This year UN Women and the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) are marking the 30th anniversary of the annual “Global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Against Women and Girls” campaign. This campaign uses “combating violence” as camouflage for promoting radical feminism. It disregards statistics proving that women are the primary perpetrators of intimate partner violence. And it proposes “solutions” irrelevant to the problem it claims to address.
A 2004 study found that “18.8% of women and 19.8% of men report [being victims of] assaults in the past year.” 43% of men are victims of controlling behavior by romantic partners compared to 41% of women. Research assessing 31 universities in 16 countries—including some in Asia and the Middle East—found female students were the most common perpetrators of domestic violence at over two thirds of them. A 2009 study of domestic violence in patriarchal Eastern India found 22% of men but only 16% of women had been subjected to domestic assault.
UN Women twists statistics to give the false impression that mistreatment of women by men is both pervasive and more common than mistreatment of men by women. Two claims made by UN women will show just how bold are its methods of misinformation.
First: “A new report...based on data from 13 countries since the pandemic, shows that 2 in 3 women reported that they or a woman they know experienced some form of violence and are more likely to face food insecurity.” The utter meaninglessness of this is easily demonstrable. Suppose 1 out of 100 women experienced violence. Suppose also that that 1 woman is known by 66 of the 100. 1% of those women would have faced violence. 67% would have either faced violence or known a woman who had.
Second: “In addition to the impact of COVID-19, the global context of violent conflicts and humanitarian crises, including climate-related disasters, are affecting more people than ever before.” No numbers are given to substantiate this but consider the following. There are over 7.5 billion people in the world. In 1951 the number was 2.5 billion. So, if the proportion of people affected by disease, violent conflict, etc. has been cut in half since 1951 the absolute number affected would still have increased by 50%. And how badly people are affected has been dramatically reduced by modern technology.
The real agenda UN Women hopes to advance can be gleaned from a document referenced by its “Concept Note” for the 16 Days Campaign. Policy goals endorsed by that document—allegedly as means for combating violence against women—include:1) “Increase accountability to, participation of and support for autonomous feminist and women’s organizations.” 2) “By 2026, double the global annual growth rate of funding from all sectors committed to women led, girl-led and feminist-led movements.” 3) “By 2026, double the proportion of women working in technology and innovation.” 4) “Expand women’s access to and control over productive resources through increasing women’s access to and control over land...and the number of firms owned by women by 2026.”
In other words, UN Women wants to: 1) Increase government support for and funding of leftist movements. 2) Prioritize gender over training, experience, normal free market functioning, etc. when determining who works in technology and innovation, who controls resources, who owns firms, etc. 3) Spend taxpayer money on programs and bureaucracies intended assure such prioritization of gender over training, experience and normal market functioning.
UN Women also wants to change “structural, social and gender norms, attitudes and beliefs that impact interpersonal relationships, families, communities, and institutions.” That’s a euphemism for attacking the traditional beliefs, social customs and religious freedom of members of most major world religions—including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism—for the sake of feminist goals.
What the 16 Days Campaign really demonstrates is the need for vigilance over funding of the UN. In 2019, for example, the United States provided the UN with $17 billion. Only 30% of that was in fulfillment of US obligations as a UN member nation. The rest was a donation. The total provided the UN without about 20% of its funding for the year. And that was at a time when Donald Trump had reduced America’s contribution. Congress should cut the cash flow to the UN rather than spend working Americans’ money on feminist social engineering in Azerbaijan.
