As this paper goes to press, 40,000 of the most powerful and angry women from all around the world will gather in Beijing to rant and rave about their unjust plight. There will also be a pro-family contingent but don’t expect the press to acknowledge their presence.

All rational people (men included) support the just and equal treatment of women. Holding a conference to promote this seems absurd. But equality, as we understand it, is not the issue at this latest United Nations global gathering. The female pawnbrokers have brought a list of demands which are a trifle menacing, to say the least. They have re-defined equality to suit their latest needs.

At Beijing, when feminists speak of equality, they no longer mean the provision of equal opportunity and treatment of men and women. Now they mean the implementation of quotas to ensure that every profession is made up of at least 50 per cent women who should receive the equivalent of what the 50 per cent of men are making.

Equality now means that all women should be in the workforce, because that is where they can realize and utilize their earning power. Equality means abortion on demand so that the ties which children create can be broken and women can stay in the workplace.

Equality means that marriage and families, unacceptable institutions which give too much power to men, should be eradicated. Any union, even homosexual or lesbian, is more acceptable than traditional marriage.

Equality means that the Chinese government will be criticized because Chinese working women receive half of what men make. Equality means that the Chinese government will not be criticized for its forced abortion, sterilization and torture of women who have over one child.

These are not mere feminist suggestions. These are demands which the angry feminists, and faceless UN bureaucrats, want enshrined in national constitutions.

The key to these UN conferences is the final document—a supposed written global consensus of opinion. Last September in Cairo, the Holy See and several sympathetic nations were able to neutralize the wording of the final document and the Conference on Population and Development, rendering it ineffective and meaningless.

Success at Beijing will not be as easy and the pro-family forces will be hard pressed to equal their Cairo accomplishments. It is difficult to determine what sort of effect a feminist victory will have at the national level. Recent peacekeeping disasters (Somalia, Rwanda and the Balkans) have left many to wonder whether the UN can do anything right, let alone conspire to upheave the world’s social order.

However, a perusal of Winifride Prestwich’s article (page 8) will shake even the deepest cynic. The UN, as an international government, monitors how democracies enforce their laws. They have bodies in place, and agreements signed to ensure that Canada observes and enforces the edicts of UN law, some of which will be set at Beijing.

Before the conference gets under way, the feminists are already claiming victory. The very fact that the world is meeting to discuss these radical ideas gives them legitimacy right off the bat.

Though one never likes to admit to agreeing with anything like the Chinese government does, we must make one exception. Chinese police have strict guidelines on how to deal with possible lesbian demonstrations.

Should the lesbians (their will be many) dare to hold hands, kiss or take off their clothes in public, police are under orders to immediately cover them with a huge white drop sheet, shielding them from the populace eye.

If only we could do the same. The idea of dropping a huge white sheet over this whole sordid conference and making it go away is awfully appealing.