The March 8 timing of Biden’s call for cash pushed it to the peripheries of immediate concern. But that wasn’t intended by an administration whose website boasts that the president: “Proposed a record $2.6 billion to advance gender equity and equality through foreign assistance in FY 2023, more than doubling the commitment proposed in the [already astronomical] FY 2022 [Biden administration] Budget.”
Highlighting the president’s commitment to a disturbing agenda was the timing’s purpose. March 8 is the innocuous sounding “International Women’s Day”—an annual event created by the International Socialist Women’s Conference over a century ago. At first it was held on March 18 in honor of the 1871 Paris Commune. It was first given official status by Lenin in the USSR. Other communist governments—including Mao’s People’s Republic of China—followed his example. The United Nations embraced it in 1975.
Contemporary organizers of International Women’s Day emphasize its socialist origins. Their website states that: “A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day” and that “over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs...greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval.” Inspiration came from a “National Women’s Day” held in the United States “by the Socialist Party of America.”
Announcing policy initiatives in conjunction with this event is becoming a Biden tradition. Last year’s initiative was the creation of the Gender Equity Policy Council. That body is guided by a “National Strategy on Gender Equity” which:
- Promotes a laundry list of leftist causes unrelated to gender. These include proposals that would undermine the market economy and society’s class structures.
- Inaccurately alleges women are “underprivileged” in professions which they are rapidly coming to dominate or which they have little interest in entering.
- Presupposes the factual error that domestic violence is primarily male-on-female and promotes the equally erroneous view that violence is rooted in “power inequalities.”
Intergovernmental organizations and major international activist groups—likely beneficiaries of Biden’s proposed spending—embrace the same ideology. The “Generation Equality Forum” sponsored by UN Women, for example, blamed “the current economic system” for “violence against women.” It’s plan for eliminating such violence includes a “reconstruction of the global economic and financial system” that would “explicitly and intentionally redistribute power and responsibility in a way that is…mindful of...social class.”
One might have hoped the sheer enormity of the sum Biden is called for would alienate lawmakers as did his defunct “Build Back Better” program. In fact a Congress with much more severe problems to worry about voted him the money within a week. And both the president's and the first lady's messages for International Women’s Day suggest they use opposition to the war in Ukraine as a context for more of the same.
President Biden’s message contained the suitably vague statement that “Improving the status of women and girls strengthens...democracies.” His wife’s was more direct and included the following:
- Women “can tear down injustice, [and] topple tyrants and demagogues.”
- “To our sisters from Ukraine who are fighting to keep their country free and their families alive: We stand with you in solidarity.”
- “To our sisters in Russia who are protesting and speaking out against the invasion at great personal risk: We see your courage.”
No doubt the coming months will see numerous initiatives to “strengthen democracy in Ukraine” and “support democratic movements in Russia.” Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s equation of “democracy” with feminist and socialistic beliefs and policies makes it necessary for responsible lawmakers to scrutinize the details of any such initiatives.