Empowering Women can empower us all to transform the world.

From Episcopal Peace Fellowship (www.epfnational.org)

Peace & the Millennium Development Goals
Empowering Women can empower us all to transform the world.
By
Jan 24, 2007, 15:17

www.episcopalchurch.org Episcopal Life/Episcopal News Service

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Will you strive for justice and peace among all people?

Empowering women can empower us all to transform the world

Biblical women can be role models for today

Fourth in a 10-part series

By Margaret Rose

Throughout the Bible there are stories of women whose courageous choices and actions made possible a new world for themselves and others. There is the woman who argued that “even the dogs get to eat the crumbs under the table” as she begged for food for her children. There is the widow who gave all she had to the temple treasury, putting the wealthy to shame. There is the widow whose hospitality in feeding the prophet Elijah was rewarded with a jug of oil and jar of meal that were never empty. There was the woman who had the audacity to anoint Jesus’ feet with oil and wipe them with her hair. There was Mary Magdalene, first witness to the resurrection, who proclaimed the Good News despite disbelieving disciples, and Mary, who said yes to Jesus being born within her.

These are women of biblical times whose witness has shaped the faith we live today. They dared to act, confi dent that, like their brothers, they were created in the image of God.

Many women around the world today live in circumstances that make it diffi cult, if not impossible, to act with such confidence. A recent United Nations report documents an increase in violence against women at every level. Rape as a weapon of war, bride burnings, sex traffi cking, and honor killings are but a few of the violations women suffer simply because they are women.

Editorialist Bob Herbert noted in the New York Times (November 2, 2006) that a recent study has shown that in the U.S.,homicide is the second leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 18, and most are killed by someone they know.

Empowering women to choose life in today’s culture is to empower each of us to act to transform a world ravaged by war,hunger, and disease. Promoting gender equality — seeking ways for women and men to have equal opportunities and equal roles in decision making in church and society — is to promote human equality in a world healed and reconciled tothe heart of God.

One of the many ways the Episcopal Church supports the attainment of the third Millennium Development Goal is through Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE), a partnership of the Episcopal Church’s Women’s Ministries Offi ce and the Offi ce of the Anglican Observer to the United Nations. AWE promotes an effective Anglican presence at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which will next meet February 26-March 9 in New York. AWE is an international grassroots movement promoting gender equality and using the power of women to pursue a humane agenda worldwide. The organization seeks to strengthen women’s voices and presence in the church and in the world, using the blueprint of the Beijing Platform for Action and the MDGs. AWE is also committed to the empowerment of women from the multicultural perspectives of the Anglican Communion.

The Rev. Margaret Rose (mrose@episcopalchurch.org) is director of women’s ministries for the Episcopal Church.

Learn more about it

ONE Episcopalian

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ONE/

Offi ce of Women’s Ministries for the Episcopal Church

www.episcopalchurch.org/women

Anglican Women’s Empowerment and the United Nations

Commission on the Status of Women

www.episcopalchurch.org/uncsw

Educational resources from Episcopal Relief and Development

http://er-d.org/programs_36756_ENG_HTM.htm

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation

http://e4gr.org

United Nations Millennium Development Goals