On December 18

On this day in ...
... 1979 (30 years ago today), at U.N. headquarters in New York, by a vote of 130-0-10, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women at U.N. headquarters in New York City. The next summer, in Copenhagen, Denmark, 64 states signed and 2 ratified the Convention. On September 3, 1981, it entered into force, "faster than any previous human rights convention had done." It has 186 states parties, Qatar having joined in April "without any reservations." This, alas, has been less than common in the case of CEDAW, as this article indicates -- though Morocco withdrew its reservations last December. As for the United States, a nonparty state, a March 2009 Nation article by Betsy Reed framed the then-soon-expected debate on U.S. ratification of the Women's Convention:

Will the Obama administration, and Senate Democrats, bow to pressure from antiabortion Republicans and include ... conditions in this year's version, in a bid to ensure passage? Or will they push for a 'clean CEDAW,' as many feminists are urging? Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the relevant Foreign Relations subcommittee, has pledged to begin hearings with a clean version of the treaty,
but pressure will quickly mount to muck it up.

(credit for Lisa Bennett photo of 2000 pro-CEDAW demonstration in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the National Organization for Women) Classes having ended for the semester, we at the California International Law Center at King Hall, University of California, Davis, School of Law, will be marking the anniversary with a noon-hour event on Thursday, January 28: "The Women's Convention at 30." Featured will be Krishanti Dharmaraj (right) -- who successfully persuaded the Board of Supervisors to make San Francisco the 1st "city in the United States to pass legislation implementing an international human rights treaty," CEDAW -- as well as members of our CILC Faculty Council, like Afra Afsharipour, Lisa Ikemoto, IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Lisa R. Pruitt, and Madhavi Sunder.

(Prior December 18 posts are here and here.)

Another Old Feminism icon jumps the shark*

As one with a penchant for wearing my Ms.-issued T-shirt, "Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman," I was thrilled back in the summer of 1984 at the prospect of casting 1 of my 1st-ever top-of-the-national-ticket votes for Geraldine A. Ferraro (left). Ferraro had just defeated an African-American candidate, former Congresswoman and presidential candidate Shirley A. Chisholm, by a delegate vote of 3,920 to 3, to seize the Democratic vice presidential nomination.
Was unsettled soon after that convention by stories questioning my candidate. Was discomfited later in the season, as I watched what, I was forced to admit, did not seem to me anywhere near the stellar performance I'd expected in Ferraro's debate with her GOP opponent, incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush. Neither matter was enough to change my vote, though.
The chance to put A Woman in the White House trumped any and all doubts in my mind.
Other voters disagreed, however, and in 1984 Republicans trounced Ferraro and her presidential slatemate, Walter Mondale, by a popular vote margin of 58.8% to 40.6%, an electoral vote margin of 525 to 13, and an abysmal states-won margin of 49 to 1.
The experience taught me caution in choosing candidates.
I have voted, of course, for many women since, for in these interim decades there have been many, many women on the ballot. But I have never voted for The Woman when convinced that her opponent was the better choice. In general, I have been pleased with the women who've led where I lived -- U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to name 2. But by no means have all women leaders pleased me. Still, as this post indicates, I've carried a soft spot for Ferraro all these years, notwithstanding that her candidacy resulted in 4 more years of Reagan-Bush, followed by 4 of Bush-Quayle -- a stretch that helped pave the way for 7-years-and-counting of Bush-Cheney.
No soft spot any more.
IntLawGrrl Johanna E. Bond wrote a while back of her disappointment in Ms. founder Gloria Steinem. Now Ferraro's joined Steinem as an icon of Old Feminism who seems bent on permanently staining her own image in the eyes of New Feminists.
No stomach for repeating what Ferraro's said these last several days; click to read her initial words, and her subsequent defense of herself.
Suffice it to say that a "feminism" that defends women against all, and above all, a "feminism" that reduces everything to a phenomenon to be explained by assigned identities, that ignores intersections among sex and class and race and ethnicity and other attributes, a "feminism" that divides when it ought to unite, deserves no embrace.
Words of division merit only 1 response: denunciation and rejection, now and always.

* "jump the shark" is among my favorite phrases; definition here.

On November 11, ...

... 1970, the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, which had been concluded 2 years earlier in New York, entered into force. Today the treaty, which would expose persons suspected of enumerated international crimes to the risk of prosecution no matter how old the alleged incident, has 51 states parties. Among these is found only 1 of the 5 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the Russian Federation.
... 1946, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) was born in Jacksonville, Florida.
... 1940, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.) was born in Brooklyn, New York. She's pictured at left on the Senate floor, outlining her opposition to the nomination of then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to become Secretary of State. In January 2005 Rice was confirmed by the full Senate; Boxer was among 13 Senators who voted "nay."
... 1918, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, as schoolchildren learn, an armistice took effect, ending World War I on its western front, though sporadic violence continued for a time in the east. The ceasefire agreement'd been signed earlier in the day by the Axis power, Germany, and Allied powers, Britain, France, and the United States. The event is cause for memorials in many countries, by names varying from Fête de l'Armistice to Remembrance Day to Poppy Day (right) to Veterans Day.

Is "Inconvenient" True?

Recently watched "An Inconvenient Truth" on DVD. Fidgeted through former Vice President Albert Gore's Global Warming 101 lecture. Mourned, in a simulacrum sort of way, the computer-generated drowning of a puppy-eyed polar bear. But then another animated graphic put an end to stupor: Greenland having melted, the waters of San Francisco Bay swallowed the very house in which I was sitting. OK, get it now.
Gore-as-Cassandra brought the "Inconvenient" news to Congress yesterday. House members seemed to accept Gore's sounding of a "planetary emergency." Yet in spite of a verbal box on the ears from Senate Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.), doubter James Inhofe (R-Okla.) continued to cry hoax.

If Gore is right and "Inconvenient" is true -- and nearly all scientists say that's so -- isn't it time to stop sparring and start doing something?

Cassandra, recall, was right, but by the time others got it, it was too late.