Today is International Women’s Day. News to me. Maybe news to you, too. No mention of it, for example, on Boston.com. Perhaps that is because it was started by Socialists in New York in 1909. Whatever. Today it’s just a day to respect and honor women, and work for their equal rights, as far as I can tell, which are noble purposes.
Even more surprising was to learn today that the United States, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Nauru, Palau and Tonga are the only countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, an “international bill of rights for women” adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979.
The U.S. is the only developed state not to have ratified this convention. What’s up with that?
Appearances matter, and this, I’d say, looks bad. Iran and Sudan are not countries one generally supposes the U.S. to have much of a commonality of interest with, especially compared to virtually every other country in the world. We should ratify the “international bill of rights for women” as soon as possible.
Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, explains her theory about why the U.S. has had such a hard time joining the global consensus on this issue in a fascinating discussion on Democracy Now! over the flip.
Unfortunately, the United States has remained one of, as you mentioned, seven countries that has refused to actually ratify the treaty. The United States technically is a signatory to the treaty. This treaty can best be described as a treaty on the rights of women. It’s not unlike the Seneca Falls Declaration that is so famously touted in the United States as being sort of the first changing point, turning point, for the women’s movement for suffrage. In the United States, however, there is a strong feeling both of being anti-UN, in general, and so a desire to essentially put forward the point that you can move gender equality forward without being somehow dependent on the United Nations.A second major issue is a lack of comfort around the clear commitment to reproductive health and rights that is spelled out in the United Nations treaty. And a third reason is that the United States failed to pass the Equal Rights Amendment Act many years ago, almost thirty years ago now, but there is actually a requirement in CEDAW to have an equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation in all countries that are signatories.
Now, there are countries that have signed the treaty and have signed with what they call clauses, which sort of allow them to express their concerns, or caveats on the treaty. The United States has simply decided that that’s not something that they actually want to move forward with. So we’re actually in the very strange position, once again, of being in the company of countries that really I don’t think anyone would hold up as models of democracy or gender equality, for that reason.
Discuss
5 Comments . Comments are closed.I got this as a school holiday growing up in Berkeley, CA
Though I've been told that is no longer the case. I also went to Malcolm X Intermediate School for grade 4-6, so that gives you an idea of how left wing everyone there is.
Bob, in Putin's $quot;International Day of Women$quot; address on Russian
Channel One today, he referenced the "apochryphal" (according to Wikipedia) 1857 demonstration that took place in the US as having been the beginning of the holiday: "A popular apocryphal story which surfaced in French Communist circles,[31][32] claimed women from clothing and textile factories had staged a protest on 8 March 1857 in New York City.[33] The story alleged that garment workers were protesting against very poor working conditions and low wages and were attacked and dispersed by police. It was claimed that this event led to a rally in commemoration of its fiftieth anniversary in 1907. Temma Kaplan[34] explains that "Neither event seems to have taken place, but many Europeans think March 8 1907 inaugurated International Women's Day."[35] Speculating about the origins of this 1857 legend Liliane Kandel and Françoise Picq suggested it was likely that (in recent times) some felt it opportune to detach International Women's Day from its basis in Soviet history and ascribe to it a more 'international' origin which could be painted as more ancient than Bolshevism and more spontaneous than a decision of Congress or the initiative of those women affiliated to the Party.[36]" As far as the Russians are concerned,that event over 150 years ago was the seed of the holiday. That event did occur, so there may be different reasons for choosing one event over another as the supposed genesis of the holiday.
Interesting, thanks
There are no doubt many ways to celebrate women.
Part of an unfortunate pattern
If I know anything about it this isn't the only UN treaty we haven't signed along with just a few less desirable nations. I don't know why we're such stinkers about these things.
American Exceptionalism
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