The Gorbachev-Foundation Holds Women of the Third Millennium Conference

On March 30-31, 2004, the Gorbachev-Foundation held an international conference under the Russian-Canadian joint project Women of the Third Millennium: Civic and Political Responsibility. The Project was implemented by the Raisa Maximovna Club, the Gorbachev-Foundation and McGill University of Montreal, Canada. It was pursued simultaneously in four cities of Russia – Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Petrozavodsk – the capital of Karelia, and Irkutsk in eastern Siberia. Young women and women interested in gender issues and in contributing to democratization of Russian society took part in seminar discussions held under the Project.

The conference was opened with speeches by Irina M. Virganskaya, President of the Raisa Maximovna Club and Vice-President of the Gorbachev-Foundation, and by Coordinators of the Project Professor Claudia Mitchell (McGill University) and Olga M. Zdravomyslova (Vice-President of the Raisa Maximovna Club of the Gorbachev-Foundation).

Doctor of Political Sciences Svetlana Aivasova, Leading Researcher, Institute for Comparative Political Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS); Marlene Haas, Secretary General, Socialist International Women; and Anusha Naidu, Director at the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance (South Africa) made presentations on the first topic of the Conference – Women in and into Leadership: an Experience of the Last Decade.

The second topic of the Conference – Feminism in the XXI-st Century was reflected in the speeches by Ludmila Popkova, Assistant Professor at Samara State University and Ann Smith, Independent Educational Consultant and Lecturer at the Business School of University of Witwatersrand (South Africa).

Two round table discussions were held within the framework of the Conference – Making Society More Gender-Sensitive and Gender Education: What We Write and What They Read.
The discussions were marked by wide and active participation of attending representatives of women’s organizations and research centers, reporters, trainers and participants in the seminars from Moscow and different regions of Russia.

The transcript of the Conference in the Russian and English languages will be placed on the Gorbachev-Foundation’s official web-site.