In case you missed it, Sunday was International Women’s Day, a holiday intended to highlight the condition of women all over the globe. According to its Web site, IWD was created in 1910 by a collective of working women from seventeen different countries. It was first observed the following year on March 19 and was moved to March 8 in 1913. In 1977, the United Nations invited all member countries to observe it each year. The day received relatively little fanfare in newspaper headlines, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement calling attention to the fact that, “Women still comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed, and unschooled.”
Yet Clinton’s statement in support of women’s rights internationally appears a bit hypocritical given the United States’ own position — or lack thereof — on a 30-year-old pact known as CEDAW, or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. According to David Crary of the Associated Press, CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations in 1979 and currently all but eight of the United Nations’s 192 member countries have endorsed it. Guess who’s missing from the list?
That’s right. In addition to Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Iran, Nauru, Palau and Tonga, the United States is one of the nations that has yet to sign onto the treaty.
Opposition to the pact has come from all directions. Crary writes that the right sees it as embarking on a slippery slope to granting women more abortion rights and granting families less personal privacy away from the government. The left, on the other hand, is increasingly concerned that its passage may only be possible with the addition of Republican stipulations that could erode the progress of women’s rights groups. Finally, another opposition group contends that the pact has already given legitimacy to governments who have signed it but who have not obeyed its regulations. They argue that the addition of an American signature will only cement this legitimacy.
Yet the United States cannot afford to leave its name off of another important international document calling for global action against global injustices. Like the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that the United States government continues to refuse to ratify, CEDAW has become another indication of America’s unwillingness to practice what it so often preaches.
It is appropriate that this year’s International Women’s Day is marked by Secretary Clinton’s vocal support of women’s rights as she continues to embark on her introductory world tour. It is shameful, however, that the country she represents refuses to add bite to its bark. According to the U.N., CEDAW has been described as an international bill of rights for women, both defining the meaning of discrimination against women and outlining ways in which such discrimination can be eliminated. Countries who endorse the measure agree to work towards the elimination of inequalities against women that currently exist within their borders.
Signing onto CEDAW is a symbolic gesture as much as it is a practical and political one. As a powerful arbiter in international relations, the U.S. government should use its influence to improve the economic, social, and political lives of an international body of people. Politicians should look beyond their domestic concerns about backroom politicking and consider the impact their decision may have on the rest of the world.
This is not to say that the American government should dictate how the citizens of other countries live their lives, nor should it smugly believe it has the power and the right to idealistically change the world for the better. But America is an undeniably influential country in world affairs, and if Clinton’s reception this past week is any indication, the world is listening to what she — and the government — has to say.
It is time to make American support for International Women’s Day and CEDAW known. Women’s rights, both here and abroad, cannot remain on the back pages of newspapers or as footnotes to the day’s events. As Clinton stated on Sunday, “Ensuring the rights of women and girls is not only a matter of justice. It is a matter of enhancing global peace, progress, and prosperity for generations to come.” It is time for Clinton and her fellow politicians to heed her words.
Amelia Meyer’s column appears Wednesdays in the Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.meyer@cavalierdaily.com.
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