While women have long added their support to help foster peaceful resolutions, they have largely been excluded from participating in international peace advocacy.

In 1854 Swedish feminist Frederika Bremer advanced the idea of a women-only peace group. In 1889 Bertha Von Sutter published the influential book “Lay Down Your Arms,” which championed arbitration. Jane Addams convened a meeting of women’s peace groups in 1915 out of which the Women’s Peace Party emerged. Its platform raised issues that later were adopted by the International Congress of Women, including an international police force, removal of economic causes of war, and the manufacture and sale of arms. Some were critical of the congress including Theodore Roosevelt, who called the congress a “shrieking sisterhood of pacifists.”

Decades later in 2000 the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security (WPS), which linked gender equality to the maintenance of international peace and security. The goal, established by the United Nations, was full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding by 2030.

Between 1992 and 2019 women constituted 13% of negotiators in peace processes. In 2020, women represented 23% of negotiators in active peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations. In 2022, women represented only 16% of negotiators. Of the eighteen peace agreements concluded in 2022, only one had a woman signatory.

Research has shown that women’s participation in these processes contributes to reaching lasting agreements and increases the probability of it abiding for at least two years by 20% and lasting fifteen years by 35%.

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Fred Jandt is the author of several books, including his latest, “How To Survive a Mediation.”

Since 2019, California Family Code has given courts the authority to issue orders during divorce or legal separation on the custody of pets.

Judges can award sole or joint ownership as well as visitation, expenses, and other factors associated with the pet’s welfare. Mediation, of course, is appropriate and less expensive than litigation. Alaska, Illinois, New Hampshire, and New York also have laws that direct judges or encourage mediation to consider the pet’s welfare rather than treating the pet strictly as property.

Private mediation is an option in all 50 states and offers many advantages, such as confidentiality, reduced emotional distress, reduced conflict, and creative solutions, which center on the pet’s well being.

Typically, pet mediation covers issues like living arrangements, visitation schedule, financial responsibilities for food, grooming, boarding, and vet bills, medical decision-making rules, and longer term issues related to relocation and end-of-life decisions.

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Fred Jandt is the author of two books related to this topic: “How to Survive a Mediation,” available wherever books are sold, and “A Hard Farewell” about dealing with grief after losing a pet, available on Amazon.