UN resolution and USA

[Angryresister]

Interesting piece in Guardian about US opposition to resolution calling for education and support for reproductive health programmes. The US wants to veto on grounds abortion will be included. However they also want to change the use of the word Gender to Sex, which I 100% agree with. Sorry, I can't seem to link. Are there any other countries holding the same position, and should GC feminists be taking this one on, and how?

Is this the story you mean?The headline is misleading:
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/us-un-resolution-rape-weapon-of-war-veto

The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war because of its language on reproductive and sexual health, according to a senior UN official and European diplomats.

The German mission hopes the resolution will be adopted at a special UN security council session on Tuesday on sexual violence in conflict.

But the draft resolution has already been stripped of one of its most important elements, the establishment of a formal mechanism to monitor and report atrocities, because of opposition from the US, Russia and China, which opposed creating a new monitoring body.

Even after the formal monitoring mechanism was stripped from the resolution, the US was still threatening to veto the watered-down version, because it includes language on victims’ support from family planning clinics. In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions. It has also opposed the use of the word “gender”, seeing it as a cover for liberal promotion of transgender rights.

I read this and mused on how the power in the conversation lies with whomever controls the narrative.

"USA vetos UN resolution over language choice" makes the US the baddies. (And, yes, they are in this scenario, IMO)

But

"UN holds US to ransom over the word 'gender', gambling rape victims' rights in the process" makes clear that refusing to cede a stupid word, gender, for the more accurate sex, is risking women's lives over an ideology that doesn't even benefit them.

Now I KNOW this isn't just about gender. And the US are abominable on the reproductive rights issue.

But to politically seize the narrative in women's best interests would be the wise choice here. The negotiation is still happening.

Women's groups should be pressuring the UN to cede the word gender, and gain reproductive rights language in return. And they should be ready to loudly criticise the UN for using women's rights as hostage to an agenda about the word 'gender'.

Binding our rights to bodily autonomy to men's rights to redefine us as a 'gender' is also morally indefensible.

Risking the failure of a resolution about rape as a war crime because you are insisting women are a 'gender' and you won't budge tells me you don't truly care about women's rights.

Yes, why the fuck is the UN’s red line the ability to use the wrong word to categorise women?

I've now read the Guardian article and the previous Resolution it refers to, and assuming the article is accurate, it's clear the red line here is abortion provision, even if it may also the case that the USA want "sex-based violence" to replace "gender-based violence".

Article says:
In cases of disagreement in the security council, member states often fall back on previously agreed text, but the US has made it clear it would no longer accept language from a 2013 resolution on sexual violence.

“They are threatening to use their veto over this agreed language on comprehensive healthcare services including sexual and reproductive health. The language is being maintained for the time being and we’ll see over the next 24 hours how the situation evolves,” Patten said.

“It will be a huge contradiction that you are talking about a survivor-centered approach and you do not have language on sexual and reproductive healthcare services, which is for me the most critical.”

In a draft of the resolution seen by the Guardian, the contentious phrase is only mentioned once, in a clause that “urges United Nations entities and donors to provide non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health, psychosocial, legal and livelihood support and other multi-sectoral services for survivors of sexual violence, taking into account the specific needs of persons with disabilities.”

This is that Resolution 2106 (2013): undocs.org/en/S/RES/2106(2013)

The term "gender-based violence" appears all through the report, together with "sexual violence". If the USA is focussing on that one paragraph, then this is about abortion.

Thank you for the analysis everyone...yes it is abortion rights that are ng challenged. What about sex selective abortions? Presumably this is covered by other resolutions.

I can see why the UN Resolution uses "gender" – it looks like it's trying to be clear when talking in English about violence which involves acts of sex ("sexual violence") and about violence which is meted out because of the sex of the victim ("gender-based violence").

Obviously these overlap, but it's a key element of the resolution that it recognises that women and girls suffer other violence because they are women and girls, not just sexual acts.

I think the general rubbishness of the English language around the words "sex" and "gender" may have been discussed on here previously. Ie that there can be a tendency to avoid using "sex" to avoid confusion with the act of sex, and because "sex" can sound rude.

Don't know how we get round that one, but it would be a heck of step forward if we could, because at the moment we're trapped with two words, "sex" and "gender", both of which have multiple uses in common speech.

(BTW the 2013 resolution is a little over five pages, so not too long a read. Link again: undocs.org/en/S/RES/2106(2013) )