Feminists Outraged at UN Loss, Presence of Pro-Life Groups

By | March 14, 2025

UNITED NATIONS, March 14 (C-Fam) The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), one of the UN’s largest annual feminist gathering, has seen a dramatic mood shift, largely because of the change in U.S. leadership.

The Commission adopted a political declaration at the beginning of the two-week conference that, over objections from the U.S., contains numerous references to “gender” as opposed to specifying “women and girls.” The document also contains language about “intersecting forms of discrimination,” which is often used to bring in issues of gender identity and sexual orientation.

However, the declaration left out references to sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights, and sexuality education, prompting disappointment from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and outrage from the pro-abortion group Women Deliver. Women Deliver said these references were “sacrificed in a last-minute political bargain” that was “indefensible.”

During the first week of CSW, statements from feminists were more embattled. At a town hall event for CSW attendees, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, declared that “around the world, a ferocious backlash against the rights of women and girls is growing in power and strength.” Earlier, at the CSW opening, he warned that “the poison of patriarchy is back…with a vengeance.”

Canadian ambassador Bob Rae was more explicit: ““We’re in a major fight at the moment about equity, about diversity, about LGBTQ+ rights — generally, about even the concept of gender,” he said.  Rae attached that U.S., as well as Russia and the Holy See, for “really pushing back hard on what they see as the values proposition.”

Numerous events in and around the UN included themes of “backlash” and “pushback.” At an event hosted by several Nordic countries, attendees wondered whether European groups would step in to replace the funding for feminist groups that they formerly received from USAID.  An abortion activist from Kenya said that “anti-rights groups are having a field day in the global South” due to their conservative and religious populations.  A Nordic panelist noted that “anti-gender movements” were also growing in their region.  “We are not immune.”

Pro-life and pro-family attendees noticed an increase in gatekeeping around attendance at publicly advertised events.  One C-Fam volunteer—a mother with a small baby— was removed from an event on the role of religion in the “backlash,” ostensibly because the event was full, despite about a third of the chairs being empty.  Others found themselves excluded despite having submitted RSVPs weeks in advance.

Meanwhile, pro-life and pro-family organizations have increasingly found their applications to host events denied by the NGO platform that works directly with CSW organizer UN Women.  For the past two years, the conservative coalition has organized a parallel conference across the street from the UN.  One of its events was co-sponsored by the United States: a panel discussion on the threats of gender ideology to women and girls.  All of the events at the parallel conference were open to all and did not require prior registration.

In the past, feminists largely ignored the conservative presence at CSW, but no longer.  Women Deliver issued a statement saying that “hate groups and fascists in power are working to erase trans, non-binary, and LGBTQIA+ people from global spaces like CSW. […] Now that they hold power in key global capitals, their attacks have intensified and become alarmingly more effective.”

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