Opportunities for women`s roles in international affairs should improve in the post-Cold War era, according to Ruth Salzman Adams, who will be honored by the Jane Addams Conference this week for her contributions to international peace.
Adams was a long-time editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the publication known for its Doomsday Clock, which measured the proximity of a nuclear holocaust. She is a consultant to the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds a variety of projects internationally in areas such as education, the environment and international cooperation.
As a member of the Pugwash Movement, a peace organization, Adams was instrumental in bringing together scientists from the East and West during the late 1950s, as the arms race was accelerating. She was the first director of the program on peace and international cooperation at the MacArthur Foundation.
At a luncheon honoring her, Adams will speak on ”American Women in the International Community” and describe what she sees as new options for women in international affairs as leaders or advisers that have emerged as a result of the end of the Cold War.
”I want to ask whether the new role of women in the former Soviet Union is going to affect the way American women think about their role in political change,” Adams said.
Adams said women from the U.S. and the former Soviet Union will have more opportunities to affect world politics, if they choose to act.
”Traditionally women have not concerned themselves with international issues. I believe the changes (will) open many windows for women. We are coming out of a very important period where male domination in Cold War politics and in the development of strategies excluded women at all levels.” Adams, who just returned from a visit to the former Soviet Union, is a senior adviser to the president of the MacArthur Foundation and is designing a foundation program in the former Soviet Union.
The Jane Addams Conference was founded in Chicago in 1984 as a leadership-development program for women in international relations. Adams was a founding member. Conference director Anne Markowitch said Adams is being honored for her contributions to international peace and for her specific assistance to the conference.
Registration for the luncheon will begin at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Palmer House Hilton, 17 E. Monroe St. Lunch will begin at noon. The event is open to the public. Tickets are $40. Reservations are required. For information call 312-346-3111.
