What We Learn When We Pause — 4 Key Themes Moving Our Work Forward

As I prepared to drop my son at camp this summer, I decided to have my own camp experience — because why should kids have all the fun? I chose two stops on my drive home and one book from my reading list to round out my adult camp experience.

For my first stop, I headed to the Chautauqua Institution in western NY, an education center dedicated to “exploring the best in humanity.” Turns out their rather timely theme for the week was “The Future of Human Rights.”

Next up, my trip had me driving past Seneca Falls, NY — the birthplace of women’s rights, and locale of the national women’s rights museum. Given I run an organization called Working for Women (W4W), it was a no brainer to make a stop.

Wrapping it all up, I’ve been reading a biography on Eleanor Roosevelt, the woman who played a key role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was well ahead of her time and is still an inspiration for us here at W4W as we work toward a world where all women have the opportunity for economic independence.

After two days of lectures on “The Future of Human Rights,” a historical perspective on the journey to women’s right to vote, and steeping myself in Eleanor Roosevelt’s passion around human rights, several themes popped for me. I will be infusing this into our work as we go forward, and hopefully inspires you too:

• Treat everyone with dignity and respect. Whether or not we share the same perspectives, Human rights begin with how we treat one another. We need to listen more and be open to being wrong.
• Human rights can’t be legislated. Multiple speakers highlighted the point that human rights are defined and driven by individual actions and efforts in communities and society at large. Society does not evolve through legislation but through our actions.
• Every single vote matters. Speaking of actions, it can’t be said enough, as this is the first step for a democracy to work. Unfortunately, our voting numbers in this Nation are abysmal. It’s the one right that is equal for those who have it. And for that reason, exactly why it is constantly being challenged in terms of who has the right to vote.
• Make room for men in women’s issues. The final panel of the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca’s Falls displays all the signatures of the men who supported the women. It is important that women’s rights are seen as human rights and progress happens when all genders are involved.

On those days that you feel like that society is not progressing, I encourage you to check out HumanProgress.org — which documents content from reliable sources that illustrate long-term trends on the improving state of the world, and aims to stimulate an intelligent debate on drivers of human progress, especially if the following resonates for you (courtesy of HumanProgress.Org):

“Evidence from individual scholars, academic institutions, and international organizations shows dramatic improvements in human well-being throughout much of the world… Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between the reality of human experience, which is characterized by incremental improvements, and public perception, which tends to be quite negative about the current state of the world and skeptical about humanity’s future prospects.”

With rational optimism,

Beth Bengtson

Founder & CEO, Working for Women
www.workingforwomen.org

beth@workingforwomen.org
@workingforwomen