Women Who’ve Made a Difference – Peacefully

Get Excited! .Three women  won the Nobel peace prize this week. They include Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected president of a country in Africa, peace activist Leymah Gbowee, also of Liberia, and Tawakul Karman a pro-democracy campaigner from Yemen.

I don’t know how many of you have heard of these women but the are worth getting informed about, so I thought I’d alert you to their existence. It’s easy to learn something about Leymah Gbowee and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – you can watch Pray the Devil Back to Hell on PBS on October 18th in fact you can watch the entire Women, War and Peace Series!I show Pray the Devil Back to Hell  almost every semester. It is an incredible story about the power of women and community against wanton violence. Totally worth checking out.

It is also worth noting that this win is a powerful moment for women in general.

Here are some statistics on the noble prize with regards to winners, as you can see this is a realm of the world where women’s access has been limited, but not excluded – which is good, I guess.

• The vast majority are men: 85, compared to 15 women
• In fact there have been more institutions than women – 24 since 1901
• 29 winners are from the US
• Nearly half of all winners have to share their prize – only 52% get to keep it all to themselves

Just something I though y’all might be interested in – oh and by the way sorry for the hiatus  – I’m back people.