May 15, the Women’s Missionary Society celebrated its 100th anniversary—100 years of helping others; of extending God’s Kingdom. But what is left of the WMS today? While no one will officially say so, it’s wilting and withering. Women of my generation apparently see little value in the group and aren’t joining to take up the cause.
As the mother of two daughters, I find this exceedingly sad. Women have historically been the ones assuming a leadership role when it comes to outreach. Through the WMS (and AMS) they found a way to be heard when their voices were otherwise silenced. And while women enjoy more rights and freedoms than when the WMS was born, there is much left to do.
Dr. Samantha Nutt of War Child Canada was the keynote speaker at the National Presbyterian Women’s Gathering, which drew more than 600 women from across the country just days after the anniversary. In her address Nutt argued that despite what many would have us believe, we are not in a post – feminist era. Because women are in the workforce, because they can vote, and become, say, a firefighter (or an ordained minister!) right along with their male counterparts, many think the fight has been fought and won. Feminism worked. And now it’s no more.
But Nutt urged us to “remember that feminism is a process, not a history lesson.”
In a 2012 newspaper, Nutt told the story of being honoured by her home province, when a headline blared: “Wife of Minister Given Order of Ontario.” It seems that being a professor, medical doctor and founder of an international NGO pales in comparison to the status of her cabinet minister husband.
“I was first and foremost a minister’s wife, with all the smug paternalism the headline implied,” she wrote.
Nutt has spent her 40 – odd years helping to improve the lives of women and children in countries ravaged by war, oppression, and gender – based violence. She called on us as women to learn about what’s going on. To recognize that the fight is not over. To listen to stories, and to figure out how to help.
“If you want to know what feminism ought to be in the 21st century and where it needs to go, pay attention to the silences. To what is left unsaid, and too often, unaddressed.”
She shared the story of a girl named Nadine living in Eastern Congo (the worst place in the world to be a woman, by the way), who was brutally raped on two occasions and left for dead. (You can read more in Nutt’s book, Damned Nations: Guns, Greed, Armies and Aid, which, I have to say, should be required reading for all congregations). Nadine’s village is located beside a coltan mine, a mineral found in virtually all our cellphones. A mineral directly linked to the rape and murder of thousands upon thousands of women and girls in the Congo, thanks to the weapons dealers and militia groups who control the mines and operate with impunity.
When Nutt asked Nadine why she was telling her this she said, “so you can tell others.”
Is this not the work of the WMS? Does the church—and the world—no longer have a need for women working together on a national scale? Perhaps not in its current form, but some form nonetheless?
Knowing, I’m sure, the role women did and do play in the outreach work of the church, Nutt left us with this challenge: “My work with women around the world … has taught me that the women’s movement is unfinished everywhere. Our rights are not guaranteed, inequalities are deeply entrenched, and, in many corners of the world, these are widening. This is why our engagement, our leadership, is so very necessary. This is why we must burst forth with energy, creativity and determination: because if not all of us in this room, then who?”
Suggested Reading: A Humanitarian Wonder Woman: An Interview with Samantha Nutt by Amy MacLachlan
