by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

What kind of leader does tomorrow’s America need? And who among the presidential candidates is best suited to meet the challenges that the next leader of the world’s superpower will face? These are some of the questions American voters face as they are showered with political propaganda and a pumping, election-driven news flow where “experience” is weighed against “leadership for change.”

“What type of leader is needed depends entirely on the times,” says US anthropologist, psychoanalyst and leadership consultant Michael Maccoby, whose 35 years studying leadership have broken ground within the field. His recently published book, “The Leaders We Need and What Makes Us Follow,” finds him being frequently interviewed by American media about leadership styles, and which of the current candidates is best suited for the presidency.

by Constance Manika
- Zimbabwe -

Tinashe Choruma and his wife Irene live in the suburb of Epworth here in the capital, Harare, where many of city's poor reside. The housing is poorly constructed - some homes are made from mud and pole, with no clean water or sanitation services. The suburb could very much pass as a shanty town.

Tinashe came to the city in 2000 from rural Murehwa to take up a job as a librarian; he was staying with his wife and their two children in the high-density suburb of Glen View. But after Robert Mugabe ordered all "illegal" houses to be destroyed during Operation Murambatsvina, the backyard cottage he used to call home was destroyed. He was left homeless.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

My sister doesn’t have any children. Neither does my female cousin, nor my sister-in-law. A close female friend of mine from college wants kids but her relationship woes and her career haven’t allowed for an ideal child-rearing situation. Here in Germany, I’m a statistical rarity, as a university-educated woman with three children. Exercising the right to intellectually choose motherhood, or not, has marked my generation of women.

I recently Googled “reasons not to have kids” and got 26,700 hits. Many of the results linked to Corinne Maier’s bestseller from last summer, No Kid: 40 Reasons for Not Having Children. (Maier, by the way, is a mother of two.) Then there is childfreebychoice.com, which declares the resources of its website are “designed to be a haven for those who prefer to be childfree throughout their lives.” There are also countless parenting and women’s blogs where 30 – 40 something aged women (and men) explain their reasons against procreating.

by Sandra Nyaira
- UK -

On a chilly Saturday afternoon as rain drizzles continually from the grey London skies, Trafalgar Square slowly fills with women from all walks of life, braving the winds and cold. Exiled Zimbabwean men and women now living in the United Kingdom descend on the Square from all directions to support the fight for democracy in Zimbabwe, to restore dignity to its long-suffering women and to highlight their vital role in the country’s struggle for freedom.

by Nancy Van Ness
- USA -

In a heap on the studio floor as though they had collapsed under some disaster, fallen birds present a scene of despair. I am drawn toward them. They are a very powerful artistic reinterpretation of the Japanese tradition of the thousand cranes that people traditionally make from beautiful origami paper as signs of hope (most recently that would be hope for peace).

A closer look reveals that the defeated origami cranes are made from newspaper accounts of war, violence, cruelty; indeed these birds have succumbed under the weight of the torment and anguish of needless human suffering all over the world. I found them when I visited another studio at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska, where I was briefly in residence.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

When Pam’s fiancé, Charles, was deployed on his second tour to Iraq in December of 2004, he feared what awaited him. On his first tour, a year prior, he had witnessed the chaos and the bloodshed, the friends who didn’t return home. Charles had escaped with a shot to his jaw the first time, but, preparing for the worst, he gave Pam power of attorney for his belongings. Still, in a hopeful moment before his deployment from Fort Bragg, Charles put an engagement ring on Pam’s finger. “I cried all night when he left,” remembers Pam.

• Sgt. Charles Eggleston with friends in Iraq. •

Seven months after he’d said goodbye to Pam, Charles’ front-line unit was hit by an IED in Mosul. Six of his fellow soldiers died in the attack and, amidst the confusion, Charles, known as Sgt. Charles Eggleston, was counted amongst the dead. The call to Charles’ mother had been a mistake — one that Pam had been lucky enough not to know about until she’d finally talked to Charles again, three days after the attack.

by Grace Kwinjeh
- South Africa -

Last week Zimbabwe’s civil society and opposition held a commemorative vigil marking the anniversary of the gruesome torture of opposition leaders (myself included) at the hands of the Mugabe government. The world watched in shock and disgust at the media’s images of our battered leaders, days after our illegal incarceration and brutal beatings on March 11, 2007 by the country's security forces. After being tortured, we were hidden and held illegally for almost 72 hours in various police stations, denied access to our lawyers and much needed medication as many of us had suffered broken limbs, internal head injuries, soft to deep tissue injuries and assorted traumas. Four women suffered on that day: me, Sekai Holland, Memory Kumupaya and Christine Mhaka.

by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

Former CIA director Jim Woolsey eagerly leans across the table in the swanky restaurant of the Carlton-Ritz Hotel in Washington, D.C. The seriousness of the matter he’s discussing is reflected in his sharp, almost transparent blue eyes.

”The United States’ dependence on oil makes us very vulnerable from a security and environmental perspective. Why buy oil from Islamic theocracies, which sponsor terrorism against us? We are fighting a war against terror, but are paying for both sides. How smart is that?” asks the sprightly 66-year-old Woolsey.

by Molly Nance
- USA -

I'm not usually one to arrive to a press event 30 minutes early, but recently I woke up in time to drive two hours north from Monterey to San Francisco, to arrive promptly at the Legion of Honor, for the first time. The view from this hilltop setting - a bright blue San Francisco Bay framed by the Golden Gate Bridge - took my breath away at that early morning hour.

by Nomi Prins
- USA -

The Starbucks, sidewalk and subway comments continue to flow abundant as New Yorkers processed the country’s latest made-for-TV sex scandal. The reality that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Time Magazine’s former Crusader of the Year, the man now dubbed “George Fox” and “Client #9,” had repeatedly gotten too hot and heavy with various high-class call-girls broke in salacious bits. This is the stuff that causes political dreams in America to dissolve even faster than the seismic destruction unleashed by the subprime mortgage crisis and the economic recession that has followed it.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

- March 8th - Today we celebrate International Women's Day with our sisters and mothers, aunts and grandmothers, cousins and daughters, and most of all, with our writers, who have become family. On this important day, we find it appropriate that Jessica's review is of a film about a group of remarkable women in Argentina who found their voices and by doing so transformed themselves from victims into successful entrepreneurs. The women of Brukman are yet further proof that women who empower themselves cannot be stopped. - Ed.


Christmas should be a happy time for families to congregate over lengthy meals while watching little kids open presents, but in 2001 Argentina’s economy collapsed a week before the holiday. Almost immediately factories shut down, business owners fled the country, and low-paid workers were out of their jobs just when everyone needed a little extra money. Yuletide joy was harder to find than a job. However the amazing women featured in the documentary film The Women of Brukman didn’t let the crumbling economy destroy their livelihoods, their spirit, or their Christmas.

• Delicia works the presses, perfectly ironing every piece of clothing that leaves the Brukman factory. Photograph by Gunes-Helene Isitan. •

One day in late 2001, the workers of the Brukman garment factory arrived for their shifts, only to find that the factory’s owners had fled the country – neglecting to pay anyone! The predominately female workforce decided to go about their jobs just like it was any other day; no one had any extra money and, with the recent economic collapse, few employment opportunities elsewhere. Everyone assumed that the Brukman family would eventually return to Buenos Aires and want the factory back.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

“Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. . .
Stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

• Renée and Jacques on their wedding day in Port-au-Prince, 1965. •

In practice, a woman’s place is no longer just in the home. She is often holding down the fort both at work and in the kitchen: juggling meetings while discretely pumping breast milk or fixing a quick dinner before working late into the night on her laptop in bed. Time is also squeezed in for listening to her husband’s trials and tribulations while to-do lists run through the back of her mind. The term “good wife” has been replaced with being a “good partner,” but the job description is similar.

Partnership is perhaps the hardest task to befall modern women. While many aspects of motherhood are instinctual, evolving with a life partner is a long, often arduous learning process. To live together—actively and harmoniously as two equal individuals—is a challenge that proved harrowing even for women like Barbara and Renée who survived dictatorship, war, poverty and fleeing their homes.

by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

The hope for change is tremendous after nearly eight years of George W. Bush in the White House – both in America and around the world. But regardless of who becomes the next president, we are all in for a big disappointment cautions Strobe Talbott, director of Brookings Institution, one of America’s most influential and oldest think tanks. He warns that the expectations concerning what the US will be able to accomplish as an international actor are exaggerated.

“Never ever in American history has a new president in the White house faced foreign-policy challenges of this magnitude or of this complexity!” The slender and energetic 61-year-old Talbott sighs deeply and shakes his head as he talks about the challenges that lie ahead. At the time of the interview, which takes place in his open and inviting home in Washington, Talbott lights a fire in the living room to defy the chilly weather outside, eagerly assisted by his two hunting dogs.

by Katharine Daniels
Founder & Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

On March 8th, we will celebrate The WIP’s one year anniversary. In that time, The WIP has made its way into homes, offices, and Internet cafés in 146 countries. Whether you’re a reader in the USA, Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina or South Korea – you’ve found us somehow. You’ve read our articles and joined our community. Through your commentary you’ve added your voices to the critical dialog that begins with a story. In just one short year The WIP has built a community of men and women from all over the globe.

On the pages of The WIP, readers and writers have built a meeting place where everyone is invited to listen to each others’ voices, histories, and insights. On these pages we’ve come to realize that issues such as the plight of vulnerable children, genocide, and rising food prices are not just the misfortune of somebody else. Looking past the headlines, we see clearly how national policies have international consequences. We’ve come to understand that we are all interconnected and through our stories we are educating ourselves. By responding to the women who write our stories, we let them know we are listening and together we are discovering fair, workable solutions to the problems we all face in our world today.

by Philo Ikonya
- Kenya -

The women of Kenya have always been aware of injustice in our society, all through the years. And they have fought for justice: in 1922 Mary Nyanjiru faced the colonialist’s gun fearlessly after stating that if the men would not fight, they could give her their trousers and she would don them and do the fighting. She died for her rights, as Mekatilili Wa Menza did before her, who fought just as courageously for her people. Analysts say that what Kenya has experienced in 2008 has its roots in colonial times. Well, the stifling of women’s voices is no exception.

• Without a voice in policy, women in Kenya have few opportunities to better their lives or those of their children. Photograph by Angela Slevin. •

Many women, though recognizing the charm of the slogan, have never been convinced that the hakuna matata (no problems) mentality worked in the real lives of people. What a shame that we neglected women’s voices, the most resourceful and prophetic we have. I was at Limuru for a conference on poverty in 2005, when a woman from a pastoral community presented the Vice President with the mini household items she was able to purchase with less than a dollar. A tiny bit of salt, a little bar of soap (to wash her husband’s clothes), a tiny bit of fat and sugar - all acquired in what we call the kadogo (mini) economy. Of course, even in the mini economy, none of it was for her.

If anybody knows what poverty is - the kind of poverty that for many girls means missing school because they have their period and not having a pad to wear, try banana fibers instead - it is the women. If anyone knows what it means to have little children who need to be bathed but who must “rush-rush” to the well to fetch water to make tea for a visitor - again it is the women. Women alone know how to let a baby suckle their drying breasts during a famine - those awful times when in parts of Kenya everything withers and even the camels (the animals most resilient to drought) die in the relentless scorching sun.