[WCUSP] WlLPF,s future for me

[yvonne simmons]

 Lately I have been made from the present to think
more deeply into my soul about why I work with WILPF.
One of the reasons are the wonderful women and friends
I have in our organization working for a world that is
just and not violent and respects all, peoples,
animals and the environment. With what has been
happening recently nationally and internationally,
then not being dealt with, out in the open,
transparently to see what the problems are and do
something about them. I have been concerned how some
women on  the National WILPF board have been
conducting themselves with the future of  national
WILPF.  It seems so institutional and I believe that
they think it will improve WILPF. I do not. We are
grass roots not corporate.Then I started thinking when
one member spoke about young WILPF and the age, 35 and
under, to her youth was 0-18 years And what I thought
of was my own youth. At 35 years old I could have been
a grandmother because of violent rape when I was 15
years old. I had an illegal abortion with Soap suds
and disinfectant, then sat on buckets of hot water in
terrible pain. The hospital saved my life and after a
few weeks in the hospital returned to the street life
I was used to.

There have been many violent situations that I have
survived as many other young girls and women have. I
think of the Congo and the horrendous violence against
women  and girls there and the young Congelese woman
at the INT. Congress and her family in Britain and
their pain.

 Travelling was my education ,being on the road , in
many countries, hitchhiking and finding small jobs to
realize how different and the same  peoples were in
Italy , Europe, Greece , Turkey , Persia , Afghanistan
, the West Indies , Morocco etc. Daily they did
similar things only differently depending on the
culture.

 That was my education  mostly after I was 21 years
old and  I had met life and love and beauty.

    I found my way in life and did not talk of most of
my experiences and scars. I always loved helping
people and animals and remembered I had marched and
rallied with the beatniks and CND in the early 1960.

 WILPF, Portand has been doing the Clothesline Project
for almost 17 years. I am the keeper of the shirts and
see that violence against the female sex crosses all
nationalities, color, class, religion, sexual
orientation etc. I was proud when Pat Hollingsworth
made me a member of WILPF. I had never been a member
of any group and loved what WILPF was doing.

Now I find myself thinking to just do the humanitarian
work, social justice  and peace work as always but do
I need WILPF  to do it when their emphasis is not the
same as mine right now?
 I am wondering if I fit in and I am no longer ashamed
, by society’s standards, of who I was through no
fault of my own.

 In Peace Yvonne.





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