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Events

Women, Peace and Transnational Activism: A Century On

31 March 2015

Time: 3:00pm
Venue: The People's Palace, Mile End Campus, E1 4NS

Event overview

The centenary of the Women’s Peace Congress, which took place at The Hague in April 1915, offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the past, present and future of women’s transnational organising and to ask how far feminist perspectives have been mainstreamed into international debates about security, development and human rights over the past century.

The women from belligerent countries who gathered at The Hague whilst war waged across Europe developed a vision of gender-based solidarities which transcended national borders and in which peace and women’s rights were intimately intertwined.

The congress led to the creation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which soon became one of the most distinctive voices within internationalist politics in the interwar period and a powerful strand within twentieth-century trajectories of feminist internationalism.

Event details

This event, a joint initiative between QMUL’s Mile End Institute and History and Policy, will take the 1915 Congress and the founding of the WILPF as a point of departure to explore critical questions about the relationship between gender, activism and international politics, drawing on a range of historical and contemporary perspectives.

Speakers include:

Dame Barbara Stocking
Principal of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, former head of Oxfam

Frances Guy
Christian Aid, former UN Women Rep. for Iraq and former British Ambassador to Yemen

Baroness Berridge
Chair of All-Party Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief

Booking

This event comprises three parts. Guests are welcome to join just one or all three sessions. Use the book now link to book your place.

  • Session One (3.30pm – 4.45pm): Activism in Historical Perspective
  • Session Two (4.45pm – 6pm): Activism and Institutional Change
  • Session Three (6.30pm-8pm): Are Women’s Rights Human Rights?
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