste, director of a youth art program in Haiti; and many others. Read the new issue online now.

South American feminism is different from the US model according to journalist Barbara Frechette. She also adds that in several ways, it is better and could serve as a lesson in unity for all US women today. Her book, Sharing Power, analyzes what was in recent years, a quick efficient and less contentious empowerment of women leaders in Columbia. It demonstrates how, by using their regional feminism, they avoided the US feminist pitfalls. It is proof that since it happened then, it could happen again.

First, Latin American and Caribbean women sought only to share their governing power as citizens in democracies. They never put men in an adversarial position. Nor did they make them feel defensive. By seeking men as working partners and mentors, they avoided “gender warfare.”

Read more ...

As Unitarian Universalists, we are the inheritors of a 50-year history of reproductive rights advocacy. We also share a firm commitment to racial and social justice. At the convergence of these interests, we are called to widen the current debate from “reproductive rights” to “reproductive justice.”

UU Women’s Federation and UU Women and Religion co-sponsored a webinar on September 26 to find out more about this issue, which is the newly-elected UUA Congregational Study/Action Issue (2012-2016).

Featured speakers included:

• Monica Simpson, Interim Executive Director, SisterSong
• Rev. Marti Keller, President, Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation

The UUA has also made available a Congregational Resource Packet on Reproductive Justice. Contents include small group ministry sessions, a faith development guide, a liturgical calendar, sample worship, sermon archive, materials for clergy, a list of 10 things your congregation can do, and more. You can sign up for women's legislative issues Action Alerts at the same time!

The summer issue of their newsletter, The Communicator, is online, as well as the handout from the workshop on Social Justice they sponsored at GA2012.

The Half the Sky movement is cutting across platforms to ignite the change needed to put an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide, the defining issue of our time. Inspired by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book of the same name, Half the Sky brings together video, websites, games, blogs and other educational tools to not only raise awareness of women’s issues, but to also provide concrete steps to fight these problems and empower women. Change is possible, and you can be part of the solution. The Series
The Half the Sky project includes a four-hour television series for PBS and international broadcast, shot in 10 countries: Cambodia, Kenya, India, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia and the U.S. Traveling with intrepid reporter Nicholas Kristof and A-list celebrity advocates America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union and Olivia Wilde, the series introduces women and girls who are living under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable — and fighting bravely to change them. Their intimate, dramatic and immediate stories of struggle reflect viable and sustainable options for empowerment and offer an actionable blueprint for transformation. The series will premiere in the United States Oct. 1 and 2, 2012, with international broadcast to follow.

This TV series (and the book) provide a great opportunity for individual Unitarian Universalists and UU congregations to develop greater understanding of the global context of Human Rights for Women. And, with that great understanding, to pursue action steps in many ways – including partnering with the UU Holdeen India Program (donate) and the UU United Nations Office (donate) – both of which are actively engaged with partners around the world fighting for Human Rights for Women.

--- from the UUA's International Resources Office

Charlene Spretnak is the 2012 winner of the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality. The award will be presented at the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) national conference in San Francisco, May 11-12, 2012. Her presentation is entitled, Modernity, Mythology, and the Elusive Gestalt.

Ms. Spretnak’s work is internationally recognized in the areas of spirituality, cultural history, feminist and other social criticism, and ecological thought (Green politics, ecofeminism, ecophilosophy). In 2006 she was named one of “100 Eco-Heroes of All Time” by the publication of the British government’s Environmental Department.
She is one of the founding mothers of the Women’s Spirituality movement, through her work in the second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s.  Her first book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths reconstructed pre-Olympian myths for the first time in more than 2500 years; the Los Angeles Times called it “a poetic revelation.” [Two pieces from this work and several other references are included in Shirley Ranck's Cakes for the Queen of Heaven curriculum - Gretchen]

Her most recent book, Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World (2011), focuses on the “Relational Shift” seen in the fields of Education and Parenting, Health and Healthcare, Community Design and Architecture, and the Economy.

Read more ...