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Forum in Siberia on Improving Relations between Men and Women
Written by UPF - Russia
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Novosibirsk, Russia - On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the women’s movement, UPF-Siberia together with other grassroots organizations held programs on March 4 and 8 related to the International Women’s Day on “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women."
In the office of the Women’s Initiative and Creative Association (Family Service of Novosibirsk), a festive program with a presentation on the theme of the “Spiritual dimension of leadership: end of the period of power logic and start of the period of love logic” took place on March 4.
The event was prepared by a coordinator of the Universal Peace Federation, Dmitry Oficerov. "Strife between men and women should stop," he said. "God is the origin of both men and women. God’s creation carries within itself mutually complementary aspects, masculine and feminine. Men and women respectively personify God’s harmonized characteristics. It means that there shouldn’t be any sexism. We should desire for harmony in relations between sexes by means of true love."
Afterwards, Evheny Mironov, a business coach and consultant in interpersonal relations, took the floor. In his speech he touched upon important questions of relations between men and women nowadays. According to ancient Vedic teaching, a woman finds her happiness first of all in her family. Only after that can she rise to the level of self-fulfillment in some other sphere of activity. Success in business cannot make a woman completely happy if her life lacks the main thing – harmonious relations with her husband and children.
Afterwards, a very lively discussion followed, proving actuality of the topic. Altogether, there were 20 participants; two thirds of them were women. After the official part of the program, the trombonist Martinez Olyaka and other members of the CARP student group congratulated women on the International Women’s Day and performed some songs. The participants of the event, both men and women, on their part recited poems of congratulations and good wishes. The event ended with a tea party.
One more festive program took place on March 8, attended by about 70 guests. It was a festive performance that included songs, meditation, improvisations, and dances. Dmitry Oficerov, a representative of the Universal Peace Federation, gave his presentation about the origin and meaning of the International Women’s Day.
According to the UN statistics, the growing number of women with high education by 1% leads to growth of economics by 0, 3%. There’s no place in the world where women could declare they have equal rights and the same possibilities as men. The majority of the world's indigent people are women. The average salary of women is 30 – 40 percent lower than that of men, for the same work. Everywhere, women become victims of violence, considering that rape and domestic violence are rather widespread causes of disability and mortality among women of reproductive age in the world.
In his report, Dmitry Oficerov quoted the words of Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon, co-founder of the Universal Peace Federation, from her speech that she gave before an audience of 7,000 people in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, on November 21, 1993: “Until now, men played the leading role in history. Social institutions were always guided by men. Unfortunately, we have to admit that reality headed by men has always been the history of conflicts and sin. Nowadays we desire peace, reconciliation, compassion, love, service, and self-sacrifice. In our time, it’s impossible to solve the problems through men’s logic of power. Past iideologies were ideologies of oppression. If we want to live in a peaceful world, now is the time when the current problems should be solved through the feminine logic of love.”
Also at the presentation, it was emphasized that society needs unity between men and women. When we solve the fundamental problem of man/women relations, 80 percent of all the problems in the world will be solved automatically. Here are the words (published in Narodnaya gazeta) of Major General Marina Zuikova, a member of the Federation Council: “Men and women have different experiences, knowledge, and intuition; therefore, their unity and mutual complementarity, their opinions and views, which on various issue might seem opposite, could help to develop multiple novel decisions and lead to a more balanced and advanced state policy."
Thus, men often talk about some strange feminine logic. But the logic of mothers, sisters, and wives is the logic of love. Compared to women, men are 10-15 percent more inclined to use military power. Therefore, it’s crucially important that women get a chance of influencing human community by introducing peace and harmony into it.
The chairperson of the Novosibirsk School of Universology, Gorbunova Tatyana; president of the Novosibirsk branch of the Spiritual University Brahma Kumaris, Margarita Vladovskaya; and representatives of the Harmony Development School shared their visions about how to reach harmony in the relations between people and God. Meditation, music, and dances are the means to help purify our mind spiritually and bring us closer to God.
The atmosphere of the meeting was beautifully creative; representatives of different philosophical schools shared with each other their spiritual experiences. The event showed in practice a harmonious society is not a utopia, but quite an achievable reality. Interreligious cooperation and the growing role of women in peacemaking will help us to create a new harmonious world community.
Let there be peace between men and women!
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