Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 261
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 6: The Role of Women in Creating the Ideal World
Speech 10: World Peace and the Role of Women II, pg 950-953
World Peace and the Role of Women II
April 10, 2002
Little Angels Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
Tenth Anniversary of the Women’s Federation for World Peace
(True Mother’s speech)
Distinguished guests, leaders of women’s organizations, and members of the Women’s Federation for World Peace:
Today, as I stand here before you, I am filled with many deep emotions. In particular, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to God, who has guided our federation with true love for the ten years that have passed since it was founded.
My husband, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and I jointly founded the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) with the purpose that it would proclaim the arrival of the era of women and function as a pivotal organization for the women’s peace movement.
This federation was not founded simply as one among the many women’s organizations that already exist. Rather, the first and foremost characteristic of WFWP is that it was founded for the providential purpose of realizing God’s ideal world, a world centered on the ideal of True Parents.
Moreover, WFWP is not organized to recover women’s rights. It is fundamentally different from such women’s organizations, which exist chiefly to influence men. Such organizations seek primarily to expand women’s rights, promote equality of the sexes and improve working conditions for women. They are, for the most part, external, political and confrontational in nature.
According to Rev. Moon’s teachings, women do not exist to confront or struggle against men. Rather, we exist as individual embodiments of truth, representing one side of the two aspects or dual characteristics of the invisible Creator, God. In other words, women represent one half of God’s internal and external characteristics, and one half of God’s original nature.
According to the Principle, through which God created the universe, all things exist as pairs, as an initiating subject partner and a responsive object partner team. A woman is thus a whole and perfect partner with whom a man can achieve harmonious unity in the ideal of God.
Furthermore, a woman is not made to be a man’s assistant or simply an object of his protection. Rather, a woman is an interdependent entity who completes a man by standing in a position that represents half of God. In the ideal of true love, a woman exists as a man’s noble partner, as the recipient who can reciprocate his love. In terms of value, man and woman are equal. A man and woman who are united through the power of original, true love acquire entitlement to the same status. They also share entitlement to participate together and be with each other, whatever the situation or location. Moreover, a man and woman united in true love also share an ideal right of inheritance; they share ownership with each other, for she is his second self just as he is hers.
Thus, a man and woman united in God’s true love ideal share fully and totally the entirety of rank and position, rights of participation, and rights of possession. Men and women were created to be equal in terms of value when they live in true love.
Naturally then, a man and woman are not born to exist in a relationship of hostility or opposition, where they covet or attempt to mimic the characteristics and qualities of the other. There is no need for that, because man and woman belong to each other. Their relationship is originally designed to be one where all their qualities as well as possessions are shared with each other so that both can achieve completion and perfection, and thus together become a whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Women have the important role of bearing children, raising them, and guiding the family as God’s representatives, with the uniquely feminine sense of affection and love that God has granted to women. God endowed each woman with this essential feminine nature.
By nurturing the fruits of love and investing in her children’s upbringing, a woman connects and extends the traditions and lineage of her family. For this reason, although her external efforts are important, her role as a mother in cultivating character and raising her children to have healthy, wholesome natures is the highest function of womanhood. In fulfilling this role, women truly represent the heart of God.
As the future unfolds, humanity will have no option except to live interdependently in a pluralistic, global society. A culture of peace will be established across the globe. When this happens, the precious role of women who are grounded in the love of God will be recognized as absolutely essential to the family and, hence, to the society, nation and world.
That is because women play a sacred role that is both civic and lineal. We carry the future of humanity in our wombs; we give birth to and nurture the unlimited potential of human beings. If the role of mothers is ignored, where will we find human hope and prospects for the future?
In the worldwide peace movement led by WFWP, women play the central role. Members of WFWP ought to feel proud that the work we are doing across the globe deals with such a unique area and has such providential significance. We also have to be grateful that WFWP can carry out its work under the direct guidance of the True Parents.
During the past ten years, I have been privileged to give talks and keynote addresses in the parliamentary halls of many nations across the globe, from the United Nations headquarters to the United States Congress and Japanese Diet. We have held hundreds of international meetings where I delivered the message of the Women’s Federation. Sometimes the audience comprised several hundred people, sometimes ten thousand, and sometimes more than a hundred thousand people.
I have been fortunate to be able to carry out global tours embracing North and South America, Europe, Asia, including Russia and China, Africa and Oceania. During these tours, my message has always been the proclamation of the era of women and our role in bringing about world peace.
We have addressed the serious crises facing modern civilization, including decadence among young people, family breakdown, teenage and single parenthood, AIDS, drug abuse, crime and national instability. Moreover, we have raised the issue of ethics and morality in the family, and shown the need for the establishment of a new value system aligned with God’s truth. In short, we have rung the warning bell.
Consequently, inspired and enlightened women motivated from within are leading movements for national reformation and social restoration in each nation across the globe. These movements are creating a foundation of hope throughout the world.
So once again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the members of the Women’s Federation for World Peace. In more than one hundred eighty nations around the world, and particularly in South Korea, Japan and America, you have participated with fervor and accomplished many tangible results for our cause.
FFWPU, USA