Gender Bender

Wonder what the UN's "human rights" racket has been up to lately? It appears to have taken time off from its usual agenda of slandering the Jewish state to focus on an "annual discussion on the integration of a gender perspective in (its) work." Here's the skinny--in deliciously clunky diplomacy-speak--from the UNHRC site:

MORNING
24 September 2010
The Human Rights Council this morning held its annual discussion on the integration of a gender perspective in its work. The panel discussed how well the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms had integrated a gender perspective into their work, and identified lessons-learned, obstacles, shortcomings and challenges to the integration of a gender perspective throughout the work of the Council.

Introducing the panel discussion, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-Wha Kang said the theme of today's discussion tied in very well with the review of the work of the Council, to be undertaken over the next few months. In order to properly internalise a gender perspective, and make it an integral part of the work done, there was a need to be prepared to embrace profound change, and this must be actively fostered. Attention to the goal of gender equality had to be central to all activities - policy development, research, advocacy/dialogue, legislation, resource allocation and planning, implementation and monitoring of programmes and projects. The establishment of a new mechanism on discriminatory laws and practices would be a further step in the Council's work to strengthen the protection of women's rights per se, and would also contribute to an analysis which would underpin further gender integration, Ms. Kang concluded.

Panellist Emmanuel Decaux, Member of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, said that even if the Advisory Committee was far from being gender balanced, all its members were mobilized by the question of integrating a gender perspective in the work of the Council. The Council asked the Advisory Committee to set up draft guidelines on ways to improve gender mainstreaming in the work of the Council, which did not come to immediate fruition. Mr. Decaux reiterated the need to look at the qualitative side of women’s rights and not just the quantitative statistics, strengthen the complementarity of all United Nations bodies working on the issue of gender equality and incorporate a gender perspective into all United Nations Agencies, not just in New York and Geneva but also in the field...

Yawn. You'd never know from reading this high-toned bilge than the Council and the UN are in thrall to regimes which hew to laws that enshrine inequality and accord chicks a second-class status.