Beware of big sister: Charmaine Yoest exposes a troubling treaty with a teflon title. Get ready for more shenanigans at the UN

Women's Quarterly, Autumn, 2002 by Charmaine Yoest

AS THE CO-AUTHOR OF Au pouvoir, citoyennes!: Liberte, egalite, parite, the 1992 book that galvanized the French movement toward establishing a system of political parite sociologist Francoise Gaspard is The Committee's spiritual godmother on this issue of gender and political quotas. Since the passage of a law in 1999 that established parite, French political parties now must field an equal number of men and women candidates for elections. This concept is enshrined in Article 7, which requires that states parties "shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country."

Gaspard herself has stated that she is not happy with parite--she feels it sets the bar too low. Related to her work with CEDAW, Gaspard has declared in speeches that "each government must have a ministry for women's rights." Trend-setting Denmark's 2002 report to The Committee was provided by a representative from Denmark's Ministry for Gender Equality. (The presentation even included a discussion with The Committee of the eating disorders of Danish children.)

But as Belgium's experience illustrates, demonstrating procedural mechanisms will not satisfy The Committee; states must demonstrate numerical equality. According to an Impact Study on the effects of CEDAW, done by the Centre for Feminist Research and the International Women's Rights Project, based at York University in Toronto, the "uniqueness" of the convention is in "its mandate for the achievement of substantive equality for women, which requires not only formal legal equality, but also equality of results in real terms." Hence, The Committee's continued emphasis on the use of "temporary special measures" to achieve gender equality in its instructions to states.

In 1997, The Committee's General Recommendations included a lengthy discussion of their interpretation of political equality. "The critical issue," they argued, "is the gap between the de jure and de facto, or the right as against the reality. . . ." The problem is "centuries of male domination of the public sphere." The solution is "setting numerical goals and quotas and targeting women for appointment to public positions." This is the only way to achieve true democracy."

The quotas apply in the workplace as well. Citing the International Labor Organization Convention No. 100, Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value, which was passed in 1951 (but also not ratified by the United States), The Committee chided its member states in 1989 to begin adopting "job evaluation systems" that compare male-dominated jobs with female-dominated jobs in order to establish gender equality.

Meanwhile, as the United States Senate considers ratification, other American institutions have charged ahead. The University of Minnesota houses the International Women's Rights Action Watch, an organization that is "a global network of individuals, dedicated to monitoring the implementation of CEDAW." Funded by the Ford, MacArthur, and Carnegie foundations, they publish Women's Watch, a newsletter detailing the impact of the treaty worldwide.