Historian and author Irmgard Bohunovsky (87) pointed out at the program presentation of the 2026 European Tolerance Talks in Klagenfurt that resistance against prevailing conditions, injustice, and wrongdoing is a classic domain of women. Women have always offered effective and non-violent resistance – out of a sense of responsibility – to avert greater harm to family and society.
The Greek poet Aristophanes tells the story of Lysistrata, who led a women’s revolt against her warring husbands in ancient Greece by occupying the Acropolis in Athens – and succeeded. In Liberia, West Africa, Lymah Gbowee ended the civil war in 2003 using the same approach and received the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 2011. According to Bohunovsky, resistance has less to do with heroism than with reason, but reason all too often has only a faint voice.
Given the current world situation, it’s hard to know where to begin with resistance. And how to take responsibility? The best place to start is with oneself, Bohunovsky said in her keynote address in the Hall of Mirrors at the Carinthian State Government building (https://www.ktn.gv.at/). “I can resist on my own if I feel personally attacked. But I can also defend myself out of responsibility for the society in which I live and organize resistance.” The women of Athens and, millennia later, Liberia understood this. More on pressetext
