On this International Women's Day, it is fitting that we reflect upon United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted almost ten years ago. With this resolution, the United Nations recognized that conflict disproportionately impacts civilians, and particularly women. It remains a powerful call to protect those who are most vulnerable in conflicts and their aftermath, and to enhance the participation of women in building peace and security.
Unfortunately, women and girls still suffer excessively from conflicts and the lawlessness of post-conflict environments. At the same time, women are far too often excluded from playing a role in maintaining, restoring, and defending stability.
NATO understands this dilemma. Our military authorities have developed guidelines for the integration of gender issues into NATO planning and operations. We also have increased the proportion of women on NATO's political staff, and we have studied carefully the significance of gender issues in Afghanistan.
I suggest three courses of action.
First, we need to become more attentive to women's concerns in our areas of operations. High-level gender advisors already serve in our Headquarters in Kabul, and many Provincial Reconstruction Teams now employ gender experts. The United States Marine Corps has even begun fielding all-women military units in some of the most troubled Afghan provinces. All the same, we still lack sufficient numbers of trained gender specialists, female interpreters, and women soldiers.
Secondly, we must incorporate more women into our forces. NATO countries are not perfect when it comes to gender equality, and we have our own progress to make. Today, the number of women employed in Allied armed forces varies greatly. In some NATO armies, the percentage of women is as high as 18 per cent. In others, it is as low as 3 per cent.
Finally, we need greater cooperation and coordination among international institutions on issues concerning women, peace, and security. Governmental and non-governmental institutions have much to benefit from cross-training and education. After all, for training and operations in the field, we will likely draw on the same pool of resources.
There is a deeper issue here.
Many of the world's longest and deadliest conflicts - in Congo, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere - occur in regions where women's rights are often infringed. As the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has recently written, "[C]ountries that marginalize women often end up unstable."
If this is true, then the empowerment of women in unstable countries benefits not only them, but all of us. It is, to my mind, a crucial component of a comprehensive approach to the security challenges of the 21st century. During this International Women's Day, we should remember that allowing all women to exercise their full rights is not only an obvious moral imperative. It may have far-reaching geopolitical consequences as well.
Would a world in which women enjoyed rights equal to those of men be safer and more stable? It is difficult to say, but ultimately a lasting peace in many of the world's most troubled areas may depend upon the answer.
On that note, I hope you enjoy the video below, and please feel free to visit my blog.
Juliette Fretté: Gender Equality and the Decline of Marriage
Yolanda Reid Chassiakos: Gender Equality: Striking a Blow for Civility?
http://www.adduonline.org/articles/woman99.htm
( Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 301)
supply, !!!!
Even if Europeans had more children, they would not be that part of the work force that immigrants end up doing...they will be better educated and doing something else. So immigrants from poor countries are here to stay.
Then there is this stigma with abortion...do we really think we are doing god work or benfitting mankind by allowing the poor women to have more childdren than they can poossibly care for when they can barely care for themselves? Teenagers should have babies dso they drop out of schoold and become wardens of the state? Does the pope and other religious leaders ever look out into the suffering of the world and its ecological disaster, the poor and the hungry, the jails ful of hoodlums, and say: multiply and be fruitful with a clean conscience?
If we have any brains and survival instincts we should be preaching the contrary...less babies , birth control available for free, education and science enforrced so we dont have to put up with
corporate and religious lies and deceits. No suicide bombers, no talibans, no Uganda, no C street, no ......you name it!
Just imagine the uproar in the U.S. if any nation tried to call their election process democratic, while simultaneously declaring that white men must win 40% of the seats, or any percentage of seats for that matter? It's clearly a bigoted, narrow-minded, and self-defeating policy.
Do the propenents of such identity based politics believe it is impossible for a person to treat someone who looks different from themseves justly? That seems to me to indicate more about the person pushing the identity politics agenda, than it says about bigotry in the society at large.
Try again.
Not enough overwrought emotional hyperbole I suppose.
Perhaps I should have sprinkled more "greed" and "no fault of their own" throughout the post to make it comprehensible to you.
Considering more men are against abortion than women, yes...I believe it IS difficult for men to legislate women's issues with a clear head. It's easy to be against terminating pregnancies when you'll never be the one who has to carry them.
I think "equal" treatment would, for example, mean paying people an equivalent wage, for an equivalent quantity or quality of work. That would not mean however, subsidizing a woman's maternity needs through excess leave and/or pay that would not be available to her male, or other non-pregnant colleagues. That also does not mean that a person should be able to assert they've been cheated for the past 20 years on the job, because they found out after the fact that somebody else had a higher wage.
My impression is largely that the people clammoring for more "equality" between the genders are not seeking equality at all, but special benefits and compensations that they feel are owed to a priveleged class of society.
The pig pen is that way>>>>>>>>
Maybe people should plan ahead and save up money to cover the expense of their reproductive choices? Wouldn't that be a fairer approach than demanding a right to concessions from co-workers who will never be eligible for such a huge compensation benefit?
I know the concept of jsutice is hard for progressives, particularly when emotional subjects like pregnant mothers are involved. But if you'll notice the iconic statue of justice is wearing a blindfold, and is not meant to be swayed by the gender, or belly size of the person seeking justice.
How se x i st of you...
Profound blindness
Male domination and the gazing Narcissist
understand that the male psyche can not subsist without its female half-core; a stifled female Always means a Defeated Male. A Defeated Male means the endangered world we live in now.--Leila Farjami
Must read article Mr. R:
http://www.iranian.com/LeilaFarjami/2006/October/Male/index.html
It's bad enough now with Mr. Emmanuel stinking up the place, much less an HRC administration chock full of DLCers.
You PUMAs need to find a new cause... because bashing women for voting their progressive consciences is selfish and small-minded.