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United Nations Gender Equality Backlash
FILE - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 19, 2023. The U.N.’s preeminent global body promoting equality for women and girls opened its annual meeting Monday, March 11, 2024, with five male speakers in a row...a lineup that made some of the men uneasy and left the hundreds of women in packed General Assembly chamber somewhat baffled. Guterres, the second speaker, told the meeting that women and girls are suffering most “from wars waged by men,” singling out Gaza. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

A meeting of the UN body promoting equality for women starts with 5 male speakers

The U.N.’s preeminent body promoting equality for women and girls has opened its annual meeting with five male speakers in a row

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Published - Mar 11, 2024, 09:43 PM ET
Last Updated - Mar 11, 2024, 09:43 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.’s preeminent body promoting equality for women and girls opened its annual meeting Monday with five male speakers in a row – a lineup that made some of the men uneasy and was somewhat baffling to the hundreds of women in the packed General Assembly chamber.

Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Development Program and the last of the male speakers, said when he stepped to the microphone: “I am very conscious of the fact that I am yet another man standing at this podium addressing you.”

He said he had two choices: “Don’t speak or stand up” and support gender equality.

Croatia’s U.N. Ambassador Ivan Šimonović, the third male speaker representing the U.N. Economic and Social Council, apologized for the absence of the council’s president, a woman, who had a family emergency. So, he said, “you are getting the male vice president, adding to the agenda disbalance of this opening.”

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