Re: WAND

[Ruth Weiner <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

Marie Curie and Lise Meitner(and others)would be spinning in their graves if 
they knew about this! Seriously (and this is why I believe this is an 
appropriate discussion for RADSAFE), this attitude does great damage to women 
scientists and engineers -- it implies that females either are incapable of 
rational thought or choose not to engage in it.  As one who is old enough to 
have suffered from the attitude widely prevalent before 1970 that "women can't 
do science and you are just an anomaly so why don't you quit trying," I find 
this type of atavistic garbage appalling, as well as dangerous.  It has got to 
be refuted.  What is the url for WAND, please?

Clearly only my own opinion
Ruth Weiner
rfweine@sandia.gov
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: WAND
Author:  Holloway3@aol.com at hubsmtp
Date:    8/26/98 11:53 PM


I found this on the Internet and it is so alien to me that I thought others 
might be interested in it.  It is about an organization that had some 
connection with Helen Caldicott.  I think that WAND is an acronym for Women 
Against Nuclear Destruction.
I don't  know how they define nuclear threat exactly, but most likely it is in 
a very broad sense.  It is remarkable in that it advocates ignoring facts, and 
going with your "feelings".
-----------------------------------------
>>>>>Originally, WAND had followed the model of Physicians for Social 
Responsibility
(PSR) in trying to develop a bureau of public speakers on the nuclear issue. 
PSR had
trained medical doctors and other professionals to speak as "experts" on the 
facts and
figures of the medical effects of nuclear war. It became clear that this 
"expert" training
for public speaking was inappropriate for WAND. The "expert" model is based on 
an
authoritarian model of power through debate, where the domain is scientific 
facts and
numbers. WAND's evolving message is that it is precisely in questioning this 
model of
authority that women reconnect to their own untapped power. Rather than 
becoming
overinvolved with facts, figures, and technojargon, WAND offers the message 
that
feeling and conviction are an appropriate and sufficient first response to 
this issue and
form the most powerful basis for further education and action.
     
At the heart of the training is the recognition that it is insane to 
disconnect from feelings
about the nuclear threat; rather, women must learn to speak out in an 
emotionally
powerful and cogent manner. Women's power to empower others, and to use the 
power
of their emotions effectively to move others to become involved and active, 
rests not on
technical expertise but on personal authenticity and the energies released 
through
emotional connection. The power of "listening" and "responding" from the heart 
is thus
validated as forming a more valuable and lasting base for power than "speaking 
out" as
an "expert." It is the building of relationship, the creation of the 
"conversation" that
connects people, that is the core of women's powers and creative 
energies--and,
potentially, men's as well. Accordingly, the workshop encourages connections 
with men.
However, it also recognizes and addresses the ways that women can become 
disempowered when connections with men are fragmenting, that is, maintained at 
the
expense of the deepest connections to self and other women. Thus women's 
connections with each other are seen as the first step in evolving a new 
relational structure for mobilizing, sustaining, and organizing information 
and activity. Men are welcome to work within this structure. Put another way, 
the workshop creates a more "realistic" and more total basis from which to 
gain and use our knowledge about the nuclear threat. <<<<<<
     
     
     
                                                             R. Holloway
                                                             holloway3@aol.com
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