Feminism’s Global Agenda

2006-09-20
By

Here is the latest email I received from the N.O.W.. Imagine the mischief a feminist heading the U.N. and a feminist heading the U.S. could do.

Urge Election of Woman as Next United Nations Secretary-General

Action Needed:

As Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s term nears an end, the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council will vote for a new Secretary-General in December. In the 61 years since the U.N. was founded, no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General, despite many qualified women candidates.

Please join us in urging the U.S. to uphold their promised commitments to women’s equality by electing one of the many qualified female candidates to take the seat as the next Secretary-General. The time for a woman to fill the post is long past due. Let members of the Security Council know that the you believe that a woman Secretary-General can better carry out many of the United Nations’ critically important missions, including safeguarding human rights around the globe.

Take Action: Write to the U.N. Security Council

Background:

Traditionally, the selection of the U.N. Secretary-General considers geographic rotation, so that each region has an opportunity to be represented. In the history of the U.N., one Asian, one Latin American, two Africans, and three Europeans have served as Secretary-General; but no woman from any region has been seriously considered. This reflects poorly on the UN’s commitment to gender equality.

A significant gender gap exists within the United Nations, beyond just the position of Secretary-General. As of June 2005, women occupied only 37% of professional and higher level positions, and only 15% of the Under-Secretaries-General are women. At the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, governments called for the development of “mechanisms to nominate women candidates for appointment to senior posts in the United Nations,” and set the target of “overall gender equality, particularly at the professional level and above, by the year 2000.” More than ten years later, and six years after the target date, no such mechanism has been developed, and women remain dramatically underrepresented in positions of authority.

Every year, the General Assembly adopts a resolution on the “Improvement of the Status of Women in the Secretariat,” lamenting the lack of progress and calling for the achievement of gender balance in staffing. Yet, every year, the U.N. fails to fulfill its goals and promises of having more women in leadership positions and serving on the U.N. staff. This upcoming election for a new Secretary-General provides an opportunity for the U.N. to begin to fully implement its commitment to women’s equality.

Take Action: Write to the U.N. Security Council

For more information:

 

6 views

  • PolishKnight

    Hello Denis,

    I wonder: How can a woman as head of the UN make it any worse? Phylas Schlafly is right: The best thing to do would be to get the US out of the UN and convert the headquarters to condos.

    Ironically, I wonder if having a woman head the UN and try to enact some of these initiatives migh unintentionally backfire: Most of the countries that have the strongest influence in the UN including Syria would probably balk at new notions of feminist equality rushed into place. That might set the showdown for many of these nations to start walking!

    Or is that totally nuts?

  • PolishKnight

    Hello Denis,

    I wonder: How can a woman as head of the UN make it any worse? Phylas Schlafly is right: The best thing to do would be to get the US out of the UN and convert the headquarters to condos.

    Ironically, I wonder if having a woman head the UN and try to enact some of these initiatives migh unintentionally backfire: Most of the countries that have the strongest influence in the UN including Syria would probably balk at new notions of feminist equality rushed into place. That might set the showdown for many of these nations to start walking!

    Or is that totally nuts?

  • Denis

    true. it’s hard to imagine a feminist could make things worst-but i’d rather not see them get the chance. I too have believed for a long time that the US should be out of the UN. Interesting article:

    From NewsMax:

    U.N. Convenes Meeting to Promote Feminist Agenda

    Friday, Feb 25, 2005

    The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) convened an unusual informal consultation in preparation for a major two week conference set to begin on Monday.

    What was unusual about the meeting is the attempt by organizers to forestall open negations on the “outcome” document that the conference will produce.

    U.N. documents are generally negotiated by member states. In this meeting, the chairman insisted on the wording of the document without any negotiation. Not all governments went along.

    The outcome document of the 49th CSW session will be important because CSW celebrating two of the most potent tools of international radical feminism, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, and the “Beijing +5″ document of 2000.

    Both of these documents have been used by the U.N. to promote abortion, as well as other aspects of the radical feminist agenda.

    The Beijing documents are controversial and have never been fully accepted by many countries. However, the draft declaration unveiled this Wednesday states that countries unequivocally “reaffirm” these documents.

    In U.N. parlance, this means that countries stamp their full approval on the entire text of these documents.

    Of the 10 countries that spoke on Wednesday, only the United States stated that it might object to the reaffirmation of the Beijing documents.

    China, Cuba, India, and Syria were among those who found the one-page document excellent for its “strength” and “brevity,” and recommended adoption of the document without amendments.

    Most troubling to conservatives, the declaration ties the Beijing documents to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), stating that the “full and effective implementation” of the Beijing documents is “essential” for achieving the MDGs. The eight MDGs are the UN’s most recent major initiative. They were drafted by the U.N. as a means of implementing aspects of the Millennium Declaration, an aspirational and largely non-controversial list of ways in which countries resolved to improve the world in the new century.

    The CSW declaration calls itself a “contribution” to the upcoming September review of progress on the MDGs.

    Neither the Millennium Declaration nor the MDGs mention the Beijing documents, though they could have. However, the UN recently revealed its strategy of injecting radical feminist objectives into the MDGs. In a report from the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the UN states that “Beijing + 10 provides an opportunity to strengthen and focus the gender equality dimensions of efforts to achieve the MDGs” and that “Strong gender equality recommendations from Beijing + 10 and the Millennium Summit will be powerful tools for use at the national level to stimulate greater action on gender equality.”

    The CSW Bureau decided on Wednesday that because countries appeared to agree on the draft declaration, further informal negotiations were unnecessary, and any proposed changes should be submitted for the Bureau’s consideration by Thursday afternoon.

  • Denis

    true. it’s hard to imagine a feminist could make things worst-but i’d rather not see them get the chance. I too have believed for a long time that the US should be out of the UN. Interesting article:

    From NewsMax:

    U.N. Convenes Meeting to Promote Feminist Agenda

    Friday, Feb 25, 2005

    The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) convened an unusual informal consultation in preparation for a major two week conference set to begin on Monday.

    What was unusual about the meeting is the attempt by organizers to forestall open negations on the “outcome” document that the conference will produce.

    U.N. documents are generally negotiated by member states. In this meeting, the chairman insisted on the wording of the document without any negotiation. Not all governments went along.

    The outcome document of the 49th CSW session will be important because CSW celebrating two of the most potent tools of international radical feminism, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, and the “Beijing +5″ document of 2000.

    Both of these documents have been used by the U.N. to promote abortion, as well as other aspects of the radical feminist agenda.

    The Beijing documents are controversial and have never been fully accepted by many countries. However, the draft declaration unveiled this Wednesday states that countries unequivocally “reaffirm” these documents.

    In U.N. parlance, this means that countries stamp their full approval on the entire text of these documents.

    Of the 10 countries that spoke on Wednesday, only the United States stated that it might object to the reaffirmation of the Beijing documents.

    China, Cuba, India, and Syria were among those who found the one-page document excellent for its “strength” and “brevity,” and recommended adoption of the document without amendments.

    Most troubling to conservatives, the declaration ties the Beijing documents to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), stating that the “full and effective implementation” of the Beijing documents is “essential” for achieving the MDGs. The eight MDGs are the UN’s most recent major initiative. They were drafted by the U.N. as a means of implementing aspects of the Millennium Declaration, an aspirational and largely non-controversial list of ways in which countries resolved to improve the world in the new century.

    The CSW declaration calls itself a “contribution” to the upcoming September review of progress on the MDGs.

    Neither the Millennium Declaration nor the MDGs mention the Beijing documents, though they could have. However, the UN recently revealed its strategy of injecting radical feminist objectives into the MDGs. In a report from the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the UN states that “Beijing + 10 provides an opportunity to strengthen and focus the gender equality dimensions of efforts to achieve the MDGs” and that “Strong gender equality recommendations from Beijing + 10 and the Millennium Summit will be powerful tools for use at the national level to stimulate greater action on gender equality.”

    The CSW Bureau decided on Wednesday that because countries appeared to agree on the draft declaration, further informal negotiations were unnecessary, and any proposed changes should be submitted for the Bureau’s consideration by Thursday afternoon.






Search

RSS Amy Alkon

RSS Donna Laframboise