The 12th “Young Women Parliament” (YWP) conference titled “Young Women Lead Change” took place on February 11th 2015. The conference was co-hosted by Kfar-Saba municipality and “Onlife” the web site for women.
450 young activists participated in the conference, from various locations including, Kfar-Saba, Bat Yam, Herzelia, Faradis and more. The highlight of the event was an open panel including three young women active in YWP: Paz Kirshner active in “Young women lead change”, Hen Livnat from Bat Yam, active in YWP, and Noor Amir Marei from Faradis high school, active in the local YWP.
The panel lea by the journalist Talia Peled Keinan dealt with the complex issue of fashion advertizing and its influence on young women’s body perception.
Maharta Baruch Ron, deputy mayor of Tel-Aviv shared her outstanding life story. She concluded that if she, as a girl who came from the other side of the globe , without language skills managed, within ten years, to acquire an academic degree, and become the deputy mayor ,so could any girl.
In addition, the singer Shiri Maymon shared her personal story and the road to her success and Hadar Levi signed the conference off with a humorous anecdote.
Greeting Speeches
Yehuda Ben Hemo – the mayor of Kfar-Saba: “As far as we are concerned the sky is not the limit but the baseline, I wish us all a fruitful event.
Nesia Shtrasburg – adviser to Kfar-Saba municipality on women status, spoke on behalf of YWP: “Dialogue leads to interchange of ideas and mutual rethinking which stimulates change. Reality can be changed”.
Hadas Goldshtein – founder of “Onlife”: “As a teenager I had a rough time. My age, the way I looked, my name and life in general. The change started when I turned 18. I discovered I had skills I was not aware of till then. I stopped being judgmental toward myself and I liked what I saw.
Quotes from the Panel
Paz Kirshner active in “Young Women Lead Change”, in Kfar-Saba: “We are all occupied with the way we look, and are affected by the distorted representations which we are exposed to. We are all under pressure from our surrounding. Our parents and our neighborhood put demands on us. I would not agree to do something I do not approve of. For example, my girlfriend’s parents offered her money to lose weight. This would be crossing the line for me.”
Hen Livnat from Bat Yam, active in “Young Women Parliament shared her own experience in dealing with eating disorder: “At the ninth grade I gained weight and decided to stop eating. I wanted to be popular, part of the gang and wanted boys to notice me…. with all the suffering I went through, I still feel the need to apologize that I am not thin. Before coming here I spent hours fitting on clothes trying to decide which outfit would make me look and feel thin. The main problem is that the image posed by television and commercials present an unrealistic and unobtainable beauty ideal.”
Noor Amir Marei from Faradis: “We must make a mental change regarding the ideal of beauty, and think about the beauty within and not the outer beauty which by itself is not worth anything”.