Australia is currently debating ratification of the “UN Convention (Treaty) on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.” It has been ratified by 15 Communist countries, but not by the United States or Western European countries.
The UN Treaty shows the futility of trying to establish rules and regulations, goals and guidelines for nations that have no political, legal, social, economic, or cultural structure or customs in common. American women want to get out of their kitchens, while an American-style kitchen would be the fondest dream of women in most other countries.
The UN Treaty starts off with a declaration that governments are “aware that a change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality between men and women.” But what is the “traditional” role of women?
In Africa, women have traditionally done 98% of all the work that is done, while the men devote themselves to hunting, fishing, and fighting. In Russia, women are traditionally locked full-time, lifetime, into the paid (and heavy) labor force equally with men, and also do all the so-called “women’s work” in the home.
Article 5 decrees that governments “shall … modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of … stereotyped roles for men and women.” “To eliminate stereotyped roles,” in modern American jargon, means to eliminate the traditional roles of husband-breadwinner, wife-homemaker, and mother-child-caretaker.
Article 10 mischievously attempts to dictate textbook content and school curriculum. It binds the governments to bring about “the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education … by the revision of textbooks and school programs and the adaptation of teaching methods.”
Article 11 orders governments “to encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities.”
These child-care facilities have no relation to whether the child or his parents are financially needy, but are designed to make sure that all parents are in the labor force. Indeed, the first sentence of this article establishes “the right to work as an inalienable right of all human beings.”
In America, the phrase “the right to work” has come to mean the right to hold your job without joining a labor union. It is unlikely that the UN Treaty means that. It more likely means the Communist-style obligation of all males and females to work full-time, lifetime, in the paid labor force (except for several months of maternity leave).
For implementation, Article 17 sets up a Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women consisting of 23 “experts.” There is no guarantee that the English-speaking democracies will have even one representative on the Committee.
At the present time, only one of the 23 experts is from a Western democracy, while 10 are from Communist countries, including both Russia and China.
It is difficult to understand why any Western democracy would put itself in the noose of having its laws pertaining to women and the family supervised or reviewed by Communist “experts.” In Communist China, a woman is permitted only one child; after the live birth of the first child, she faces compulsory abortion or sterilization.
The UN Treaty is probably the originator of the deceptive practice of clothing socialist and pacifist goals in the mantle of “women’s rights.” The Treaty asserts that “nuclear disarmament” and the “new international economic order” will promote “full equality between men and women,” although there isn’t a shred of evidence that either has anything to do with ending discrimination against women.
Nuclear disarmament is code language for accepting a world in which the superior Soviet missile force is the preeminent power. “New international economic order” is a code phrase for using the UN and other international organizations to steal the fruits of the American private enterprise system (technology and capital) and transfer them to totalitarian rulers who have no intention of giving wealth or freedom to their subjects.
Some may assume that the treaty power extends only to governments and not to individuals. Article 2, however, binds the governments “to eliminate discrimination against women by any person, organization or enterprise.” The Treaty would mean Big UN Brother looking over the shoulder of individual persons and inquiring into their motives.
