Feminism by Treaty
...A case in point is the central CEDAW provision that requires "all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct" of citizens in order to eliminate all practices based on "stereotyped roles for men and women." Under CEDAW, private behavior such as how couples divide household and childcare chores is subject to government regulation under the tutelage of the UN oversight committee. In written testimony for the November 2010 hearing, John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, described how CEDAW could subvert our democracy "by taking political issues out of the hands of elected officials and transforming them into ‘Universal human rights' to be determined by judges on the basis of ‘evolving norms of international law.'"...
..."U.S. women have endured denials of their basic human rights long enough — please do not make them wait any longer," wrote NOW President Terry O'Neil in a March 11, 2010, letter to President Obama urging immediate ratification. Feminist activists see the treaty as an opportunity for American women to secure rights the Constitution has not delivered. The Feminist Majority Foundation has released a video explaining how American women can use CEDAW to bring about a "sea change" in our laws. It shows Congress debating the 2009 "stimulus bill" and explains how CEDAW can lead to "gender-fair budgets." State-mandated quotas, the narrator explains, have led to gender-balanced legislatures in South Africa, Iraq, and Rwanda. Images of beaming women in the Rwandan parliament are juxtaposed with the sorry picture of the U.S. Senate, with only 16 women members out of 100. The video also juxtaposes images of young Afghan women hideously disfigured from acid attacks with those of corpses of American women brutally murdered by intimate partners. "Clearly we need CEDAW," says the narrator. Janet Benshoof, president of the Global Justice Center, speaks for many in the feminist establishment when she says, "If CEDAW were fully implemented in the United States it would revolutionize our rights . . . American women need legal tools to fight patriarchy."...
