Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
UNWLA 100
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2024
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36-37
38-39
40
the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.” Unfortunately, this is still true. As of 1993, women headed governments in only 6 nations. According to recent UN figures, women hold less than 10 percent of the positions in the highest levels of government worldwide, they occupy only 3.5 percent of the cabinet seats, and in 93 countries hold no position at the ministerial level. While 12 percent of members of national legislatures worldwide were women in 1989, that figure had dropped to 10 percent in 1993. At the first Assembly of the United Nations, on February 13th, 1946, 17 women signed an open letter to the women of the world. It rallied women “to recognize that the goal of full participation in the life and res ponsibilities of their countries and of the world commu nity is a common objective towards which the women of the world should assist one another.” Just a few days ago, Hillary Clinton said that with respect to women, ’’The United Nations must play a leadership role, and must play a role by exampek,” to which I must, unfortunately, add: Not with its present power/gender ratio, and not with the attitutdes that prevail in its highest places. Of the 184 ambassadors at the UN, only six are women. There have been only two women presidents of the General Assembly over the past 50 years: Mrs. Pandit of India in 1950, and Miss Angie E. Brooks of Liberia in 1969. Of 32 U.N. specialized agencies and programs, four are directed by women. In fact, on all levels of employment, the United Nations has not met its goals for improving the status of women. The organization’s general employment profile remains all too clear: at the U.N., Secretaries General are men, while women are generally secretaries. When I observe some of the political maneuving that goes on in these revered halls and behind the scenes, I’m reminded of a song that Marlene Dietrich used to sing: "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.” What they will have at the U.N. is everything, if we will permit it. Let me offer an example from an issue that is currently a matter of heated contention. Two decades ago, the statistics and analysis needed to undercut stereotypes about women and to create new policies founded on gender equality were limited by a male bias in the definition and collection of the relevant data. Statistics were — and sometimes still are, by the way — defined in ways that portrayed only the conditions under which men live and their contributions to society. It was to remedy such inadequacies that in 1975, during the First World Conference on Women, held in Mexico City, a proposal was made to establish the United Nations Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, or INSTRAW, as it is known. INSTRAW has been able to carry out several basic, substantive programs: the analysis and collection of statistics;o the promotion of gender desegregated data to better reflect the comparative status of women and men; the search for methodology to evaluate women’s work and use of time; and assembling the information needed to analyze the situation of elderly, migrant, and refugee women and of widows. Although a small body, INSTRAW has a substantive role to play in the activities leading up to important international events such as the Fourth World Confe rence on Women. Now, decrees the Secretariat, in a move that clearly oversteps its mandate, INSTRAW, is to be merged with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), supposedly to lend greater coherence to the policy, research and operational aspects of the United Nations’s efforts for the advancement of women. In fact, the proposed merger would result in the loss of the only autonomous and global policy-making instrument that women have, since through INSTRAW women can formulate policies and make recommenda tions at the highest levels of the United Nations, namely, in the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly. The consolidation is really nothing more than a bureaucratic aggrandizement of control by the men at the center of the UN’s operations. Many of us are fighting this power-grab by the Secretariat at this very moment. We are following the maxim of an American woman active in progressive politics a hundred years ago. When American farmers were not being treated fairly, she urged them to raise less corn and raise more voices. Perhaps if the "boys in the back room” begin to realize that they may need to institute “peace-keeping” operations on the banks of the East River, in their own backyard, we will have their full attention. It is by fighting for our rights that we can best show that we take the UN and its mission seriously. If we are to truly dream and aspire, we will have to struggle. We haven’t gotten a far as we have simply by saying “please” and “thank you.” My dreams and aspirations, for the United Nations and for whatever women are still treated unequally: That we will ensure that women are in a position not only to petition to change the laws, but also to write them in the first place. We need to bring about the world encapsu lated in a story I heard recently. A diplomat was visiting Pakistan during the first administration of Benazir Bhutto and asked a little boy he met what he wanted to be when he grew up. "A truck driver,” said the boy. The diplomat, taken aback by what sounded like a very modest goal, replied, "But surely you would like to go into politics, even become Prime Minister?” Said the boy, “On no, that’s woman’s work.” In closing, I would like to leave you with these words which have become a favorite of mine: "to hope and dream is not to ignore the practical — it is to dress it in colors and rainbows.” НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 1995 21
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36-37 
38-39 
40 
