Colloquium raises awareness of women’s rights violations

Since before the 1920s, women have worked to advance their rights.

The most recent policies advancing those rights were the topic of the Women’s and Gender Studies’ second Fall 2009 Colloquium on Tuesday. Leslie Wolfe, the president of the Center for Women Policy Studies, a feminist policy analysis and research group, talked about women’s rights and how policy has made a difference.

Wolfe joined the organization in 1987 and has made a career of working for women’s rights.

“That sounds like a boring career,” Wolfe said at the beginning of her speech, causing the audience to laugh. “But it has also been interesting.”

Wolfe told the audience there were many weapons available in the battle for women’s rights.

“The weapons we have are international agreements for women’s rights,” she said.

Wolfe called those agreements “explosive moments in world” and said “they were unexpected and powerful.”

National governments across the world acknowledged violence against women isn’t personal, she said. Instead, attackers simply target females in general.

“It is the quintessential violation of human rights,” Wolfe said.

Violence against women, she said, especially rape, has been used as a weapon of war and genocide.

But international agreements helped in several ways, she said. The first of these international agreements took place at a conference in Vienna. Wolfe said women went to Vienna and gave a tribunal.

“It tells what you can do as a woman with no fear or doubt in yourself,” she said. “I’m still in awe of them.”

As part of the speech, Wolfe talked about different issues that cause women’s rights to be violated, including war, famine and desertion.

“All over the world, women live in fear,” she said.

Wolfe talked about policies different countries have adopted on the issue of women’s rights.

In the audience sat Courtney Poppe-Weber, a junior women’s and gender studies major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Poppe-Weber said she was sad to hear about the lack of interest in women’s rights in the U.S. Congress, adding there were several interesting things in the speech.

“The fact that this women’s organization even exists is really empowering,” she said.

Wolfe encouraged those in attendance to continue the fight for women’s rights.

“You are the ones, in particular, to change the world for the next generation,” she said.

kimbuckley@dailynebraskan.com