Source: Salem News
As far back as we can look in history, mothers, due to their role as guardians of hearth and home, have sought to keep their families unified and harmonious.

This often meant practicing negotiation and mediation, and women frequently found themselves resolving conflicts at home and in the community.

Furthermore, women in their traditional professions as teachers, nurses and social workers have also helped to thoughtfully bring people together in schools and communities.

It is no wonder, then, that former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan remarked in October 2000, that, "For generations, women have served as peace educators, both in their families and in their societies. They have proven instrumental in building bridges rather than walls."

But if women have so many qualities that lend themselves to being peacemakers, why haven't they used these natural gifts to abolish war?

To answer this question is to face the truths of patriarchy. For the greater part of the past 5,000 years, men have ruled all of the large civilizations of history. They have had the ambition and the competitive drive to conquer empires, control explanatory systems, and write histories. It has been through men's vision that society's values and beliefs have been established. Not only have men led civilizations, they have also crafted weapons, planned invasions and fought wars. When the wars were over, men returned from the battlefield to design peace treaties. Unfortunately, many of these treaties set the stage for the next wars, because the winners humbled the losers and established harsh and punitive terms.

Although women have often been the victims of war as well, they have rarely had the opportunity to participate in peacemaking. In the patriarchal framework, emphasis has been placed more on women's vulnerability than on their potential as peacemakers.

Ironically, however, it was a man, Aristophanes, who created a comic masterpiece suggesting how women could exert their influence in a patriarchal system. In his play of 411 BCE, "Lysistrata," the heroine seeks to end the Peloponnesian War by encouraging her female citizens to withhold sexual privileges from men until they negotiate a peace.

In more modern times, numerous powerful women have shown the strength of their principles, their human agency and their determination to wage peace. Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Jane Addams and Jeanette Rankin, to cite just four, were at the forefront of peace advocacy in the early 20th century as serious-minded activists.

Addams, the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and a founder and president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, was described by Emily Balch as follows: "Miss Addams shines, so respectful of everyone's views, so eager to understand and sympathize, so patient of anarchy and even ego, yet always there, strong, wise and in the lead. No 'managing,' no keeping in the dark and bringing things subtly to pass, just a radiating wisdom and power of judgment."

It is heartening to note just how many of this century's female peace advocates have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. They include the aforementioned Emily Balch, who won in 1946 for her work as president of the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom; Mother Theresa of the Missionaries of Charity; Betty Williams and Mainread Corrigan of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement; Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Mayan Indian from Guatemala, "in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples;" Jody Williams, who worked tirelessly to ban and clear land mines; Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi; Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, former judge and human rights activist, and founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran; Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to receive the prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace; and Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemen's Tawakel Karman, who were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

With the increased recognition of the pivotal role women can play, more women ought to use their moral imagination, creative diplomacy and nonviolent tendencies to advance peace in the home, the community, the nation and the world.

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Dr. Hope Harmeling Benne, an adjunct history professor at Salem State University, also serves as co-director of the university's peace institute.