Dr Eleonora Barbieri Masini
Women Religious, Builders of an Alternative Future, Journeyng Onward inn New Solidarities

Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Italian, was born in Guatemala. Married and the mother of three children, she is a lawyer by profession with specialization in Comparative Law and in Sociology. Professor of Social Forecasting at the Institute of Social Sciences, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, she is also an active member of numerous associations. Presently, she is chairperson of the Scientific Council of the World Futures Studies Federation; president for Europe of the World Academy of Art and Sciences; coordinator of the Futures of Cultures Project for UNESCO, member of the Executive Council of the Inter University Center at Dubrovnik and co-chairperson of the Futures Research Committee of the International Sociological Association.
Dr Masini, an avid researcher and prolific writer, is also in great demand as consultant and speaker at home and abroad. In recent years, she has generously accepted to share her knowledge and vision with religious congregations.

 

Introduction

In a rapidly changing world we all need to learn to look ahead; now, much more than before, to look ahead can be considered a real need. From a philosophical perspective, to look into the future is not only a need but a real moral duty (Peter Henrici, La Futurologia: perché e come and Josef Fuchs, Morale come progettazione del futuro dell’uomo, in Pedro Beltrao, (ed.) Pensare il Futuro, Edizioni Paoline, Rome, 1977).

Over and beyond this philosophical and ethical perspective, to which I shall return later, there are pragmatic and historical reasons for the need to look at the future.

In a period of rapid change, it is of vital importance that we look ahead. We have only to think of the technological developments in the area of communications or biotechnology to be convinced of the need for forward thinking. It is important though to remember that change is not a linear process. New developments interrelate and interact continuously: as the pace of change increases, so also does its complexity. Thus, environmental issues are not separate from technological development, changes in work (technological and organisational) affect the family; economic changes in terms of the gap between rich and poor have social repercussions, such as increased unrest and even violence, etc. We live in a complex, interrelated society created by innumerable trends, continuously interacting.

We are also increasingly prompted to look ahead by the global dimensions of trends and changes. Events taking place in one part of the world inevitably affect the rest of the world. This phenomenon of globality, tied to the already mentioned rapidity and inter-relatedness of change, emerges particularly clearly in the area of economy. A change of policy in the US or in Germany immediately affects many other countries. From a more political perspective, changes in the former Soviet Union have global repercussions, while changes in the position and demands of Iraq have a different impact on a Western or on an Islamic society.

Less rapid, but equally important, are changes in labour policies. New policies introduced by the European Community have an impact not only in Europe but in other parts of the world, thus involving many kinds of social changes.

As a conclusion, there is a need to look into the future and at the consequences of events and trends. We can react in a variety of ways to such a need. We can react passively, accepting change but not taking action. We can react and try to guide change, often with little chance of success, as the reaction is too late for a rapidly changing society. We can be proactive, that is try to see changes as they emerge and act in advance. This means having the capacity to interpret the signs of the times, the capacity to be discerning in a rapidly changing society. Though not easy, we need to learn to see the signs of the times. In Futures Studies this proactive approach is known as looking for the "seeds of change".

At this point, looking into the future is also a choice. We decide to enact, to participate, to be builders of change.

Historically, the need to look to the future can be seen in all cultures, from the ancient Mayas to the Greeks or the Egyptians. The thrust towards the future is so strong that people involved in future thinking believe that looking into the future is what makes the human being truly human. No other living creature has this same thrust (John McHale, The Future of the Future, George Braziller, New York, 1969). In this context, it is sufficient in looking at Christianity to recall the many exhortations in the Gospel to go out to all peoples and build the Kingdom of God in time.

This brings me back to the point that looking into the future is a basic choice. According to philosophy, to look into the future is a moral duty. One responds not only with scientific means (futures studies), but also a decisional commitment of the whole person (Peter Henrici, op. cit. p. 32). Going further, in moral theological terms, what is of interest is that we are looking and working for the future of the human being as human, not in relation to any future, but to that of the human being and human dignity (Josef Fuchs, op. cit. pp. 137 - 138).

Within this view of the future, the role of women is crucial. Over and beyond feminism, an important and undeniable event of the last century has been the constantly growing process of awareness by women all over the world, not only of themselves but also of their social role. Like all processes of consciousness-raising, this is a process which is irreversible. It may not emerge in official documents, but it is there, as is evident from empirical research and initiatives of women all over the world.

Women religious are an important part of this movement, which is silently working to increase the visibility of women. This slow and gradual process of visibility will be a central element in the 21stcentury. In a rapidly changing society it may well become a force as yet un-acknowledged.

1. The world context affecting women and especially women religious

In this part of the presentation I shall highlight those trends which can be expected to have a major impact on women and on women religious specifically.

1.1 The issue of population is generally treated in absolute terms in relation to either global or regional data. This is not as relevant as considering the issue in terms of the structure of the population, that is how the population is distributed by age and geographically even within the same country. The structure of the population is very important as an indication for the future, and for identifying the issues in the future that, first of all, will affect people and their way of life, as well as societies or the natural human-made environment at large.

From quantitative data it is evident that the major part of the world population is in the developing countries and that the young population (below 15 years of age) is larger in the less-developed countries than in the developed countries (Population Reference Bureau, World Population Data Sheet 1997, Washington, 1997).

The global population under 15 years of age is 32% of the total population. This increases to 35% in the less developed countries as a whole and decreases to 20% in the developed countries (with peaks in Africa of 44%, in Latin America of 34%, in Asia of 32%), while in Europe there are dips of 19% and in North America of 22% where the migration which started many years ago, has increased the young population (Population Reference Bureau, op. cit.).

If we look at the older population, the difference between the developed and the less-developed countries is even more staggering. In the developed countries, the older population represents 14% of the overall population; in the less developed countries only 5% (Europe 14%, North America 13%, Latin America 5%, Asia 5%). This data will increase upwards as the mortality rate decreases. People in the less developed countries will live longer though it will take some time for the numbers to reach the levels in developed countries.

To this data we have to add the fact that 40% of all women and men who are alive today are concentrated in the four largest Asian countries, in terms of population: Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan; and one third of the African population is in three countries, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria.

Clearly this important set of differences, in terms of where people live, will have a great impact on the future for what concerns both natural resources and human needs.

But what impact will they have on women and their situation?

First of all, at the end of the 1990’s, 55% of women living in the world are in Asia and more than three quarters of all women live in developing countries (UN, The World’s Women 1995 Trends and Statistics, New York, 1995, p. 12, [Italian version]).

Let us first take a look at the numbers for 1995: at the world level, there are 98.6 women per 100 men; in the developed countries, 106 women per 100 men. In less developed countries: in Northern Africa, there are 98 women per 100 men, in South Sahara, 102 women per 100 men, in Latin America and the Caribbean region 100 per 100 men, in East Asia 94, in South Asia 101 women, in Southern and in Western Asia 94. This indicator compared with 1990 data shows that the health of women has deteriorated in many countries. The countries where there are fewer than 95 women per 100 men are almost all in Asia and in the Pacific (UN, The World’s Women Trends and Statistics 1970 - 1990, New York, 1991; UN, The World’s Women 1995 Trends and Statistics, op. cit.).

Apart from the above ratio, life expectancy (the average number of years a person is expected to live at birth, given constant mortality levels) is the most important indicator for understanding health. In many countries it is higher for women than men. In 1995, there were 302 million women and 247 million men over 60 years of age. By the year 2025 the global number is expected to reach 1 billion, 200 million, of whom the majority are women. Of the older women, 44% live in Asia, 43% in the developed world and the rest in Africa and Latin America. This data clearly indicates where the needs are and will be. It is interesting to note the increase in the number of people over 80 years in Japan, China, South Korea, Sri Lanka (UN, The World’s Women 1995, Trends and Statistics, op. cit. p. 2). Obviously, this is where there will be the greatest need of support over and beyond what we already know about the developed countries, where the increase in this cohort has already been growing during the last two decades.

These trends affect all women, including religious women. They are an important indication for the latter as to where needs lie in relation to women.

1.2 Migration is another important trend at the world level affecting people in general and, in a specific way, women. It is also an area of reflection for women religious who, though living with the issue and being very aware of it, may be in need of empirical evidence.

Humans have always moved from one part of the world to another. What characterises the present migratory flows is their rapidity, their huge dimensions and the fact that they take place in waves. Migration need not necessarily be from one country to another. It may take place within a country, from a rural to an urban country for example. Again this is not a new phenomenon per se. At present, however, it is more rapid and has different characteristics: for example, there has been an increase in the number of people who move for political or ecological reasons. This trend, especially for the latter reason, is likely to increase in the future.

That international movements of population are a phenomenon of our time, and are increasing, is evident in the fact that our present system of passports and visas was only established in this century. International migration occurs when a person crosses national borders to make a permanent change of residence. Calculation of numbers is not easy as people may decide to return and some individuals may move many times. In some cases migration may be forced migration, for example when borders move across people as in the break-up of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. In these cases a person becomes a foreigner in a new country without actually moving (Martin Philip and Jonas Widgren, International Migration, A Global Challenge, in Population Bulletin, PRB, April 1996, p. 5). The number of people moving is called a flow. This is different from a stock of migrants in the population. As an example, in 1995 the USA had a stock of migrants of 23 million (about 9% of the whole population). The subsequent flow was about 1 million per year in the 1990’s. In 1995, the foreign stock in the world was 125 million, with 54% in less developed countries and 46% in the developed countries. Annually the flow is estimated to be between 2 and 4 million.

Why do people migrate? Usually it is thought that it is a push process, that may be economic, political or environmental. However, there is also a pull factor for which mainly developed countries are the cause. Among the push causes we find that of refugees, people forced to leave by violence or persecution, who are unable to return to their country of origin. Among these are included asylum seekers. Of the millions of refugees (accounted to be about 15 million in 1993) many were women and children. This is hence a major issue for women and one which women religious have to face in many parts of the world.

2. Some other major world trends affecting women

Of the many trends that affect women in a specific way, I have selected two.

a) The passage from a bipolar to a multipolar world.

Until 1989, the world seemed to be divided between two political and economic powers. On the one side, the USA and its allies around the world, with a philosophy based on democracy and free market; on the other, the USSR with a highly centralised political power and a centrally planned economy. The USSR also had its allies in Central and Eastern Europe, thus creating a compact empire with other allies in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The two positions were clear and antagonistic.

When the Berlin Wall collapsed, political power ceased being polarised and became diffused, making it much more difficult to detect both its position and its strength. In this same period, powers which were initially economic powers such as Japan, the tigers of Asia and most recently China, started to acquire political power, but in a changing manner. In fact the "tigers" are now losing their economic power, thus in some way shattering the many forecasts of a powerful Asian coalition.

How does all this affect women? When in recent decades the women of the West were engaged in their liberation movement, the women of Eastern Europe having jobs that did not satisfy them, sought refuge in their families, and in fact were not liberated at all.

With the transformation of the region, women were the first to aspire to a life similar to that of women in the West. This sparked the start of problems such as prostitution across borders, increased abortion and led to smaller families. We can say that in former Marxist regimes, too rapid a change, due to the present world trends, and a lack of education towards responsibility which had lasted decades, created many problems for women.

Moving to Latin America, migration, mainly by men in search of a better life, whether in town or in another country, has provoked the phenomena of abandoned women and increasingly, women-headed households.

In Asia, the sudden wealth of countries such as South Korea and Thailand has been very much built on female labour, especially in the textile and electronic sectors. Women are paid less than men, they work at night and have no social security. This is true also in Latin America. In Africa the world situation has often produced greater poverty and again the phenomenon of women as heads of households. Other factors contributing to the difficult life of women: war and conflict, environmental damage, forced migration, loss of children and of support.

b) From abundance to depletion of resources.

At the world conference on environment and development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, UNCED, issues, which had become increasingly serious in the previous 20 years, were addressed for the first time by heads of state from all over the world. Although, six years later, many issues are still unsolved, two most important outcomes are visible: a growing awareness among people all over the world that natural resources are being depleted, and the acknowledgement that women are in the front line in preserving the environment. Initiatives by women to preserve the environment for their children have received formal recognition. Women have become actors rather than victims of environmental damage.

I will give examples which are especially close to women. They refer to issues of water and land use, in the awareness that all environmental problems are correlated.

Water is a resource of nature, a gift of God that cannot be created by human ingenuity: water can be better used but it cannot be created. Water covers 75% of all the earth’s surface but only a small part of it may be utilised. The great reservoirs are being used up and even water tables in many large countries are being lowered, as in China and USA. The greatest use of water is for irrigation; 65% of water is used for agriculture followed by 25% for industries and 10% for municipalities and households. Irrigation has expanded at a great pace, especially since 1950, increasing the irrigated area per person by nearly one third (Postel Sandra, Forging a Sustainable Water Strategy, in Lester Brown, State of the World 1997, A World Watch Report on Progress toward a Sustainable Society, WW Norton Company, New York, 1996, and Lester Brown, Facing the Prospect of Food Scarcity, in State of the World 1997, A World Watch Report on Progress toward a Sustainable Society, WW Norton Company, New York, 1997). Water is essential for food production. Entire areas of the world are becoming desertified: in Africa, the Southern Sahara and other regions, and even in North America.

A major cause of migration in the future will be the lack of water. People will be forced to move because they have no food. The use of land is closely linked to use of water. Loss of arable land is increasing, as recent data tells us, not only due to erosion but also due to industrial use and building of roads and urban settlements. As recent data tells us the "leading potential cropland claimant in Asia, particularly in China and India, is the automobile" (Lester Brown, op. cit. p. 26).

Women are very much affected by loss of water and loss of arable land, for it is still true that women have the responsibility for feeding their family. In rural areas in Africa, women have to walk further and further to get the water they need for household use or for their kitchen gardens. The loss of arable lands and consequent forced migration mean that women are often heads of households. Clearly, this is a problem that affects women very severely in many parts of the world.

3. Specific situations of women at the world level, with some references at the continental level.

Education is one of the most important indicators of the situation of women. Improved education for women is certainly one of the success stories of recent decades. Inter-governmental organisations, particularly UNESCO, government and non-government organisations have contributed greatly to this important result. Women religious have also had an important part in this advancement. Operating as they do in the field, they are often closer to, and more aware of, the real needs than other organisations.

As a result, literacy rates have grown in many parts of the world. They are now as high as 75% in most of Latin America, the Caribbean and South East Asia, though much lower in many parts of Africa, despite some improvements in the South Sahara region and North Africa. Much remains to be done as many countries (for example the South Sahara region, South and West Asia) still have more than 20% illiterate women in the 15-24 cohort (UN, The World’s Women 1995 Trends and Statistics, op. cit. p. 89).

It is important to note that for UNESCO a person is literate if he or she can read and write a complete phrase and understand its meaning. Access to schooling or enrolment in schooling is not an indicator of literacy as it does not usually indicate a level of proficiency. For this reason data in education can be misleading.

Another interesting point is that the presence of girls in secondary schools has often increased more than that of boys. This can be understood in terms of the fact that boys need to start work earlier than girls. In some countries, moreover, there has been a considerable drop in school presence at both primary and secondary level due to conflicts and wars (Africa and ex-Yugoslavia) or debt crises (Latin America).

This will inevitably have an impact on the situation of men and women and it is an issue that religious organisations will certainly be called to face. In contrast, many countries have a high level of secondary school girls; this is true in Western Europe as well as in some Latin American countries.

The next important indicator for understanding the situation of women is related to the family. Family size has been decreasing all over the world — not only in the developed countries but also in Latin America, the Caribbean and East and South East Asia. According to the data for 1990, in the countries of Oceania and Western Asia there are almost six members per family, with a minor increase in South East Asia and Northern Africa. In the developed countries there are almost three members per family, which means scarcely one child. This decrease is also due to the many families composed of one person, often an older woman, in many European countries.

A related phenomenon is the increase in the number of households headed by women (24% in developed regions, 21% in Latin America, 35% in the Caribbean region, 21% in Eastern Asia). It is lower in many other countries but the trend seems to be in the direction of growth (ibid., p. 6).

Both phenomena — smaller families and women heads of households — make families vulnerable. The extended family in many ways is a protection and works as a safety net in relation to children and older members. In a situation of increased life expectancy there will be an increasing number of people in need of assistance. This area represents another challenge for women religious. As already indicated, life expectancy is higher, with women outliving men, almost everywhere: by 12 years in Russia, by 6 - 8 years in developed countries and in Central Asia, by only three years in Africa and Southern Asia (ibid., p. 65).

This is a major change that affects the composition of the population of the world, the composition of women including that of religious women in their own congregations and in relation to their activities.

4. Consequences and challenges for women and women religious specifically.

I have mentioned some of the changes in the world which have an impact on women and especially on women religious. I would like to stress at this point the consequences of such changes, in terms of the need for awareness and also the capacity to read the signs of the times and adapt or discern, in relation to life and activities as women and in terms of mission in the case of women religious.

a) A first major consequence is related to the need to understand the world, or at least make an effort to understand it. It is with the people who are alive today, with the people as they are and not as we would like them to be, that women and women religious are called to operate. Their vision must be set in the world of today, not in that of the past, when the various founders had their vision and anticipated their mission. These visions, which are still very valid today, have to be seen with humility in the world of the present and this requires continuous updating and openness. It implies a constant need to communicate, not because we have the technology to do so, but because we need to communicate in order to understand each other. It is indeed a blessing that we have new communication systems to help us do so.

There is also a need to move, when and as we can, to understand needs as they arise. In this, religious congregations are at an advantage because of their international character. Difficult though it may be, this fact of being international enables religious congregations to respond to our time much more than is possible for many other groups and organisations.

In an age of high speed communication and continuous change, many barriers have been overcome; it is no time for Christians to raise new ones. Instead, it is a time for more intense reading of the signs, with humility and with as much understanding as situations allow.

b) New poverties deriving from major trends (some of which have been described in this paper) pose a dramatic challenge to women and to women religious in particular.

The gap between the rich and poor is growing as a consequence of the political and economic divisions of power in the world and the increasing importance attributed to economy as the basic value of social and individual life. There currently seems to be no way of shifting the emphasis from economic to other values. Since 1980, 15 countries have experienced an unprecedented economic growth, which has resulted in a rapidly growing income for 1.5 billion people, namely one third of the world population. In this same period, however, economic decline has affected about 100 countries and reduced the income of 1.6 billion of the world population. In 70 of these countries the overall income is lower than in 1980; in 43 countries lower than in 1970. In the period 1990 - 1993 alone, the average income fell by one fifth or more, in 21 countries (mostly in Eastern European countries or the countries in transition) (UNDP, Human Development Report 1996, UN New York, 1996, p. 1).

At the global level this situation is reflected in a different manner within geographical regions and countries. For example, about 2,030,000 of Italy’s 20 million families are below the poverty line; about two-thirds of them are in Southern Italy. These families are mainly composed of older people who live alone, of an elderly couple, or are women-headed families (Commissione d’indagine sulla povertà e sull’emarginazione, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Terzo Rapporto sulla Povertà in Italia, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Roma, 1993). Another example is the USA: about 40 million Americans were living in poverty in 1994, more than at any time since 1960. In America, the poor tend to be young (under 18), black or Hispanic, mostly from women-headed households (40% of people living in female headed households are poor). Most live in the inner-city and all have a low level of education.

At the same time there are still misconceptions about the poor in the US. For example, that blacks and Hispanics are the poorest. This is not true in absolute terms as, of the poor, 48% are whites, 27% African-Americans and 28% Hispanics. The reason is that many people are not included in official data: the homeless, people in institutions, (prisons, etc.) and children in foster care. This shows how defining and measuring poverty is a difficult task. The point to make is that the poor, especially the non-official poor, are growing and the gap between the rich and poor is widening (William P. O’Hare, A New Look at Poverty in America in Population Bulletin, PRB, Sept. 1996, p. 5).

The gap between the rich and poor is reflected in an even greater way in the developing countries, although here I wish to underline the issue for the countries normally considered to be rich.

For many years it was thought that the poor were concentrated in rural areas and that this was what drove people to move to cities. Data tells us today that the poor are in the urban areas, that they are less visible, that they include many women living alone or with their children, women who are heads of households, albeit often not officially. In urban areas, families tend to be smaller and therefore more vulnerable. Today the urban population is 43% of the global population. This percentage can be expected to increase especially in Africa where it is 31% and growing fast. Seventy-five per cent of the population of North America lives in the city; 72% in Latin America, 33% in Asia and 72% in Europe (Population Reference Bureau, World Population Data Sheet 1997, Washington, 1997).

These data show the concentration in urban areas, and reveal an important historical difference between the developed and the developing countries. In developed countries the process of urbanisation took from 50 to 100 years. In the developing countries the process has been much more rapid. It has taken 20 years in Latin America and only about 10 years in Asia and Africa. This difference is also due to the inversion of the process. In developed countries, industrialisation preceded the process of urban migration. In other words people were attracted to towns by jobs. In developing countries, people move to town before jobs are available. This is one of the reasons for deprivation in the large towns of the developing countries. One need only recall the problems of Mexico City whose population is the same as the population of Australia.

In relation to women, we have mentioned that the new poverties are to be found among women as heads of households and older women (as a result of higher life expectancy). Another factor contributing to the poverty situation of women is to be found in the sphere of work. Very often women are engaged in the informal economy, where they are temporary, liable to change, and have no social security.

Health is another issue. In many countries girls are undernourished: for cultural reasons they are the last to have access to food. They pay for this in terms of anaemia and bad health in pregnancy. This in turn, has an impact on their children. Women, especially young women, are liable to HIV and AIDS. Data in 1995 tells us that, of the 16 million people affected by AIDS, 40% are women and about one million are children. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), by the year 2,000 a further 15 - 16 million people will have contracted AIDS (divided equally between men and women). The countries most affected are Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Thailand and Malawi. The groups most affected live in urban areas and they are usually young women.

New poverties are also related to new non-material suffering such as isolation and solitude in old age or in urban areas, violence of different kinds in and outside of families. Social structures are becoming increasingly related to hard social relations, where the weakest are always the victims. This is also true for wars and conflicts where often the silent victims are women, not necessarily in material terms.

Finally the new poverty derives also from waves of refugees who leave their countries to seek a safer life elsewhere, and for which the receiving countries are totally unprepared.

5. Women as builders of alternative futures. Women who are not victims of society but actors in society.

I have described a frightening situation. It is essential that it be seen clearly in order to counteract it, not only with different images, but with visions based on the reality of women, who are silently, but firmly, weaving a different texture of society. As yet, society is unaware of this process and to many it will come as a surprise. On the threshold of the third millennium, women are no longer, or are not only, the victims in society. They are the silent builders of an alternative or of many alternative societies.

This can be explained in two ways: first, alternatives must emerge, if we wish to stop, or at least hinder, the destruction of the environment as a rich resource or, more importantly, as a gift of God, the deterioration of society, the apathy of the young generation, the manipulation of values and alternatives emerge from those outside the present social structures (this can be well proven by historical analysis); two, women have capacities, as yet untapped, which are more congenial to a non-material society, which is emerging and is not based exclusively on industry and economics.

These capacities are at the individual and social level and have been documented by empirical work (Eleonora Masini and Susan Stratigos, Women, Households and Change, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 1991; Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Women as Builders of the Future, in Futures 19, N° 4, 1987; Eleonora Barbieri Masini, La Donna Christina e le sfide del tempo presente, in Studia Missionnalia, Vol. 40, 1991, Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Roma, 1991; Eleonora Barbieri Masini, The Creative Role of Women in a Changing World: the Case of Women in Developing Countries, in Leonardo, Vol. 27, N° 1, 1994, The MIT Press, San Francisco, 1994; Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Il genio femminile al servizio della vita, in Camillianum, Anno VIII, Primo Semestre 1997, N° 15).

At the individual level:

- women have the capacity to do many different things at the same time, a skill that is particularly needed in a rapidly changing and therefore demanding society. It stems from the great awareness of women in relation to their physical, social and cultural environment;

- women tend to favour aspects of human life other than the strictly economic one. Where they have a choice, and are not completely coopted by an economically-oriented society, women would prefer to look after a sick child than have economic gain. This attitude will be very relevant in a post-industrial society, based mainly on non-material goods and services;

- women tend to prefer horizontal relationships and attribute little importance to hierarchies. This is important in a society where team work is more important than vertical relationships;

- women’s sense of time is more regulated to biological and natural dimensions than to clock-regulated activities. This is important in a society with rapidly changing processes which create continuous changes in time frames.

At the social level:

- women tend to prefer unique or personalised products to standardised production;

- women, and this is probably their most important capacity, tend to create solidarities in situations of need without waiting for approval or support. This capacity is particularly precious in situations of conflict, extreme poverty or environmental disaster. (I shall give some examples of this capacity stemming from empirical work, later in this article).

In conclusion, there are certain capacities that seem to be more specific to women, or perhaps have been better preserved by women. Although such capacities are often ignored, they may well have an important role in introducing new perspectives to a society undergoing change, no longer based exclusively on competition, with all the emphasis on getting to the top, whether it be in trade, production or even in academic and religious environments.

An empirical research has been initiated with the support of UNESCO and is still underway. A small project called WIN (Women’s International Network, Emergency and Solidarity) has shown that all over the world women and women’s groups are courageously (and without recognition) facing issues of vital importance for the reconstruction of the texture of society.

These women do not wait for support or for financial aid, but simply get on with the job. After the earthquake, the women of Mexico and Armenia got together in solidarity to help the injured or orphaned children. In a situation of devastating war and conflict, the widows of Rwanda and the women of Uganda fought to prevent their children being taken away to become soldiers. In the Gaza Strip, the women from Palestine and Israel together give refuge and organise cultural activities for their children. Reference can be made to the women of Central America, to the grandmothers of the children of Chernobyl, to numerous other situations. The list could go on almost ad infinitum but the common denominator is that these groups are independent, poor and without support.

What I want to stress is the extraordinary capacity of women to face issues that to many seem unfaceable, to do what is needed in silence and often in isolation. What they now need is visibility, at least to know that there are other women in the world doing similar things. I wish to stress this point also in relation to women religious, who have worked in silence for centuries, often doing for society what others will not do: they support women who are lonely and old, they educate and comfort children who are neglected and deprived, they care for those who are ill, for those who have AIDS, for those rejected by society. They live and work in unfavourable and dangerous environments, in which Christianity is often not the major religion, silently risking their health and often life.

With these capacities, and in a society that has such need for these capacities, it is important that women become visible in positive terms, that they be creative and contribute to building a different society. It is time for women religious, who have by choice operated in silence, to come into the open, to become visible, to show the essence of Christianity, the essence of their religious dedication, to shout from the treetops that they are doing what God expects of them in these troubled times. These women are necessary for change, as they alone are facing the real needs of the poor and the deprived, and doing so for a higher motive. At the moment, this fragmented but highly important movement, has the potential to stimulate change and shake present reality to its senses.

What in my view was lacking at the Beijing conference is that it stressed women’s problems, especially those related to procreation and violence, situations in which women are apparently victims, but not women’s creativity and capacity to build alternatives. Too little space was given to what Pope John Paul II calls the "feminine genius", the capacity of women to face problems pragmatically, even though this may imply suffering.

The ethic banks, one of which is the Gremeen bank, are also examples of the capacity of women to respond to efforts that wish to change the present society which is unjust in many ways and which may lead to a great change in society. Within this environment and this sparkling (in terms of light in darkness) activity, women religious are central to change. They have the possibility and the chance to do so in the present world.

6. The role of women religious in the world as described and as active women members of the Church working in solidarity.

From the previous analysis and by drawing out the consequences, there are many instances in which women religious seem to be in the forefront of understanding the present society and bringing about change.

a) Movements of people and communication pro-cesses are transforming society into a multicultural society. Here women religious have two answers: one is related to the philosophical basis of this conference: "Women religious moving forward, across the fields and frontiers of mission ..." and to Christ’s mission to go to all people. Never before has this been so close and so possible. Women religious cannot refuse the challenge, as they are born and live in this time.

The other is related to the fact that women religious almost all belong to international congregations. This means that, however difficult, they have inbuilt possibilities for understanding different peoples, mentalities, needs and customs. No other social group — politicians, academics, trade unions, enterprises — have this gift, which was part of the vision of their founders.

b) Women religious possess the same capacities as most women in the world (if not coopted by the homogenising force of the industrial mainly westernised society). In addition they have, or have had to revive, what I called the capacity to create solidarities in time of need. This is a time of need for the world, as well as for the Church. Hence, all those belonging to the Church have had to move ahead, but in solidarity. In order to have an impact, it is important that women religious are not dispersed, that their action not be fragmented. Otherwise, even with the best of intentions, they will not bring about change. Change will come, but only in solidarity. This is true for all women all over the world; it is even more so for women religious who have the charisma of the mission to move forward.

c) In a situation of gross injustice, of the growing gap between rich and poor, the powerful and the deprived, women religious have centuries of experience on which to draw. Over time, they have refined their understanding of the poor and the deprived. The time has come to use this capital, to use the understanding and knowledge capitalised for centuries, in search of signs of old and new poverties.

d) In a world evidently suffering from loss of motivation, where it is often forgotten that the most important thing in life and in the world is the human being and his or her growth, in the material, intellectual and spiritual components, it is vital to build a just society for all human beings. Women religious have such motivation; moreover, unlike men, they know by experience and history why these motivations are dying in reality. Added to this, the specific "feminine genius", if strong and alive, gives them the tools to sense the ways to recover these fundamentally human motivations in a world that is constantly refusing them.

In conclusion, we are living in a time of great challenge for women and for women religious. The social environment is in need of answers to the challenge and the Church is in need of answers to the challenges emerging from social and cultural situations on every side of the globe. The time has come for women religious to contribute to the change and to do so visibly, searching not only to repair the damage being done to the human being, but also to seek and reinforce the positive contributions, especially those contributions from women, which are emerging from all over the world.

Ref.: UISG, n. 108 1998.