The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail. And as I sat through several sessions and side events at the UN today for CSW, the image of the Ouroboros kept popping into my head. Many of the issues and discussions brought up today were essentially in conflict with each other. For example, in one meeting I heard repeated that Female Genital Mutilation laws are not being passed because many politicians don’t want to seem racist by condemning behavior that is part of certain religious practices. And then immediately after I would hear that we need to crack down on racist politicians in the government and institute a no-tolerance policy.
I understand that these events are run by different groups and NGOs that have different beliefs and different issues that they are advocating for. But every single panel I heard today was left-leaning, and much of the information was borderline contradictory.
The first session I attended was called “Creating a Healthy Environment for Empowering Women”. And while some of the panel was focused on solving current equality problems in African countries (which I am 100% for), much of the panel was discussing that women in America don’t feel like they can be leaders. That “Trump was elected because women think women cannot lead”. Because apparently, societal pressure is the only reason so many people could vote for Trump.
I’m not sure I understand how you can talk so much about female empowerment and then proceed to throw them all under the bus and imply that they are all too weak-willed or socially manipulated to know better. Back to the snake that eats itself.
Finally, the last part of the panel was strange because they called on people to share problems that they needed funding for and then the panelists would offer to help them. For example, one woman asked for help paying for a field trip with her students. The panel replied that they would try to help her with that and to talk to them after. Everyone cheered. It was all very heartwarming. It seems like the perfect storm to talk about how useless women were on their own and then offer free help to them. It sets them up as the kind, benevolent gods that they are.
To be fair, this was only one of several panels I attended, not all of them were like that. And maybe I am being a bit harsh on the panelists, maybe they really are trying to just do good without any recognition.
Then again, maybe I’m right.
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