Trump's War on Women Comes to the UN

And he's also gunning for the SDGs!

The Commission on the Status of Women is one of those annual gatherings at the United Nations that is a big deal for those inside the UN bubble but rarely penetrates beyond it. The CSW, as it is known, is actually the second-largest gathering at the UN, behind only the opening of the UN General Assembly in September. For two weeks in March, thousands of delegates from around the world converge on UN headquarters for discussions about tangible ways to advance gender equality and women’s rights. CSW makes a difference. At its best, it can be a meeting of the minds where coalitions are formed, new programs of action are developed, and progress on equality is assessed and iterated upon.

But as delegates gathered for the opening of the 69th Commission on the Status of Women this week, they faced one major obstacle: an American administration that is dead set against a gathering like this and instead sees fighting gender equality as a top priority.

Before the conference even began, the U.S. sought to throw a wrench in the entire event by objecting to otherwise anodyne references to gender equality in a conference document, under the premise that such language directly contradicts Trump’s executive orders against DEI.

In other words, Trump tried to block references to gender equality in a conference dedicated to gender equality!

Meanwhile, at the Security Council this week, the U.S. refused to join Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom in a joint statement condemning the Taliban’s treatment of women. These countries issued the statement under the rubric of “Women, Peace, and Security,” a 25-year-old program that seeks to put gender perspectives at the heart of peace and security matters addressed at the Security Council. The U.S. was once a champion of that effort, but now, under Trump, it apparently is not.

So what does it mean that the Trump administration views the United Nations as a battleground for a war on gender equality? Do this week’s actions confirm that fighting DEI has become a prime directive for the United States at the UN—more important even than shoring up geopolitical alliances? And why in the world is the United States now explicitly denouncing the Sustainable Development Goals? (Yeah, that happened this week, too!)

In this week’s episode of To Save Us From Hell, Anjali Dayal and I discuss these questions and more—taking a deep dive into how Trump’s war on women is playing out at the United Nations.

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