THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510270655
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LINDA SCALAN
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
How often we approach great events with these mixed emotions.
And if the event is at all controversial, we think, or whisper, or shout, ``I just hope nothing happens to spoil it.''
A friend recently said those words as he went off to join the Million Man March in Washington.
A traveling companion said them as we crossed the Pacific en route to the World Conference on Women in China.
Caught up in the euphoria of a major event, we become convinced that good things will come of it. That our experiences, shared with others of like mind, are bound to make a difference. But the apprehension lingers. Will it? We wonder.
That's what I've been thinking since I returned from China and that U.N. conference. I've been pleased, but surprised, by the interest and enthusiasm my experience has generated among friends and colleagues in Hampton Roads.
``Tell me how wonderful it was,'' one asked eagerly.
``You're the only person I know who really went. I can't believe I know you.'' said another.
``Oh, I thought about you every day you were gone. And how I envied you,'' said a third.
And I describe for them what I saw. I tell them how fortunate I felt to get one of the few available seats to hear Hillary Rodham Clinton and how there were more bursts of applause interrupting her speech than there were minutes in it.
I tell about women from around the world sharing stories of the work they do to help other women get educations, jobs, bank accounts, self-esteem, even a voice in family decision making.
I tell of meeting two women from Uganda who teach soil conservation, but also explain about bank accounts and savings to women who produce 90 percent of their nation's cash crops; of a women from China who teaches handicraft skills to girls so their families will stop treating them as economic liabilities to be married off as young as possible; of Latin American women who organize domestic workers hoping to put an end to their abuse.
I tell of young women newspaper and television reporters from Greece and Sri Lanka and Zambia who paid part of their own expenses to Beijing so they could report about the conference to those at home.
I describe the brightly colored national costumes, some made of materials specially designed for the conference, and of the elderly woman with a babushka and a chest full of medals from one of the newly independent states once part of the Soviet Union.
I praise the helpfulness of the Chinese student ``volunteers'' and describe how Chinese security guards looked through you, not at you.
And, I tell about the hardships some women had living and meeting in buildings not yet finished, where both the plumbing and the roofs leaked in nearly constant rain.
Because of these things - and, sometimes, despite them - the World Conference on Women was about hope. The hope that comes from shared experiences that strengthen commitment. And I've tried to share that with the many here who are so interested.
The come other questions: ``Do you think it will make a difference? What happens now?''
I tell about the Platform for Action adopted by the U.N. delegates who have taken it back to their 81 countries, hopefully to be turned into legislation. I tell about the grass-roots groups in all those countries that have not waited for laws, but are working right now to improve the lives of women and girls.
Some women who asked the questions have already found some answers here in Hampton Roads. One directs the Help and Emergency Response (HER) Shelter in Portsmouth and is opening a new $200,000 shelter to house, train and counsel victims of family violence. She and the contributors and volunteers who work with her have found part of the answer.
The local affiliate of the Public Relations Society of America helps with another part of the answer by working with HER on a public communications plan. Women's access to mass media and how they are portrayed in it were major concerns at Beijing. Other professionals and groups are focusing on economic and health care parity for women.
But my apprehension remains. Governments act slowly. Grass-roots groups need staffs and money to run effective programs. And public interest is transient. The Beijing conference was a major event that captured world attention, as so many similar events do, for a brief time. Then attention shifts to the next headline.
Unfortunately, so do many of us who participate in these major events. We let them pass too easily into memory, we let them remain just occasions that never achieve full potential as change agents. We need to keep the events alive by speaking of them often and sharing them with many. One of the women who had great interest in my experiences in Beijing has me committed to speak at a garden club.
We need to challenge the critics, of whom there are many in Hampton Roads, who distort and discredit such events. Yes, such events may be narrowly focused, potentially volatile and undeniably costly, but they are also a sharing of solutions and a venting of frustrations that can lead to hope and healing.
We need to stay in touch with those who shared with us. For me, that means making the effort to write the conservation teacher from Uganda, the reporter from Sri Lanka, and domestic workers advocate from Brazil and all the others.
Instead of saying ``I hope nothing spoils it,'' perhaps my travel companion to Beijing, my friend in the Million Man March and I should say, ``I hope I don't spoil it by doing too little, by forgetting too quickly, by losing the sense of eager anticipation I had when that event was the focus of my life.'' MEMO: Linda Scanlan, a retired Norfolk State professor, attended the U.N.
World Conference on Women in Beijing. by CNB