From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgThu Sep 7 10:26:07 1995 Date: Tue, 05 Sep 1995 14:52:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Editorial by Jack Freeman on Beijing [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 05.09.95 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial by Jack Freeman on Beijing By Jack Freeman Earth Times News Service The Fourth World Conference on Women has a problem, if one can believe what was said last week at a preliminary meeting of parliamentarians serving on national delegations to the Conference. The problem is this: As Conference Secretary General Gertrude Mongella and so many others have said, the purpose of the Conference is to move women's rights issues from rhetoric to reality. But what has emerged from the discussions here is that the most important words in the Conference document have meaning only as rhetoric. In the real world they are almost meaningless. For example, the word "equality." The Conference Platform for Action speaks urgently of the need for equality between women and men. As Senator Akiko Domoto, of Japan's House of Councilors, told the International Meeting of Parliamentarians on Gender, Population and Development, held in Tokyo last week: "Women are working for real equality, something they have yet to receive despite legislated and mandated equality in many countries." But if legislation and mandates cannot achieve real equality--and it is abundantly clear that they cannot--what can? And will the Beijing Conference endorse it? Of course, nobody is opposed to equality as an ideal. But the reality is this: If women suffer from inequality in many parts of the world, so do men. Legislation and mandates--and, yes, UN conferences and conventions-- have not put an end to that. There is also a problem with the word "empowerment," which lacks even the rhetorical punch that "equality" delivers. "Empowerment" is not a word that any English-speaking person would ever use in casual conversation, possibly because nobody is really sure what it means. So far as I have been able to determine, it is no more current in any other language either. Some speakers at the meeting here referred to education as a key form of empowerment for women. Others, though, contend that while more and better education for girls may be a prerequisite for empowerment (and desirable for its own sake), it is not enough. They cite the low status and relatively low earnings of educated women around the world. Many at the meeting endorsed the proposal for a quota system in politics to bring more women into decision-making positions. But several delegates (all of them male) called the proposal "unrealistic," citing the history of quotas and affirmative action programs in various countries. "How much 'real empowerment' did African Americans acquire," asked one observer, "when a seat on the Supreme Court was given to Clarence Thomas? And would the cause of women be advanced or hindered if the next open seat were given to Phyllis Schlafly?" In the rhetoric of empowerment, it is always depicted as a benign sharing of power--rather than a transfer of power--and therefore should not engender resistance from the powerful. Alas, as Lord Acton observed, power tends to corrupt. And the people who have it are seldom willing to share it. It's fine, say the cynics, for the empowerment advocates to try to reassure the current holders of power (i.e., the men) that "This isn't going to hurt a bit," but, they add, a major change in power relations is never accomplished easily or cheaply. It usually requires a revolution. "The revolution has begun," Mongella said Monday at the opening ceremony of the Conference. The question is whether the lofty words will be followed by actions that can make a difference to people in the real world.