... and ain't i a woman?

After Beijing

On September 4 the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women opened in Beijing, the first for 10 years. During preparations for the conference, media commentary was dominated by coverage of China's attempts to manipulate the organisation of the conference and limit opportunities for open discussion, primarily by moving the concurrent NGO forum to a venue 60 km outside of Beijing.
By the end of August, complaints were still being made regarding China's refusal to issue visas to organisations whose titles referred to Tibet, and the discovery by thousands of other registered participants that their visas had not been issued because of administrative errors. As the hotels filled up, and renovations of the NGO venue at Huairou were reported to be incomplete, many suspected this was an effort to limit participation.
As important as some of these issues may be, however, they have been virtually the only coverage of conference preparations. Little mention has been made of the politics to be debated at the conference, or attempts by conservative political and religious forces to roll back even symbolic advances made in recognising the universality of women's rights at previous United Nations conferences, such as the Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 or the Copenhagen poverty summit earlier this year.
UN conferences often result in wordy documents which are sadly lacking in real commitment for change. NGOs struggle to be heard in the corridors of governmental power, while politicians make broad statements that sound good in theory but lack the means or will for their implementation.
While the world debates whether Hillary Clinton should or should not attend the conference, issues such as reproductive rights, abolition of the international arms industry, strategies to end violence against women and children, and women's right to economic independence become sidelined.
Conservative forces are pushing an agenda of cultural relativism in order to entrench the oppression of women under the guise of culturally appropriate behaviour. As early as 1954, the UN General Assembly recognised that women are "subject to ancient laws, customs and practices" inconsistent with its Declaration of Human Rights, and called on governments to abolish them. In 1981 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women came into force.
It remains to be seen whether the conference is able to produce a Platform of Action for women worldwide which will even symbolically maintain past gains. The actual implementation of the platform, however, is just as important — and even more challenging.
By Kath Gelber