‘Wokeness’, the idea that problems are rooted in ‘toxic masculinity’, ‘male chauvinism’ and ‘White privilege’ is becoming mainstreamed, even at the United Nations. The secretary-general, himself a White and Christian male, has comically tried to discuss it using statistics.
On March 13, 2023, UNSG Antonio Gutteres gave remarks to the Women’s Civil Society Town Hall in New York, in which he rejected ‘Male Chauvinist’ domination of the technology sector, and called for an overhaul of ‘Patriarchal Structures’. His examples were problematic at their core.
Consider Gutters’ comment about the war in Ukraine: “and while men still largely make those decisions, women and girls often pay the price. Ninety percent of refugees from the war in Ukraine are women and their children.” He said that men make the decisions to go to war but that women and their children pay the price.
Firstly, the children are not just the women’s children but of the men as well. Secondly and critically, the women are the refugees because they get to leave the fighting area. All Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years old have been forced to remain and fight the Russians. While there are significantly more women than men in Ukraine, it is the men – many older – who are left to fight against the large Russian army.
Yet the United Nations flips the suffering to the women who are afforded the ability to flee to safety.
Gutteres made similarly ridiculous comments about the COVID-19 pandemic when he said “The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over for women who lost their jobs, and girls who lost their chance of education. The cost-of-living crisis is hitting women and girls first and worst.” The basic fact is that men LOST THEIR LIVES while women lost their jobs. The death rate for men in the pandemic was 1.6 times that of women.
Yet the United Nations flipped the pain to the women who survived in much greater numbers than men.
This was akin to Gutteres rebuking rich and White European countries for prioritizing administering vaccines during the pandemic to their own citizens, saying “I am particularly concerned about the African continent.… we must tackle the devastating social and economic dimensions of this crisis, with a focus on those most affected: women, older persons, youth.” But barely anyone from the African continent died from COVID. It was mostly older White men, not Black women. (As of this writing, there were 15 deaths per million in Nigeria, compared to 5,076 per million in Hungary). Who was really most affected?
It’s amazing what can be done with selectively choosing statistics to burnish a particular narrative.
And the leader of the United Nations has a very specific and woke narrative: “Many of the challenges we face today — from conflicts to climate chaos to the cost-of-living crisis — are the result of a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture, taking the key decisions that guide our world. And while men still largely make those decisions, women and girls often pay the price.” Men only do harm. They don’t contribute to the good of society – developing vaccines, building infrastructure, providing security, etc. – they are simply the cause of problems.
And the women suffer from this “male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.”
The wokester-in-chief is offering simplistic and deceptive lines of toxic misandry which are making people angry at the growing extreme left-wing infecting politics and culture. The reaction to these smears is sometimes to elect the very right-wing misogynists that Gutteres is calling out, to stem the tidal wave of male criticism.
There are good and bad men and women, as well as good and bad White and Black people. Those are simple facts. The vilification of one group over-and-again has names – racism, sexism, ageism, etc. – and politicians must stop fanning the flames of hatred and division.
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