First, how about people-centered sustainable sentences?
(Clause 19) “Absolute poverty, unemployment, the increasing fragility of the environment, continued violence against women, and the widespread exclusion of half of humanity from instiutions of power and governance underscore the need to continue the search for development, peace and security and for ways of assuring people-centered sustainable development.”


“This is my daughter Lisa, also known as my ‘gender-based barrier.'”
(Clause 24) “….Female-maintained households are very often among the poorest because of wage discrimination, occupational segregation patterns in the labor market and other gender-based barriers.”


Not to mention marital counseling by Bella Abzug.
(Clause 24 continued) “Family disintegration, population movements between urban and rural areas within countries, international migration, war and internal displacements are factors contributing to the rise of female-headed households.”


Like giving birth, for instance.
(Clause 28) “In many countries, the differences between women?s and men?s achievements and activities are still not recognized as the consequences of socially constructed gender roles rather than immutable biological differences.”


Men are so toxic that pollution is probably good for them anyway.
(Clause 36) “Continuing environmental degradation that affects all human lives often has a more direct impact on women. Women’s health and their livelihood are threatened by pollution and toxic wastes, large-scale deforestation, desertification, drought, and depletion of the soil and of coastal and marine resources, with a rising incidence of environmentally related health problems and even death reported among women and girls.”


Equality will only be achieved by maintaining a highly paid, female civil service.
(Clause 162) “Lack of employment in the private sector and reductions in public services and public service jobs have affected women disproportionately.”


Thus the need for conferences like this one.
(Clause 29) “Moreover, ten years after the Nairobi Conference, equality between women and men has still not been achieved.”


This article is reprinted from the Autumn 1995 issue of The Women’s Quarterly.