Day 4

Today was an early day. Ecumenical Women holds a worship service every morning at 8:00 in the chapel at the UNCC (UN Church Center), and this was the morning for the young adult delegations (Episcopal, NCC, and WSCF) to plan and lead the service. We spent yesterday afternoon planning it, but we wanted to run it through before the actual service, so we left the hotel at 6:30. The service went really well—it was worth the early hour. But I am excited for the Episcopal/Anglican service on Wednesday—I’m more comfortable with formal liturgy.
After the service we met with the Episcopal high school delegation. Then I watched the simulcast of the Opening Plenary in the UNCC (I don’t have my badge yet, so I couldn’t watch it from the NGO platform above the General Assembly). The Opening Plenary was depressing in that its content was probably very similar to the content of the Opening Plenary from 5 or even 10 years ago. Common themes included the still-existent gap between rhetoric and implementation and the impracticability of trying to separate the MDGs from gender equality. The opening plenary and various conversations today made me think about the difference between academic and political rhetoric. I noticed this most in representations of female genital mutilation as an immoral practice that the international community has an obligation to address. Everybody condemned it outright, but I thought back to Mahoney’s Africa since 1800 course, in which we read papers challenging the West’s fascination with FGS. The authors pointed to this fascination as an example of the inappropriate sexualizing of African cultures by Western nations. It was interesting to compare the political discussion of FGS to the academic discussion (which asks if we should even be discussing it in political arenas at all).
I went to a fantastic panel on Women, Migration, and Global Turmoil, which featured representatives of the International Trade Federation, Domestic Workers United, and a climate change organization with a name I didn’t catch. They discussed the implications of treating labor as a commodity like any other good, the effects of not including domestic work under labor laws, and the ways in which the environmental movement has framed climate change-related migration. The last subject was especially interesting—the speaker argued that some environmental arguments are leading to prejudice against migrants. For example, when people argue that we should combat climate change because that would help slow the influx of migrants, they imply that migrants are unwanted and unwelcome.
I went to the Africa caucus after lunch, and it wasn’t very informative, but a couple of the speeches were really cool. One speaker said that she could describe the report that the Africa Caucus is releasing this year in four words: celebration, despair, urgency, and hope. I also really liked something the keynote speaker said: “We are on the right track. We just need to accelerate.”
We had short delegation debrief, then I finished the day with a panel called “Unwanted pregnancy, abortion, and young women”, which was great. There were four speakers: a woman from Pakistan who discussed reproductive rights in Southeast Asia, a woman from Malawi who discussed reproductive health programs there, a man from Mexico who discussed men’s role in reproductive rights, and a woman from a U.S. activist group who discussed responses to “anti-choice opposition”. They told stories instead of debating abortion, which made the event more interesting.
The Episcopal Young Adult Delegation had an epic debrief and closing service back at the hotel, with everything from hilarious stories about waiting 5 hours in line for badges (I have yet to get mine… uhh…) to discussions about different emotional responses to the Commission. All the young adult delegations under Ecumenical Women are staying at the same hotel, which is really great because we all end up hanging out in the mezzanine every night writing blogs and planning things. And singing the same song that all of us have stuck in our head from this morning. Somebody’s calling out your name…