Three Women's Rights Activists Share 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

The theme that women's rights are an essential component of global peace came through loud and clear in last week's announcement of the winners of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.  Three women's rights activists -- Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peacemaker Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni anti-government protester Tawakkul Karman -- were chosen to share the 1.5 million dollar prize.

At the official website Nobelprize.org, the three women were cited "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." In awarding the prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee noted, "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society."

By choosing three female winners -- a first in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Committee expressed the hope that this year's prize "will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent."

The awards were announced Friday, October 7, 2011.

Tawakkul Karman

Karman is the first Arab woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In the words of the Committee:

In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the "Arab spring", Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.

According to the International Business Times:

Karman helped organize student protests at the onset of the demonstrations in February, and even after being arrested and then released, she has continued her activism.

"Many years before the revolutions started [Karman] stood up against one of the most authoritarian and autocratic regimes in the world," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told reporters in Oslo.

Yet the IBT also reports that Sunday evening in Taiz, the city where Karman was born, a group of women celebrating her win were attacked "with empty bottles and stones" by supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime. Forty people sustained injuries in the attack.

TIME reports that Karman's prize is, according to Jagland,  "a signal that the Arab Spring cannot be successful without including the women in it."

Jagland reiterated to the Associated Press that although the Arab Spring was acknowledged by Karman's win, "we have put it in a particular context....Namely, if one fails to include the women in the revolution and the new democracies, there will be no democracy." The AP article includes more on the Norwegian Nobel Committee head and Karman:

He called the oppression of women "the most important issue in the Arab World" and stressed that the empowerment of women must go hand in hand with Islam.

"It may be that some still are saying that women should be at home, not driving cars, not being part of the normal society....But this is not being on the right side of history."...

Karman is a mother of three from Taiz, a city in southern Yemen that is a hotbed of resistance against Saleh's regime. She now lives in the capital, Sanaa. She is a journalist and member of the Islamic party Islah and heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains. Her father is a former legal affairs minister under Saleh.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

The second African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Sirleaf is the current president of Liberia but faces a challenger in elections to be held tomorrow. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa's first democratically elected female president.  Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.

On her reaction to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, TIME reports:

"This gives me a stronger commitment to work for reconciliation," Sirleaf said Friday from her home in Monrovia. "Liberians should be proud."

In a 2005 interview with The Associated Press, Sirleaf said she hoped young girls would see her as a role model and be inspired.

"I certainly hope more and more of them will be better off, women in Liberia, women in Africa, I hope even women in the world."

"If you're competing with men as a professional, you have to be better than they are ... and make sure you get their respect as an equal," Sirleaf said. "It's been hard. Even when you gain their acceptance, it's in a male-dominated away. They say, 'Oh, now she's one of the boys."

Buttons from her presidential campaign say it all: "Ellen -- She's Our Man."

Leymah Gbowee

Gbowee is the third African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In the words of the Committee:

Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women's participation in elections.  She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.

Gbowee's persistent use of non-violent tactics such as sit-ins, public praying and sex strikes (women refusing to sleep with their husbands) over the course of several years brought the Liberian government and rebel leaders together for peace talks. When those talks stalled, additional protests and Gbowee's threat to strip naked (seen as a curse) eventually led to a peace treaty.

Gbowee's efforts were the subject of the award-winning documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film's producer, Abigail Disney, writes about her impressions of Gbowee for the Women's Media Center.

In the Guardian Poverty Matters Blog, Liberian writer and activist Robtel Neajai Pailey describes a radio interview with Gbowee:

Gbowee stressed that Liberian women would not be able to inhabit their rightful places next to their male counterparts until they were formally educated and could earn a living wage. Perhaps this is why she is working hard to establish a technology centre in Monrovia, where literacy and computer skills training will be provided to women and girls in a safe and supportive space.

When I asked Gbowee what the Nobel prize signifies for her, she said: "The prize is a recognition that global peace can only be achieved if women's needs, concerns, aspirations and skills are utilised and maximised."

Related article: Ellen Johonson Sirleaf, Liberia's "Iron Lady"