Every ten years, the UN sponsors a global conference on women. In 1985 it was held in Nairobi; next year it will take place in Beijing. Delegates from around the world report to each other on what steps their countries have taken to implement equality for women. In Nairobi, there was a distinct clash between the goals of the radical feminists from so-called developed countries and the needs of women in the have-not nations.
It all pivots on the trendy-sounding phrase heard endlessly at the UN population conference recently in Cairo: “the empowerment of women.” This phrase is always undefined, perhaps on purpose.
People like me would probably interpret it to mean that women should have equal standing in society as men. However, where people like me depart from the radical feminists and the population police is in our approach to achieving this goal. We argue that women’s maternal capabilities must be protected and supported. They see pregnancy as a disease which ruins women’s lives.
If you read the UN (or International Planned Parenthood) documents on population and women, you will see increased access to education and employment mentioned in the same breath as improving health care. Why are these constantly linked?
The effect on population of improving health care is never explained. One assumption is that improving health care for women means contraception, sterilization and “safe” abortions. The fact is that contraceptives by the tons, mandatory sterilization and abortion have all flooded under-developed countries for twenty years at least, and women still have children.
Instead of facing this fact, the population controllers conclude hat it is due to lack of education. These women need to be taught that the perfectly natural process of child bearing and raising is ruining their lives. When the women ask for help in improving their families’ health and living conditions, they are told that they would be better off not having a family in the first place.
Who knows where this mantra of health care/education/employment originated. Its supporters never offer any proof to show it to be a reasonable policy. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I suspect that Western society is seen as a global role model.
Women in the “developed” world have few children (below replacement level in many countries) who do not die through malnutrition or common preventable childhood illnesses. None of us are now denied education because we are female. We are in the paid workforce in unprecedented numbers and given preferential treatment through employment equity programmes.
But, for all our education, many of us have been brainwashed to believe that children are our enemy. Children have become an economic liability in our consumer-oriented society. They cost us money, rather than increase family wealth as in the days of the family farm, for example. We have lost the concept of life-long marriage which gives women the financial stability to nurture a family. So Western women have come to believe that they must become economically self-sufficient before indulging in a child or two (but no more). These children become trophies, objects to round out the super-woman image. As objects, they are disposable if they are conceived at an inconvenient time, or if they are not perfectly healthy.
Some role model!
It is fitting that the UN conference on women be held in Beijing. The Cairo conference showed that Western governments send delegates to such events who subscribe to the view that women must sacrifice their children. China’s brutal one-child policy (and its practice of female infanticide) has long been quietly supported by the West. It is said that only women will be allowed to take part in the Beijing conference. If this is so, it will be women who will further the anti-woman, anti-family agenda. How sad.
