The Imagining Ourselves project began in the fall of 2001, in a casual breakfast conversation with my friend Denise Dunning. I was twenty-six years old, freshly minted with a master’s degree in public policy, full of dreams about making a difference in the world . . . but jobless, broke, and utterly lost.
The timing for the initiation of my career could not have been worse. The economy was awful, and September 11 had just happened. I’d given up a fellowship to go to Israel and Palestine to write a book about peacemaking in the region because peace seemed like a naïve dream. For lack of a better plan, I grudgingly moved back home with my parents and started looking for a job in dot-com-bust San Francisco. I wanted desperately to do meaningful work, but getting any kind of work whatsoever was a challenge.
One Sunday, my friend Denise invited me over for breakfast. Somehow we began recounting the stories of young women we knew all around the world and the incredible things they were up to. Both Denise and I had worked and traveled in numerous countries, and each of us knew dozens of women in their twenties and thirties who were making courageous moves in their lives and contributing vital leadership to their communities. Many had started their own nonprofit organizations or were quickly climbing the corporate ladder, while others had made exciting innovations in the art world or were charting new ground in their families or personal lives.
It dawned on us that there was something quite remarkable that
connected all of these stories -- a positive, empowered spirit that
enabled women of our generation to engage fully with the world and to
pursue goals and lifestyles that may not have been possible several
decades ago. But why had this experience not been recognized or
presented to the world at large? How could we publicly convey the sheer
energy and beauty of our peers in a way that moved beyond old
stereotypes?
“What about an anthology?” I asked Denise casually, not really even
moved by my own idea. To my surprise, she responded enthusiastically
and volunteered to help.
Like all of life’s best adventures, if I had known what I was getting
into, I never would have started. Luckily, I had no clue. I thought the
book would take about a year from start to finish. Nearly five years
later, many women have participated, sending in artwork or writing in
response to the question, “What defines your generation of women?”
Imagining Ourselves is poised to inspire millions of young women and
men to create positive change in their lives and in their communities.
And here is what we’ve found:
If you are a woman between the ages of twenty and forty living anywhere
on the globe today, you are part of the most educated, most
well-traveled, most professionally empowered, most international
generation of women ever to have existed on this planet. It’s a story
that not many people are telling yet, but it’s one of the most
inspiring stories out there these days in a world full of violence and
insecurity -- the story of a generation of women poised to take the
reins of global leadership like no other generation in history.
Consider that more young women today have had access to formal
education than at any other time in history -- by leaps and bounds. In
1999 and 2000, 96.5 percent of girls worldwide were enrolled in primary
school, an astounding figure. In the eighteen years between 1980 and
1998, the literacy rate for all women worldwide rose from 54 to 68
percent, and there was an increase of nearly 200 million women in
formal employment in the 1990s alone. This is also a generation that is
increasingly connected across national boundaries, through the rapid
spread of communications technologies such as the internet.
This is not, of course, to say that everything is hunky-dory. Women and
girls still comprise over 70 percent of those living in poverty. And
one hardly even needs to pick up the newspaper to remember how many
people around the world -- men and women alike -- are living under
conditions of violence and insecurity.
But such a paradox is precisely the point. Clearly, there are serious
problems facing the world today. But perhaps for the first time in
history, a generation of young adult women are poised with the
resources and tools to do something positive to address the many
challenges that face us, whether individual or collective in nature.
And it is precisely that positive spirit that filtered through when our
team took a close look at the overwhelming amount of material we had
collected from young women for our book and exhibit. Self-assuredness
rang in the voices of so many young women -- and conviction that
anything was possible. Whether in the arena of self-expression or
professional achievement, whether in negotiating one’s identity as an
immigrant or in reflecting on being a new mother, there was this
utterly uplifting, seductive, funny, kick-ass spirit that united all of
the young women with whom we were in contact.
Take, for example, the story of Mayerly Sánchez, a young woman in the
book. In the midst of Colombia’s civil war, Mayerly had the idea to
organize youth against the violence -- and she did. She orchestrated a
historic national vote in which thousands of kids and teenagers across
the country went to the polls to make a highly televised statement
against the violence. And one month later, as a result, tens of
thousands of adult Colombians also went to the polls to demand an end
to forced kidnapping and abuses of children associated with the war.
Mayerly did not grow up as an elite member of her society. She did not
have access to extraordinary wealth or networks of privilege. She, like
so many of the participants in this project, was simply a young woman
with a good idea who did not stop to question the proposition that she
could make a difference.
And she is in very good company. She is joined by young women like Jess
Loseby in England, a disabled mother who decided to have a family
despite the stereotypes that disabled women might not be able to take
care of children. Or women like Keina Davis Elswick, an
African-American painter, who decided early on that not only would she
become a professional painter -- but she would figure out how to make
her dream career financially rewarding and sustaining -- and she did,
even before she turned 30!
We have the power to move the world, each and every one of us. If you
are a woman in your twenties or thirties, it is likely that you have
access to more resources to transform your life, and the lives of those
around you, than any previous generation of women in history.
Each of the women in the project has been able to make a difference in
the world -- whether in their own lives, or the lives of others -- by
simply having a good idea and following through with it, despite the
obstacles we inevitably find in our path. That is the point of
Imagining Ourselves -- and the kind of inspiring, positive momentum
that the project is poised to release.
Copyright © 2006 Paula Goldman
Based on the book Imagining Ourselves. Copyright © 2006 by The
International Museum of Women. (March 2006; $26.95US; 1-57731-524-3)
Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. Toll-free
number 800-972-6657 ext. 52 or www.newworldlibrary.com.
Author
Paula Goldman's professional life has been driven by the quest to work
with groups in conflict and to increase opportunities for underserved
populations. In postwar Bosnia she worked on reconciliation and
reconstruction projects, in India she worked with educational groups to
create professional paths for rural high school graduates, and she
worked with human rights organizations in Kenya and Guatemala. She has
also helped develop programming with WorldLink Television and led a
film project to promote community-building efforts between Jewish and
Muslim groups in San Francisco.
Paula was born in Singapore in 1975. She and her family lived in
Jakarta, Indonesia, before moving to Southern California. She graduated
from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997 and went on to
receive a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University.
She is currently working toward a PhD in social anthropology at Harvard
University. When she isn't traveling for her projects, Paula divides
her time between Boston and San Francisco.
For more information, please visit www.imow.org
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