Gender & the U.N.

[ The Platform for Action for the Fourth World Conference on Women, the document being prepared for the upcoming U.N. conference in Beijing, is based on certain assumptions about the natures of femininity and masculinity. These assumptions must be brought to light, since they are based on a radical feminist ideology which is not shared by the majority of the world's women.]

God made men and women equal and different. The UN can't make them the same and it shouldn't try.

Certain developed nations and influential NGOs want the Platform for Action for the Fourth World Conference on Women to have a "gender perspective". When others demanded a definition of gender they were told that this wasn't needed. Of course, they said, gender means male and female, but the definition has also evolved to a broader meaning. Let's just make a nice vague statement and get on with it.

What precisely does gender mean to the supporters of the gender perspective and why are they unwilling to spell it out for all the world to see?

Read through all the writings of gender feminists and those who promote the gender perspective and you will see that gender does not mean male and female - it is not a synonym for sex. Just as Bella Abzug said in her speech it means socially constructed roles that can be changed.

And what are these socially constructed roles:

Manhood and Womanhood Masculinity and Femininity Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Bisexuality Motherhood and Fatherhood Indeed, according to gender feminists everything we think of as human nature is actually only socially constructed roles that can be changed.

And make no mistake about, the Platform for Action is designed to change human nature - to make women and men the same. Read through it line by line and try to find any place that isn't bracketed where there is unqualified support for motherhood as a woman's primary vocation.

The UN should not be wasting its time and the energies trying to make men like women, fathers like mothers, homosexuality equal to heterosexuality. If gender is left undefined or defined as socially constructed roles that can be changed, all the energies this conference could have directed toward improving the lot of women will be dissipated in a futile attempt to abolish human nature.

by Dale O'Leary CRNet: "Dale O'Leary" CompuServe: 74747,2241