“A radical redefinition of the term gender”
In a report on the protection of human rights? In the context of counter-terrorism? What’s this about….?
“UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin was asked to report to the UN on “gender-based human rights abuses in counterterrorism measures” – with an intended focus presumably upon hardships encountered by women caught up in the war on terror. Instead, in his report, Scheinin asserted “Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social responsibilities that underlie how women’s and men’s roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood.”
What?!
“Labeling gender a “social construct,” the non-binding submission claims that “gender is not static,” but rather “changeable over time and across contexts.” Readers are told that “understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counterterrorism measures.”
And this is not new.
“Such a definition of gender has been bitterly debated in formal UN settings for years and has been rejected repeatedly by member states in negotiated UN documents. There is a longtime tension on this question between the sovereign states of the GA and the UN bureaucracy. Even though the GA has repeatedly defined gender in a traditional way, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women defines gender, similar to this new bureaucratic report, as a social construct.”
Just to remind…
“The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which is binding upon ratifying nations, states that gender “refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.” In addition, two non-binding UN conference outcome documents – the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the Report of the Conference on Human Settlements held the following year in Istanbul – consider “gender” to be “understood in its ordinary, generally accepted usage.”
This is what’s going on at the United Nations, while the public generally things they’re just working on issues like Iran’s nuclear program and North Korea’s missile firings and the ever elusive Middle Eastern peace process. Thanks to Austin Ruse, Piero Tozzi, and colleagues at C-Fam, we’ve got eyes on the front lines.
