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“The Equal Rights Amendment on Steroids”

Jill

Sounds good to me — but then, I’m a radical socialist feminist* trying to push my radical agenda of universal human rights on innocent bigots everywhere.

CEDAW is “the Equal Rights Amendment on steroids,” said Mrs. Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. “This is getting the U.N. involved in our homes, our families, our marriages.”
Though signed by President Carter in 1979, CEDAW has never been ratified by the Senate, but activists on the U.N. CEDAW committee are using the treaty to enforce an agenda of population control and homosexual rights on other nations, Mrs. Wright said.
The CEDAW committee has “told China they must decriminalize prostitution,” and “told Mexico to change their laws against abortion,” and even told the governments of Muslim nations that they must interpret the Koran according to CEDAW, Mrs. Wright said at the monthly luncheon of the Conservative Women’s Network, co-sponsored by Heritage and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

She’s right, CEDAW is certainly threatening. I mean, just read the crazy radical ideas that it promotes:

The Convention defines discrimination against women as “…any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.”

By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including:

* to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
* to establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
* to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.

Total insanity.

I also love how American conservatives use the plight of Muslim women as another justification for invading Muslim nations,** and try to bash feminists over the head with it — as in, if we really cared about Muslim women, we would support preemptive wars that end up killing tens of thousands of them. Or something. And then when feminists attempt to use international law (instead of, say, invasion and mass murder) to actually improve the day-to-day lives of women everywhere, we’re told to stay the hell out of family law and “personal life” — despite the fact that some of the most important women’s issues in Islamic nations revolve around Sharia family law.

CEDAW is an important international tool for recognizing and enforcing women’s rights. The fact that we’re one of the only developed nations that hasn’t signed it — and that we still fancy ourselves to be one of the most progressive, woman-friendly nations — would be laughable if it wasn’t so shameful.

Thanks to Jillian for the article, and sorry for the delay in posting about it.

*I am not actually radical nor socialist, but hey, their terminology not mine.
**Worth noting: Women in Iraq have far fewer rights today than they did before the invasion.

14 thoughts on “The Equal Rights Amendment on Steroids”

  2. I believe it’s the Convention on Elimination of Discrimation Against Women, although class is over and I don’t have time to google it. But it’s something along those lines.

  3. Convention on Elimination of Discrimation Against Women

    Committee on… (Not to be nit-picky, but just in case someone is wanting to look up info on CEDAW.)

  4. Those definitions and commitments strike me as pretty overbroad. For example:

    any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women…of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field…By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including: … to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises.”

    Strictly read, would this not include, say, gay men who decline to date women based on their sex? Boys (or girls)-only poker games? Girls’ (or boys) nights out? It probably wasn’t intended to include those things, but it does. Why would you want our government to commit to such a thing?

  5. I’m sure that’s it Shankar, the conservatives are just looking out for gay rights by not forcing them to date women. Thank goodness for those sensitive, thoughtful conservatives.

  6. And people complain that I derail. What I said has nothing to do with conservatives, it has to do with the provisions of CEDAW and how sweeping they are. Do you have anything to say about that, or is your political vision limited to liberals good, conservatives bad?

  7. Shankar, I don’t think there’s anything ridiculous or derailing about wanting to examine the actual provisions to see if they are troubling. But the link Jill provided and the material she quoted are press release summaries. The text of CEDAW itself is here, and Article 2 reads, in full, as follows:

    States Parties condemn discrimination against women in all its forms, agree to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women and, to this end, undertake:
    (a) To embody the principle of the equality of men and women in their national constitutions or other appropriate legislation if not yet incorporated therein and to ensure, through law and other appropriate means, the practical realization of this principle;
    (b) To adopt appropriate legislative and other measures, including sanctions where appropriate, prohibiting all discrimination against women;
    (c) To establish legal protection of the rights of women on an equal basis with men and to ensure through competent national tribunals and other public institutions the effective protection of women against any act of discrimination;
    (d) To refrain from engaging in any act or practice of discrimination against women and to ensure that public authorities and institutions shall act in conformity with this obligation;
    (e) To take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women by any person, organization or enterprise;
    (f) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women;
    (g) To repeal all national penal provisions which constitute discrimination against women.

    The term “discrimination against women” is defined in Article One, and is quoted by Jill above. It means:

    any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.

  8. It seems like the material quoted in the press release is pretty consistant with the full text, so I astand by my above assessment. The relevant sections are (E.), and the definition in Article I.

    Moreover, Section (C.) seems to advocate setting up paralell courts expressly for the purpose of hearing discrimination cases, and the whole thing seems to directly contradict freedom of association, which has been established to be included in the First Amendment, and is also a component of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    Preventing gender discrimination is certainly a good thing, but these provisions are crazy.

  9. The ability of CEDAW to challenge Sharia is undermined by the way so many countries are able to sign up with ‘reservations’ against full implementation. See for example this article on Egypt. Many other countries have simillar reservations, particularly against allowing divorce.

  12. Another thing I find disturbing is that anti-feminists like Wendy Wright are the ones giving CEDAW face time, rather than progressive women’s organizations, and that the public (and the Senate, where it lingers) seems to be listening . . .

  13. CEDAW is a good thing (with admirable goals). But personally I’m not sure it’s a good solution, mainly because it’s too broad. Although the vast majoprity of it is well written and beneficial, I would not vote for it in its present form.

    There’s this, for example, in the intro:

    Emphasizing that the eradication of apartheid, all forms of racism, racial discrimination, colonialism, neo-colonialism, aggression, foreign occupation and domination and interference in the internal affairs of States is essential to the full enjoyment of the rights of men and women,

    which, while it surely DOES have an effect on women, seems a bit off topic. I can only imagine how well that would go over in the middle east. Other paragraphs in the intro address everything from nuclear disarmament to the rights of folks under colonial domination, for example.

    There’s a lot of good stuff. But then Article 11, for example (which has a lot of good gender-discrimination stuff) slips in some more major social commentary which is NOT discrimination-specific, like

    (a) The right to work as an inalienable right of all human beings;

    and
    (e) The right to social security, particularly in cases of retirement, unemployment, sickness, invalidity and old age and other incapacity to work, as well as the right to paid leave;

    Both of those are good things, but not necessarily unalieable rights to which a country should, or would, commit.

    Similarly, article 12 talks about paid maternity leave. Such leave (whicl a good thing if a country can afford it) has both positive and negative consequences. Does it affect women? Of course. But that sort of major social program is something that individual contries should–must–decide. Is it better to have more health care, or more paid leave, for example? That is not a decision which should be made by the U.N.

    I like most of it. But not the whole.

  14. Both of those are good things, but not necessarily unalieable rights to which a country should, or would, commit.

    Um, yes, well, that’s an interesting opinion and everything, but both provisions are part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That’s that charter where the UN spelled out certain basic, inalienable rights for the citizens of the world to which countries should, or must, commit?

    Other paragraphs in the intro address everything from nuclear disarmament to the rights of folks under colonial domination, for example

    Yes, well, this focuses on women’s rights, but I guess the UN decided that it’s all part of the human rights for all agenda they’ve been defining for the past almost 60 years?

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