36th IARF Congress, Day 3: Esther Suter on the International Association of Liberal Religious Women

Description

Rev. Dr. Esther Suter introduces the International Association of Liberal Religious Women (IALRW) through its history and continuing purpose. The organization emerged from the 1910 IARF World Congress in Berlin, where women’s concerns first entered the Congress agenda, and was formally organized at the 1913 Congress in Paris. Suter recalls early leaders including Helen Herford and Martha Everett, whose long presidency helped sustain the association through the First World War and other difficult periods, and connects this history with her own involvement in IALRW and the International Alliance of Women.

The presentation asks why women’s organizations remain necessary after major achievements such as suffrage. Suter points to continuing issues including gender-based violence, land and property rights, pay equity and other human-rights concerns highlighted during the UN Decade for Women. She also distinguishes IALRW from a conventional advocacy organization: its particular vocation is to create friendship among open-minded women from different religious traditions who share commitments to peace and justice. That emphasis on relationship, religious encounter and liberal religious identity, she argues, gives the organization a continuing role alongside broader women’s-rights movements.