womeninmuseum
The network of the women´s museums
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- 01 About us
- 02 Fourth International Congress of Women’s Museums, Buenos Aires/Argentina
- 03 Third International Congress of Women’s Museums, Buenos Aires/Argentina
- 04 First International Congress of Women’s Museums, Merano/Italy
- 05 Second International Congress of Women’s Museums, Bonn/Germany
- 06 List of the partecipating museums of the network womeninmuseum
- 07 List of the women’s museums
- 08 List of the women’s museum initiatives
- 09 RESOLUTIONS OF THE WOMEN’S MUSEUMS
- 10 Projects of the network
- 11 Important instructions
- 12 Forum
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There exist more 46 women’s museums and 17 women’s museums initiatives worldwide which differ quite a lot in the foundation history, organizational set up and possibilities and which are strongly marked by the respective geographic location.
To bring together and to link up these different realities seemed to be even more interesting
This 1st International Congress of the Women’s Museums has brought the women colleagues together to JOINTLY work on the documentation of women’s knowledge, women’s history, women’s art and gender history and to contribute to its lasting tradition
The borders transcending exchange should be begun with these three congressional days and be presented to an interested audience.
The women’s museums wanted to be also internationally more visible with this first congress. They are represented on all five continents and fulfil cultural, social and political duties in their countries.
Right from the beginning, it was at the same the goal to encourage the foundation of further women’s museums.
You will find the pictures of the 1st International Congress of the Women’s Museums in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/womeninmuseum/
And the videos of the conference you will see soon on:
Genesis
So far there has been little contact between the women’s museums worldwide. Nevertheless, the fertile partnership between the women’s museums “Henriette Bathily” in Gorée/Senegal and the Women’s Museum in Merano has shown how important the mutual exchange is for the quality of the museum work.
The idea of the first international women’s museums congress was raised surprisingly for the first time by a man. When the Australian museum manager Pauline Cockrill was on a world tour to visit the various women’s museums, she heard about a partner women’s museum in Senegal while visiting the Women’s Museum of Merano.
Subsequently she travelled to Goreé and was introduced to the Senegalese Minister of Culture by the ladies-in-charge of the Senegalese women’s museum. The Minister of Culture became very enthusiastic about the idea of a lively network of women’s museums and proposed an international congress of women in Dakar.
Although this idea could finally not be realized in Senegal, Astrid Schönweger the curator and the director of the Women’s Museum in Merano Sigrid Prader, both famously engaged network women, continued to foster the dream of a convention where women’s museums from all around the world would come together - promisingly for a unique possibility of a worldwide network. Astrid Schönweger took over the scientific direction.
Additionally, to celebrate in 2008 its 20th anniversary the museum put its attention on making the congress a “self-referral” birthday gift.
The managers of the women’s museum of Merano found other co-promoters for this first international congress in Claudia von Lutterotti and Paolo Ferigo from ide4. Together with them they compiled an internet platform which can support not only the congress but also a worldwide collaboration between women’s museums and similar initiatives.
The partner museum in Senegal immediately was as keen as mustard and supported the realization of the congress from afar.
For the local organization team could be won Michaela Kargruber for sponsoring and general organization as well as Anita Rossi and Ruth Gamper for media work. The convention was prepared for one year by this team.
Together with Sigrid Prader and Claudia Lutterotti, Astrid Schönweger built up the contacts to the other museums. The target was of bringing together women’s museums from all five continents on this congress.
HOST MUSEUMS
Women’s Museum of Merano
The Women’s Museum of Merano was founded twenty years ago single-handed by the passionate collector Evelyn Ortner (1944-1997) and is later on run by an association since many years now.
The museum is opened throughout the year and has specialized on cultural history and everyday history from women’s viewpoint in its permanent exhibition: The representation of women’s ideals, women’s images and women’s roles in the 19th and 20th century using the clothes, accessories, everyday objects, books and documents.
The repertoire of gender specific and gender sensitive subjects are expanded in special exhibitions and various annual events.
The Women’s Museum of Merano supports a sensitization of women’s history and also the discussion of subjects such as “gender, race and class “. It has developed into a lively cultural centre in which also environment-conscious and social subjects are dealt with; and it is involved in a network work on local and international level and is for the time being the centre of the “network of women’s museum”.
Museum Hours:
January - October: Monday-Friday: 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.
Special Winter Hours:
November - December:Friday/Saturday/Sunday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. continuously open
For more information please click here: www.museia.it
Women’s Museum “Henriette Bathily”
The Senegalese Women’s Museum “Henriette Bathily” has been founded in 1994 as the first African women’s museum on the island Gorée across from the famous slave museum: www.webworld.unesco.org/goree/fr/visit.shtml
The museum shows the stages of life of the Senegalese women in town and country with objects. Besides the regular museum’s activity, the museum also runs its own craft centre in which educational and advanced trainings are offered.
All around Senegalese and African woman is made available to the general public in an own media library. The art gallery of the museum presents the art objects of African artists, and in the museums shop you will find those art objects for sale among many other typical craft products.
The Senegalese Women’s Museum sees itself as a meeting place and a point of exchange of experiences.
Museum Hours: Daily 10:30 a.m. -17:30 p.m., closed on Sundays
Godmother
The Iranian peace Nobel Prize Laureate (2003) Shirin Ebadi presides over the congress in Merano as a “godmother”.
The engaged human rights activist and feminist, former judge and chairperson of the court of Tehran, will hold a talk on the fight against discrimination and exploitation of women in Iran during the opening day of the congress on June 11th, 2008.
Venue
June 11th, 2008 Opening Day
This morning June 11-13, 2008, opening round in the Kurhaus in Merano: Protagonists on the stage beside the patroness of the congress, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, the representatives of the women’s museums from all over the world, the congressional hostesses - the Women’s Museum of Merano with the organization team and the Senegalese partner’s museum - and the supporters of the great event. Lastingness and network work - the objectives.
The oldest women’s museum of Italy, the Women’s Museum of Merano turns 20 and celebrates her birthday with a big event which will leave traces with this 1st International Women’s Museum Congress. About half of the women’s museums worldwide are present with delegations in Merano and demonstrate in the Kurhaus this morning how colored this women’s reality is: About 100 participants from all five continents populate during the next days the spa city. They come from Argentina, Mexico, Australia, China and Vietnam, USA, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and of course from Italy, but also from Sudan and from Senegal. The eagerly expected Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2003) Shirin Ebadi proved in her brief inaugural address that Nobel Peace Prize Laureates are ambassadresses and have to fulfill their life long assignment which reaches far beyond the their duty of lecturing: viz. to protect human rights, to attach utmost importance to democracy and equal opportunities and to present it to the general public whether with or without support of the own country and its regime. After the inauguration during the press conference, she spoke about the difficulties which she is still facing in Iran and the ignoring of her work and her person. She continued to report on the power of the words and the powerlessness of the women in their everyday battle for more justice - and not only in Iran. She declares that religion is often abused in addition to justify patriarchy and to stick to the status quo.
Shirin Ebadi who speaks only Persian was attended by her translator the Iranian Ella Mohammadi who lives in Italy for 28 years and who always went everywhere with her during their sojourn in South Tyrol.
The idea of creating a “roped party” with a rope as a linking element was liked: Instead of a ribbon cutting ceremony pieces of a rope were knotted by the participants to symbolize the goal in a lively manner: to create and to continue a network which expands more and more across the borders and continents, thereby collecting further centers in view of respecting other cultures and women’s everyday life.
Especially because of Shirin Ebadi, a 3rd middle school class from Silandro arrived: The kids had worked in the course of the school year under the guidance of their art teacher Irmgard Schaller on a project which picked out peace as a central theme. As a result of this effort, a T-shirt had come out which portrayed Shirin Ebadi. The youngsters gave a T-shirt with the portraits to Ebadi.
Speakers
Shirin Ebadi
She is guest of honour and godmother of the I. International Congress of Women’s Museum in Merano.
Excerpts from WIKIPEDIA: “In 1975, she became the first woman to preside over a legislative court. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, conservative clerics insisted that Islam prohibits women from becoming judges and Ebadi was demoted to a secretarial position at the branch where she had previously presided…
Ebadi now lectures law at the University of Tehran and is a campaigner for strengthening the legal status of children and women…Furthermore she established two non-governmental organizations in As a lawyer, she is known for taking up cases of liberal and dissident figures who have fallen foul of the judiciary, one of the bastions of hardline power in Iran…(Ebadi also represented the family of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, the only officially accepted case of murder in the Iranian student protests of July 1999. In the process, in 2000 Ebadi was accused of distributing the videotaped confession of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of one of the main “plainclothes” paramilitary forces, Ansar-e Hezbollah. …Ebadi and Rohami were sentenced to five years in jail and suspension of their law licenses … The sentences were later vacated by the Islamic judiciary’s supreme court… This case brought increased focus on Iran from human rights groups abroad)…
Ebadi has also defended various cases of child abuse …
- Biography: Iran Awakening. A Memoir of Revolution and Hope (New York, 2006 ) (1)
- Democracy, human rights, and Islam in modern Iran: Psychological, social and cultural perspectives. (Bergen, 2003)
- History and Documentation of Human Rights (New York, 2000)
- The Rights of the Child. A Study of legal Aspects of Children’s Rights in Iran (Tehran, 1994)
Fatima Fall
Born in 1964; Dakar / Senegal
Director of the Research Documentation Centre Senegal; she received specialization in the area of preservation and restoration technologies of cultural goods, master education „ Concepts and Advertising Measures in the Cultural Management “ and different training and further education in Senegal, other African countries and in Europe, primarily in Paris.
She is member of several scientific committees in the field of preservation of cultural assets in Africa and women’s organizations as well as member of the scientific advisory board of the Senegalese Women’s Museum “Henriette Bathily”.
Fatima Fall speaks Ouolof and French, (she gives her lecture in French - simultaneous translation into German and Italian is guaranteed, also partial translation into English)
Gudrun Koch
Age-group 1945; Kolberg/Ostpommern (East-Pomerania)/Germany
Studies: German, History, DramaticsPrimary research: Tragedy of the classical world and the womenFoundress of Europäischen Frauen Aktion (EFA) e.V. Cooperative für Frauenkultur [European Women Action (EFA) e.V. Cooperative for Women’s Culture]Culture management since 1988Researcher in myths with main focus on European founding mythsNumerous editions, articles, plays, documentary films about the cultural heritage of women
1st awardee as “Femme rebelle“ of the prize “Aufmüpfige Frau des Jahres” in 2006, awarded in the town hall of Dortmund / Germany in 2006
Subject of her lecture:
“Worldwide, to search, to meet, to preserve, to link up and to make visible the heritage of women”
The European Women Action is involved in this task for many years. Gudrun Koch accumulated together with the foundation EFA a lot of experiences in France, North Africa, Poland, Czechia, and during the UN - World Conference on Women in Peking/Huairou 1995 [film report on: Die Welt zusammen weben (Together, weaving the world)]
Gudrun Koch will take as examples congress, viz. seminar experiences, and documentaries on cultural heritage to point to the tracing of tracks, results, findings and myths as different ways of gaining knowledge.
Evening talk of Shirin Ebadi
Ebadi’s appearance in Merano during the opening day of I. International Women’s Museum Congress
Big interest in the talk of the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, equal opportunities and democracy are the central points of her lectures, as well as the rejection of the US interferences in the Middle East.
Excitement was to be felt for the words of the human rights activist and Muslim pioneer of the rights of women, Shirin Ebadi, in the full Kurhaus of Merano. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate speaks only Persian, and she was accompanied by her translator the Iranian Ella Mohammadi who lives in Italy for 28 years and who always went everywhere with her.
During her lecture, she spoke of the load of the numerous victims of terrorism and despotism in the Middle East - about a million dead people during the last years. She spoke of the absence of democracy in her own country, in Iran, of many injuries of human rights, above all, those against women, and she reported on methods by the government which fade out or eradicate something not desirable.
But she also spoke of the following facts: how much the civil population suffers from the present government, how little they stand behind their top government leaders, and how unfair are the economic sanctions of the West because they do not touch the country powers but the common population who becomes impoverished daily.
Fury was to be felt in her explanations, when she spoke: about the disastrous results caused by the foreign intrusion of the US politics in the Middle East, about the consequences of these interferences on the everyday life, about the justified rancour of the Iranian men and women, which likewise was also felt by the Iraqis and neighboring regions; and above all, the fury felt by the youth towards the USA who became more and more an enemy.
She sees only the following possibilities for a remaining peace and a turning away from the Islamic Fundamentalism in the region:
A political solution to the twin crises of Lebanon and Palestine, the withdrawal of the US troops from the entire Middle East, and the end of the dangerous weapon alliances and economic-political outside interferences.
With reference to the question of women’s rights, she emphasized that religion is abused in most cases to legitimize patriarchy and to stick to the status quo.
A correct interpretation of the Islam promotes the equal opportunities and does not hinder it. She spoke of the high educational degree of the Iranian women and their slim occupational outlook for qualified professions and positions, the difficult women’s everyday life and many examples of discrimination in the law (as a result of the Islamic revolution).
Besides, she mentioned some campaigns and protest actions of the Iranian women who have become known through the women’s solidarity from abroad, e.g. the collection of signatures.
„ A million signatures for the amendment of the women’s discriminating laws “
In 2006 a demonstration which was directed against women’s-hostile laws took place in Tehran at the “Hafte Tir Square “. The women activists translated the resolution which was made there with great effort into action. Purpose is to collect a million signatures to amend these laws. Some of the activists were arrested on account of their engagement; www.change4equality.com
Yesterday Amnesty International keenly collected signatures for this campaign in the Kurhaus. Shirin Ebadi is one of the most important supporters of this battle. One of her “comrades-in-arms”, Mansoureh Shojaie, the manager of the women’s library in Teheran (www.womenlibraryir.com) was banned on leaving the country after she had become active likewise. She wanted to take part together with Ebadi at the 1st Women’s Museum Congress in Merano; however, she did not receive a visa few days before her departure.
It is important to circulate full information over and over again, to stir up public attention and to protect the Iranian women by given them awards, these would be the means for women of the Western countries to help the Iranian woman according to Shirin Ebadi.
Shirin Ebadi - born in 1947 – active as the first female judge in the history of Iran for some years until she was in the course of the Islamic revolution in 1979 forced to give up her office. Later she worked than as a lawyer and lecturer at the University of Tehran. Today she is still practicing as a lawyer, besides, inter alia, she is known for taking up cases of dissidents and regime critics, initiates humanitarian projects and gives lectures everywhere in the world to raise her voice beyond the borders of Iran for a reform of the Iranian society from within.
She has received several distinctions and awards for her courageous commitments worldwide: among them, more than twenty titles of honorary doctorates, the medallion of the International Human Right Organization, Human Rights Watch in 1996, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 as the first Muslim woman generally.
June 12th in the Women’s Museum Merano
I. International Women’s Museum Congress: Women among themselves.
After the inauguration day - which lasted until nearly 11:00 p.m. in the Kurhaus together with the patroness Shirin Ebadi - it goes on today and tomorrow with workshops in closed sessions.„ At the moment it’s like a Picadilly circus here“, says the manager of the Women’s Museum of Merano Sissi Prader. These days 23 women’s museums are represented in Merano, about half of worldwide 40 women’s museums and women’s initiatives: about 100 participants from five continents, a colored group of women. The single delegations come from Argentina, Mexico, Australia, from China and Vietnam, the USA, from Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and of course from Italy, but also from Sudan and from Senegal. English is the language spoken at the congress.
Today and tomorrow exchange and mediation of specialist knowledge dictate the rhythm of the schedule: analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and network work. Under the direction of Astrid Schönweger and Heidi Hintner the single women’s museums introduce themselves all day long. Besides, the expectations of the single women’s museums are also coming up regarding the network, and also all the expectations they have from the collaboration with other museums.
The end, final party in Castle Tyrol
The culmination of the Congress with a party at Castle Tyrol
Conclusion of the I. International Women’s Museums Congress On behalf of the congressional operators, the conclusion of the 3-days event and the 20th anniversary of the Women’s Museum Merano were celebrated on June 13th, 2008; at the same time a resolution has been passed.
The final party with all conference members including the general public has celebrated not only the common departures, but also the 20th birthday of the Women’s Museum of Merano, the oldest in Italy. Various personalities from the areas of culture, science and media have taken part in the celebration to underline the importance of the women’s network with their presence.
Leave-taking and new start were celebrated informally in the courtyard and in the knight’s hall of the castle; addresses were exchanged and new plans schemed.
The well-known “barefoot midwife” and Alexander-Langer Price Laureate 2006, Ibou Robin Lim from Indonesia, joined the party and gave a short address on the importance of women’s work as a contribution to peace. Obviously pleased about the celebration was the “madrina” of the congress, the Iranian Shirin Ebadi, who was accompanied by her translator Ella Mohammadi, and who was taken by surprise with two gifts:
firstly, the promise of the newly established network of women to support her with the formation of a women’s museum in Iran and to perform midwife’s work, and, secondly, with the decision of the organization Human Rights International to award a price in December to an Iranian woman of her choice. The message-bearer Adolf Pfitscher is the responsible person of the office of this organization in Bolzano.
During the occasion of her evening lecture in Merano, Ebadi had spoken about the importance of international prizes and honours to Iranian women for their protection against repressive measures of the regime and as an engine for their everyday fight for more rights.
Music: by the group Alma Terra (world music), the Gaul-singers (real folk music from South Tyrol) and by Giant Bi (The Sun), a group of Senegalese drummers.
A final resolution, which was already announced at the opening of the congress, was passed on June13th, 2008. It represents a catalogue of topics with intentions and demands as a result of the international congress. Astrid Schönweger, the scientific director of the congress read out the points of the resolution at the beginning of the evening’s celebration.For the next years, further concrete steps have been laid out to strengthen the women’s network and to give women’s museums more visibility.
The participants agreed upon the following time schedule: - In 2009: The second part of the 1st Women’s Museums congresses with a circulating exhibition takes place in Bonn- In 2010 (May): 2nd International Women’s Museum Congress in Buenos Aires launched under the programme of the worldwide 2nd International Feminist convention- In 2012: 3rd International Women’s Museums congress in China Furthermore, it was decided to vigorously work on the foundation of new women’s museums during the next years and to support each other. This last night, Martha Berry symbolically handed over a stone, considered to be a “stone of the first impulse” for the foundation of the first women’s museum in Switzerland. Other museums should originate from this congress in Iran, Mexico City and San Francisco.
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