Difference between revisions of "Women's NGOs"
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In 1948, the United Nations Women’s Guild was formed when a group of wives of U.N. Secretariat officials formed an association to help needy children in war-torn Europe. The purpose of the Guild continues to be the assistance of children in need and/or mother-child care programs throughout the world, and to serve as a mutual bond and center of interest for women connected with the United Nations organizations around the world. | In 1948, the United Nations Women’s Guild was formed when a group of wives of U.N. Secretariat officials formed an association to help needy children in war-torn Europe. The purpose of the Guild continues to be the assistance of children in need and/or mother-child care programs throughout the world, and to serve as a mutual bond and center of interest for women connected with the United Nations organizations around the world. | ||
| − | The CSW’s Convention on the Political Rights of Women was adopted by the General Assembly in 1952. And by 1963 the GA requested the Economic and Social Council to invite the CSW to prepare a draft declaration that would combine in a single instrument, international standards articulating the equal rights of men and women. This process was supported throughout by women activists within and outside the U.N. system. Originally a statement of moral and political intent without the contractual force of a treaty | + | The CSW’s Convention on the Political Rights of Women was adopted by the General Assembly in 1952. And by 1963 the GA requested the Economic and Social Council to invite the CSW to prepare a draft declaration that would combine in a single instrument, international standards articulating the equal rights of men and women. This process was supported throughout by women activists within and outside the U.N. system. Originally a statement of moral and political intent without the contractual force of a treaty, the drafting of the resolution by a committee selected from within the CSW, began in 1965 but wouldn’t be formally adopted by the GA until 1967. |
==‘60s Social Change== | ==‘60s Social Change== | ||
Revision as of 07:28, 5 August 2008
This article is based on an article written for the NGO Handbook by Kate Perchuk titled "Women and Civil Society."
The modern landscape of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to causes and issues critical to women is the legacy of human rights activism in times of historical crisis and is rooted in the fundamental principles of equality first articulated by philosophers in the age of Enlightenment.
Early women’s rights groups challenged the prevailing social order arguing that all individuals were born with natural rights that made them free and equal; that all inequalities that existed among citizens were the result of an inadequate educational system and an imperfect social environment and that these inequalities would be justly remedied by improved education and more egalitarian social structures.
Among these thinkers was Mary Wollstonecraft, a British author best known for her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which was one of the first to claim that women should have equality with men. The book was inspired by the democratic principles of the French Revolution (1789-1799). Wollstonecraft argues that the quality of women’s lives was directly related to their inferior educational opportunities.
Riding the momentum of the American Revolution, the nascent campaign for women’s rights in the U.S. was born from the passion of patriots with a mission to improve American democracy by helping to deliver on the promise of better, more egalitarian lives for all its citizens, outlined in the Declaration of Independence (adopted on July 4, 1776). A small group of educated women, known to one another through their work in the Abolitionist movement , gathered in a corner of New York State in 1848 to address “the social, civil, and religious conditions and rights of woman,” and invoked the powerful language of the seminal document to make their case. The positions articulated in their “Declaration of Sentiments” echoed the hallowed predecessor: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
