In recognition of International Education Week, five female Cal State Long Beach students spoke out about empowering women and the feminist movement around the world at the “Junior Panel” of a symposium titled “Global Women’s Organizations Negotiate Religion” on Monday afternoon in the USU Ballrooms.
Serving as junior panelists, CSULB students Lacette Price, Jessica Safani, Erin McCready, Julie Claypool and Marina Wood covered women’s issues from different parts of the globe and what is being done to spread more education and awareness about equality and understanding in those societies.
McCready, a senior religious studies major, used scholarly sources to explore Palestinian women’s movements in occupied territories and how women in those areas continue to improve their state of political awareness.
“Realizing that violence increases in the domestic realm when the economic and political realms are suffering is important,” McCready said. “Knowing that frustration and oppression of a people is often acted out on women’s bodies is something that I want people to be aware of. Not just in Palestine, but everywhere.”
Safani, a religious studies graduate student, spoke to that same frustration and oppression, but to women within the United States through religious movements.
“I hope that my presentation made people aware of the power and influence of the dominionist movement, and the ways in which certain civil liberties may be threatened by the use of such power and influence,” Safani said.
“I know that some of the information I presented seemed radical, but it’s important to realize that religious movements are largely a product of the society in which they are cultivated: A society facing economic hardship will be much more likely to turn to religion as a way of coping with difficulties, and women are largely the ones who suffer discrimination because of this mentality.”
Aleen Jaghalian, a junior cultural anthropology major who attended the panel, was interested in the presentation on how Islamic women are viewed differently in society and among themselves.
“I’m happy that these organizations exist,” Jaghalian said of the groups created to make women and children in other countries aware of their gender equality. “I was also very interested in hearing what they had to say about [how eco-feminism relates] the dominion of nature and the dominion of females.”
Although the junior panel was the final event of the symposium, people continued to shuffle in and out of the room. The subject matter continued to reach new heights among both men and women and the roles both genders play in the upbringing of a more equal and tolerant society.
“There is a sense of moral superiority involved in this that I think is very alluring for many women,” said Safani.
