Anna Sewell born Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England March 30, 1820 (d. 1878). British Quaker novelist. Authored children’s classic Black Beauty, 1877.
“. . . there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham . . . ” (Black Beauty, 1877; photo i.pinimg.com)
Elif Shafak (née Bilgin) born Strasbourg, France October 25, 1971. Turkish novelist and columnist.
I am a writer.
I am a nomad.
I am a cosmopolite.
I am a lover of Sufism.
I am a pacifist.
I am a vegetarian and I am a woman, more or less in that order.
(a gallimaufry, Dec. 13, 2013; photo Wikipedia)
Martha Rubiano Skretteberg born Colombia April 11, 1962. Norwegian criminal lawyer. Head of Caritas Norway, 2011. Promoted Norwegian mediation of peace in Colombia, Philippines, and Syria; advocated European welcome of refugees.
“I find humanitarian work very meaningful and important. Through development cooperation, human rights, peace and reconciliation work and emergency relief we can make a difference, and the world needs change.” (Aug. 5, 2011 Caritas Norway; photo dagsavisen.no)
Frida Stéenhoff (née Helga Frideborg Wadström) born Stockholm, Sweden December 11, 1865 (d. 1945). Swedish radical feminist and pacifist internationalist; artist and playwright; wrote first Swedish pacifist play, “Fighting Youth”, 1907, “The Men of War, the Gentlemen of the World”, 1915. Postwar contributor to pacifist magazine Epoch.
“War is the masculine state, driven to the end. It demanded for its sake designing, persuading the hearts of men, and despising the wisdom of the women . . . With the destruction of these states men began to love their fellow human beings like brothers, and the women began to think of the meaningless in massacre of children in a school of mass extinction.” (pseud. Harold Gote, “Sex Slavery, An Appeal”, 1913, in Claes Ahlund, “War and Culture”, Samlaren, 2005, p. 97; photo dramawebben)
Francesca Solleville born Périgueux, Dordogne, France March 2, 1932. French singer; pacifist opponent of wars in Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq. Sang songs against Chilean coup and nuclear power. Signed Open Letter of Women opposed to missiles, 1985.
“Refuse to populate the earth!
Stop fertility!
Declare the mothers' strike!
The executioners shout your will!
Defend your flesh, defend your blood!
Down with the war and the tyrants!”
(“The Mothers Strike”; photo YouTube)
Nelly Sachs born Berlin, Germany December 10, 1891 (d. 1970). German Jewish poet, playwright; awarded Nobel Literature Prize, 1966; awarded German Book Peace Prize, 1965; exiled 1940.
O the night of the weeping children!
O the night of the children branded for death!
Sleep may not enter here.
Terrible nursemaids
Have usurped the place of mothers. . .
(1947; photo Nobel 1966, wikicommons pd)
Lady Margaret Sackville born Mayfair, London December 24, 1881 (d. 1962). Anti-war poet and writer; socialist; pacifist.
harlots! We betrayed
Our sons; because men laughed we were afraid.
That silent wisdom which was ours to kept
Deep buried
(Nostra Culpa; photo LC wikicommons pd)
Naima Sahlbom born Stockholm, Sweden May 15, 1871 (d. 1957). Swedish geologist and international scientific expert on warfare; co-founder of WILPF and chaired its science committee.
"War Is Renounced—Let Us Renounce Armaments" (motto of WILPF Science Committee; photo nad.riksarkivet.se)
Alice Salomon born Berlin, Germany April 19, 1872 (d. 1948). “Matriarch of German social studies.” Founded Social Women’s School, 1908. Secretary of International Women's Federation, 1909. Founded German Academy for Women's Social and Educational Work, 1925. Active supporter of WILPF, despite being forbidden to join her friend Jane Addams in its founding. Expelled by Hitler for her Jewish heritage, Christian humanist ideas, and pacifist principles.
“[E]xterior changes never go to the root of things, and that only when changes are achieved within the souls of human beings is something accomplished to change the world." (The Survey, June 15, 1923, p.341; photo Wikipedia)
Ada Salter (née Brown) born Raunds, Northamptonshire July 20, 1866 (d. 1942). British social reformer headed Bermondsey Settlement; Quaker pacifist; Christian Socialist; house was stoned for opposition to World War I and support of Non-Conscription Fellowship; WILPF founding member; postwar WILPF aid to German and Austrian refugees; first woman mayor in London 1922; environmental pioneer; opposed World War II.
"A tremendous transformation was going to take place on this earth; and the injustices of the ages, the misery of the oppressed classes, and the sorrow of the poor, and the tyranny of the wealthy were going to be swept away forever. Nothing could stop that movement." (1914 Women's Labour League Conference, in Christine Collette, For Labour and For Women, p. 4, 2006; photo Spartacus Educational)
Carmen San José Pèrez born June 3, 1951. Physician; leader of Podemos (We Can) in Madrid Assembly.
“[W]e denounce the shameful situation that is being experienced by the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and famines, which are coming to Europe. What they find here—when they can arrive, thousands more stay on the road—are fences and armed police that lead them to camps "detention", where the conditions are lack of water, food, clothing and even torture and Deaths.” (Público, April 5, 2016; photo IES Gonzalo de Berceo)
George Sand (née Amandine Aurore Dupin) born Paris, France July 1, 1804 (d. 1876). Prolific novelist, playwright; successful appeal to power of Louis Napoleon for prisoners.
To Napoleon on behalf of prisoners: "I beg you with tears in my eyes and with blood streaming from my heart: Stay your hand, conqueror!" (Jan. 20, 1852, Correspondence; photo Alcide Lorenz caricature as Min. of Information 1848)
Sophy Sanger born Westcott, Surrey, England January 3, 1881 (d. 1950). British internationalist and labor reformer. Became Quaker by convincement during Boer War; opposed WWI. Barred from Hague Women's Peace Congress, 1915; founding member of WILPF. As head of legislative section, drafted plan of International Labor Organization (ILO), 1919.
“Law alone can give us freedom.” (her personal motto, quoting Goethe; quote Oxford Dict. Nat. Biog)
Saskia Sassen born The Hague, Netherlands January 5, 1947. Dutch-American sociology professor and authority on globalization of cities.
“Ten years after 9/11, we are less secure in the world, less significant for the world, and we are poorer. The War on Terror consumed vast amounts of our government’s resources, impoverished our government, rewarded many soldiers with unemployment and mental illness, and destroyed the small family enterprises of many of the men and women who served in the military, even as it gave vast riches to arms dealers and the Haliburtons of this world. The evidence suggests that opting for militarizing our response to the horror of 9/11 was a fatally flawed choice.” (Sassen: 10 Years Later; photo cgt.columbia)
Louise-Aimée Saumoneau born Poitiers, France December 17, 1875 (d. 1950). Led first International Women's Day in Paris, 1914; pacifist socialist opposed to World War I; imprisoned 7 weeks for antiwar stand, 1915.
"Workers have nothing to gain from this war, they have everything to lose, everything, everything that is dear to them." (Socialist women's resolution, Bern, March 1915 in Sowerwine p. 148)
Michaela Sburny born Vienna, Austria May 17, 1959. Leader of Austrian Green Party supporting nonviolence, direct democracy, feminism, and human rights.
"In truth, we need more Europe." (Aug. 5, 2005; photo de.Wikipedia)
Paolina Schiff born Mannheim, Baden, Germany July 27, 1841 (d. 1926). Italian professor historian of German literature; pacifist founder International Union for Peace and Arbitration Milan 1888; feminist leader founded first national women’s organization 1880; Socialist organized first women’s labor strike Milan.
“[W]oman is the element of peace, she is an eternal protest against war because her common sense sees other outcomes, because it is not overwhelmed by a sensationalist enthusiasm that shows only the materiality of the thing and time, but the whole, the finality and the end.” (B. Bisnvh, “Militarism, Maternity and Peace,” p. 16; photo archivio biografico)
Annemarie Schimmel born Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany April 7, 1922 (d. 2003). German orientalist scholar; Peace Prize of German Book Trade 1995 for her promotion of understanding of Islam; student of Sufi mysticism.
“Judaism, Christianity, and Islam knew the ideal of eschatological peace where lion and lamb lie together in the time of the just ruler. But peace is nothing static. . . Peace too is a process of living growth which begins in each of us. The Muslim mystics considered the constant struggle with their lower qualities the real jihad: "the greater war in the way of God" and when their souls had finally reached peace they were capable of working for peace in the world.” (“A Good Word is Like a Good Tree” prize acceptance speech March 1996; photo ndeyeandujar.wordpress.com)
Edit Schlaffer born Stegersbach, Burgenland, Austria September 25, 1950. Social scientist. Founded Women Without Borders, 2002, SAVE (Sisters Against Violent Extremism), 2008.
"It is better to sit together at a table and to talk and to argue than to stand at an open grave and cry." (hardnewsmedia.com/2009/03/2702)
"We recognize the untapped potential of women as a driving force for change, and as future leaders of an equitable, interconnected, and peaceful world." (Peace x Peace, Sep. 14, 2011)
Therese Schlesinger-Eckstein born Vienna June 6, 1863 (d. 1940). Austrian Socialist suffragist and social reformer who led the opposition to World War I. First woman elected to parliament 1918.
"I was moved to lead a fight against the oppression and exploitation of women on behalf of those so sorely oppressed." (Riemert and Fout, European Women, pp. 95-99, 1980; photo Austrian Nat. Archives)
Women in Peace
is dedicated to highlighting the achievements of extraordinary, peacemaking women from around the world.
