Tag: soft power

Mothers with Soft Power

Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) held a colloquium (October, 2025) for 120 participants, “Mothers Without Borders: The Phenomenology of Mothers’ Soft Power in Peace Building.” The event was coordinated by Senior International Scholar-in-Residence Hauwa Ibrahim, J.D., S.J.D., M.L. In a keynote address former WCW executive director Susan McGee Bailey, Ph.D., explained the importance of this initiative: “Mothers understand that shaping a better world starts with each of us…We can’t change everything quickly, but we can change everything…By believing in ourselves and our vision, we can initiate major changes, not only in our own homes, but throughout the world.”

In her keynote address, Her Royal Highness, Nahla Al-Qassimi, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of Women Empowerment Council at Ajman University, United Arab Emirates, echoed mother-power: “A mother’s love is the most borderless thing on Earth…when mothers connect, the world becomes kinder, brighter, and stronger.”

Nigerian lawyer Ibrahim outlined mothers’ soft power (using persuasion, not coercion) with a poignant story. In Nigeria 337 girls were kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram, an insurgency opposing Western culture influences in their country. One captured kidnapper was tortured for 3 years because he refused to speak with authorities about his actions. However, when his mother was allowed to talk with him, she needed only 3 words before her son broke his silence. Ibrahim outlined women’s quiet resistance and soft power in influencing decision-making in men in power, especially regarding governing without use of force.

Women Without Borders has big plans for the world’s big problems. Her Royal Highness Dr. Al-Qassimi introduced soft-power initiatives in Beijing at the Global Engineering Congress. Lt. Gen. Fernando Giancotti of the Italian Air Force took the concept home with him to Rome after attending the colloquium. Assistant Inspector General Aishatu Abubakar Baju, Nigeria’s senior female police officer, carried mothers’ soft-power thinking to Johannesburg where she spoke at the African Women in Law Enforcement Conference.

On a sunny afternoon at San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, I saw 2 lions communicating; the male lion roared first. The female roared back. Back and forth for a few loud moments, there were clear signs of some relationship. Then the tour guide said the lions were brother and sister. But what was the message? Here are possibilities:

  • Bro: “Can you believe that breakfast this morning?”   
  • Sis: “We can’t really complain because we did not have to hunt all night for today’s food.”  
  • Bro: “You always stick up for the Government of Zoo.
  • Sis: “I am living in the present moment.”                                                                                               

Consider some soft-power behaviors within meerkat packs. They take turns watching out for their pack while most are digging 5-8 hours above ground for food. If a predator threatens, the patrol-kat whistles a high-pitched alert. Young pups have many helpers in their pack. We will make progress on our precious planet when human mothers and fathers understand and use soft power.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

464. When have you used soft power?

465. Have you ever regretted using aggressive/coercive power?  

The Ants Go Problem-solving

As a child did you sing, “The ants go marching one by one…hurrah, hurrah… they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out of the rain…the ants go marching two by two…hurrah, hurrah…they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out of the rain…?” My family and I witnessed ants marching – in a long line – from the patio door to the kitchen of our timeshare condo in Spain. Initially we thought the ants marched two by two until we realized that it was a double line. Some ants were coming. Some ants were going. They had constructed an ant highway to their kitchen!

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel conducted a fascinating study of ants and their big cousins, humans. The study goal was to assess the collective problem-solving skills of humans when contrasted with longhorn crazy ants (Paratrechina longicornis) who are 3 millimeters in size. The “crazy” labeling comes from the ants’ mislabeled erratic, frenetic movements. This David-and-Goliath match-up is fascinating as both ants and humans are among nature’s few species known to cooperatively transport large objects.

The research task involves maneuvering an odd-T-shaped item through a maze with tight spaces and around corners. The puzzle affectionately is dubbed the “piano-movers’ problem.” Ants are tricked into believing that T-thing was food needing to be transported to their nest. Trial-and-error attempts for the ants with their tiny maze versus the humans with their big-boy-and-girl-sized maze suggest that ants may know how to work together better than adult humans! When collective ant families teamed up, they were able to more efficiently guide the item through complex spatial challenges than a group of humans motivated by competition!

Complexity science researcher Ofer Feinerman and his team worked on this experiment for 3 years with 1,250+ individuals and multiple ant colonies. https://studyfinds.org/ants-smarter-than-humans/ Larger ant teams performed significantly better than smaller groupings or solo ants; the opposite was true for humans when they were not allowed verbal communication or nonverbal gestures; humans wore masks and sunglasses. Human teams “deteriorated” compared to solo human participants. Humans simply worked better ALONE. Researchers summarized: “Each person egoistically thinks they have the most relevant information — and the wisest assessment of it — to accomplishing the overall goal.”

What are the takeaways? Researchers concluded that individual ants do not grasp the “big picture,” but collectively ants develop problem-solving skills by working together. Ants show persistence, cooperation, and perhaps collective intelligence. My takeaway is that humans lose out when they do not affirm the “soft” power of cooperation. In today’s state-of-complexity world we might consider how cooperation can win over competition. Do ants really have a cooperative edge over humans?

South African bishop and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu understood cooperation: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

373. What applications do you see from this ant-versus-human research?

374. How best do you solve your problems – individually or with group support?