Rebekah Spicuglia – They met in Toronto and cemented a movement of mothers that now promises a global network, with a website and a wide-ranging set of objectives. The author helped film a documentary tracing their progress.

Beginning December 1, 2008, mothers around the world have had access to the first global consortium of motherhood organizations. Marking ten years after the Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) was founded, mothers’ organizations in North America and around the world came together in October for the ARM annual Toronto conference on motherhood and emerged as an International Motherhood Network (IMN).

The website is live and inviting members to join, but IMN does not officially launch until May 8, 2009 (International Woman’s Day). At the Toronto conference, the founding organizations agreed to hold off the launch in order to include as many mothers’ organizations around the world as possible on the big day. With 35 founding organizations already linked and committed to publicize events in the month of May, and a conference planned for 2011, IMN plans to influence public discussion for a more mother-centered world.

My husband, Marcarthur Baralla (Defendshee Production), and I filmed the conference and interviewed more than 30 women for a documentary—“The Motherhood Movement: You Say You Want a Revolution”—being produced for the Museum of Motherhood. Exploring the movement’s evolution over the last 50 years, the documentary will be a highlight of the museum, which was established online in 2003 and will soon be a physical museum located in Seneca Falls—home of the first U.S. women’s rights convention in 1848. The museum, founded by ARM and the Motherhood Foundation, is a long overdue project to honor the achievements of mothers.

For the documentary, Andrea O’Reilly, founder and director of ARM and York University professor, spoke about the effect of motherhood on her work in women’s studies. “I realized that the topic of motherhood had scarcely been mentioned. Violence against women, health, work, education, beauty myth, sexuality were the topics under discussion in the women’s studies curriculum,” she said, explaining why she designed her own course on motherhood. “The few times motherhood was mentioned, it was usually done so negatively…a patriarchal trap.”

What was obvious from our interviews is how wide-ranging the movement has become. From LiteraryMama to Mamapalooza, Mothers Acting Up to CODEPINK, SisterSong to Welfare Warriors, organizations raise awareness about the impact of mothers on their communities. MomsRising in particular has made great strides over the last year with an activism that combines swift online force with in-person delivery, taking action against toxic toys and demanding that politicians improve workplace policies. Read all at Womans Media Center

Rebekah Spicuglia is the WMC media manager. She has combined her dedication to progressive values with her background in film and television production to create and advocate for inclusive, effective media. In addition to her role as News Brief editor, Rebekah writes for the WMC website and blog, oversees media production, manages interns, and coordinates outreach and program logistics.

Tom Zacharski – I recently read a very interesting book – “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria (he’s a NYTimes publisher). The book is basically about the relative fall of American position in the world, the key word here being “relative”. Mr Zakaria is talking about the “rise of the rest” – obviously the “rest” is being lead by China and India, but these are also other developing countries like Brazil, Central and Eastern Europe or South-East Asia. The book also discusses America’s position in the world and potential future as a leader or… not a leader. Definitely worth reading.

What struck me most in the book were two stories I read… I would like to share them here, because they are huge eye-openers. The first one is about a meeting between Condoleezza Rice and French President Nicolas Sarkozy after his election in 2007:

Condoleezza Rice (…) asked him, “What can I do for you?” His response was revealing. “Improve your image in the world. (…) It’s difficult when the country that is the most powerful, the most successful – that is, of necessity, the leader of our side – is one of the most unpopular countries in the world. It presents overwhelming problems for your allies. So do everything you can do to improve the way you’re perceived – that’s what you can do for me”.

President Sarkozy’s frankness revealed what I believe is a huge problem for America today – its declining image as the world’s leader and the world’s superpower. The good news is that America seems to have a great chance to improve its prestige right NOW. With a president who is loved by Europe and the rest of the world, with leaders of other powerful countries being pro-American (e.g. France, Germany, Japan) the United States have a great chance of reclaiming the love of the world. Yet, loved or not, the United States will still be perceived as a global policeman – which brings to the next story from the book:

In July 2002, the government of Morocco sent twelve soldiers to a tiny island called Leila, a few hundred feet off its coast, in the Straits of Gibraltar, and planted its flag there. The island is uninhabited, except for some goats, and that thrives on it is wild parsley, hence it Spanish name, Perejil. But its sovereignty had long been contested by Morocco and Spain, and the Spanish government reacted forcefully to the Moroccan “aggression.” Within a couple of weeks, seventy-five Spanish soldiers had been airlifted onto the island. (…) From afar, the whole affair looked like a comic opera. But however absurd it may have seemed someone was going to have to talk the two countries down. This role fell not to the United Nations, or to the European Union, or to a friendly European country like France, which has good relations with both sides. It fell to the United States.

Isn’t that amazing? A conflict of such low magnitude, which would have been easily resolved by any institution, actually had to be resolved by the United States and required tens of phone calls made by Secretary of State Colin Powell. That was in 2002… A lot has changed since that time and I’m not exactly sure if today the two states would look towards America as a potential mediator.

To conclude – America’s image and America’s leadership need to be redefined for the XXIst century. And that will be one of President Obama’s most important task. I hope that the economic crisis will not last very long and President Obama’s administration will consider those strategic matters as its priority. What makes me optimistic is the fact that at some time during the Summer Senator Obama was seen with Fareed Zakaria’s book in his hand (yup, that fact was one of the reasons for which I bought the book in the first place…).

Tom Zacharski, a citizen of Poland and the United States, is a student of SGH in Warsaw (5th year of Management). He also studied at Harvard and Georgetown University in the U.S.A., and took part in university exchange programs in Austria, Canada and the Czech Republic. His Web site: tomzacharski.com .