 | | Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, U.N. Women's executive director, gave a sweeping speech to kick off the Generation Equality Forum in Paris.Michel Euler/Associated Press |
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"One-quarter isn't equality. Equality is one-half." |
— Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of U.N. Women |
World leaders don't often gather with the sole purpose of investing money in women's advancement. They don't even typically gather for major discussions on the issue; it seems to happen only about once every quarter-century. |
The last time was in 1995 for the Beijing World Conference on Women. That was when Hillary Clinton, the first lady at the time, delivered her now-iconic "women's rights are human rights" speech, considered so audacious back then that officials at home had advised her to soften it. China even cut off airing her speech in the convention center as she was speaking. |
 | | In 1995, Hillary Clinton addressed a special session of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, declaring that "human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights."Doug Mills/Associated Press |
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By the end of that summit, almost every country in the world had committed to the "full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life." It was considered groundbreaking even though activists saw the commitment as toothless. |
More than two decades later — and after a pandemic that reversed many advances in gender equality — world leaders gathered in Paris on Wednesday with a heightened sense of urgency, committing to a host of new ambitious goals on gender equality. And this time, with significant financial commitments on the table. |
At the Generation Equality Forum convened by U.N. Women, political leaders, corporate executives and activists unveiled a total of $40 billion to advance gender equality — most likely the largest dollar amount ever dedicated to the issue. The funding will go toward instituting hundreds of new gender-focused policy proposals on issues including gender-based violence, which spiked globally during the coronavirus pandemic, economic empowerment and access to reproductive health services. |
"Women are just one-quarter of those who are managers, they are one-quarter of parliamentarians around the world, they are one-quarter of those who negotiate climate change, less than one-quarter of those who negotiate peace agreements," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of U.N. Women, said at the opening ceremony. "One-quarter isn't equality. Equality is one-half." |
Mrs. Clinton returned to the stage and urged world leaders and activists to "continue the progress that was started and spread throughout the world 26 years ago." |
"Looking back, I believe we have made progress — not near enough — and we have to recommit ourselves to going even further," she said. |
 | | Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, delivered a speech alongside Julieta Martinez, a Chilean activist, at the Generation Equality Forum in Paris.Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters |
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President Emmanuel Macron of France noted that Covid-19 turned out to be "an anti-feminist virus" that pushed more women around the world into poverty, nudged more girls out of school and locked women in with their abusers. |
Significant nongovernmental pledges were also announced on Wednesday. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it would put $2.1 billion toward gender equality work over five years, one of the organization's largest-ever single commitments. The announcement cemented Ms. French Gates's longtime focus on gender equality, which she has noted remains an underfunded area in philanthropy. The Ford Foundation committed $420 million over the next five years, with $159 million devoted to addressing gender-based violence. |
The flurry of commitments announced in Paris are considered all the more remarkable because U.N. forums tend to be better known for photo opportunities, handshakes and lofty declarations, not broad-scale, catalytic action. The platform agreed to in Beijing had no real financial backing, and it involved neither the private sector nor civil society in the negotiations or the writing of the overarching priorities. |
To avoid repeating that mistake, the organizers of this year's forum devised a new system. All participants — whether U.N. member states or grass-roots activist organizations — would be required to submit clear, measurable proposals that fell under any of the six main policy areas: eliminating gender-based violence, advancing women's economic empowerment, enhancing access to sexual and reproductive health care, increasing gender parity in private and political spheres, investing in gender-focused climate change solutions and narrowing the gender digital divide. |
"We recognize that everybody's not starting from the same starting point but everybody can make an effort based on their national capacity, and so it's for countries to define in which areas they want to be committed," said Delphine O, secretary general for U.N. Women's Global Forum. |
Some government representatives tried to sneak in half-baked commitments, such as laws that had already been passed or items with no budget attached, Ms. O said. In those cases, U.N. Women went back to those participants and asked them to step up their game. |
But some of the commitments were ambitious, sometimes to the surprise of the forum's organizers. Kenya, for instance, came forward with a plan to counter gender-based violence that includes new funding for survivor recovery centers, legal services and psychological support systems. Other African countries then used Kenya's proposal as a template for their own plans to curb gender-based violence. |
The United States had not signed up to participate in the forum under President Donald J. Trump but changed course under the Biden administration, submitting its finalized commitments just last Friday. The range of U.S. commitments, which were crafted by the Biden administration's new Gender Policy Council, fell under three categories: women's economic security, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights, both domestically and internationally. |
"This is the strongest that the U.S. has come in, in many years," said Sarah Hendriks, director of the policy and intergovernmental division at U.N. Women. |
Of the many charismatic speakers on Wednesday, one — Shantel Marekera, an advocate from Zimbabwe and a member of the U.N.'s youth task force — seemed to capture the mood. |
"It sounds silly that we're still talking about this in 2021," she said onstage in Paris. "We are done talking." |
"Overwhelmed and Devastated" |
Bill Cosby's release from prison, explained. |
 | | Caroline Heldman, Lili Bernard and Victoria Valentino, from left, after Bill Cosby was found guilty in 2018 of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Each of the women had separately accused Mr. Cosby of abuse.Mark Makela/Getty Images |
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The disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby was released from prison Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, when she was a Temple University employee. The announcement represented a dramatic reversal in one of the first high-profile criminal trials of the #MeToo era. |
Mr. Cosby, 83, had served three years of a three- to 10-year prison sentence at a maximum-security facility outside Philadelphia when the court threw out his conviction. He returned home on Wednesday afternoon. |
Why did the court overturn his conviction? |
In 2005, when Mr. Cosby was being investigated in the case of Andrea Constand, Bruce L. Castor Jr., who was then the district attorney in Montgomery County, Pa., gave Mr. Cosby his assurance that he would not be charged in the case. |
Mr. Castor testified that while there was insufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution, he had given Mr. Cosby the assurance to encourage him to testify in a subsequent civil case brought by Ms. Constand. In that testimony, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving quaaludes to women he was pursuing for sex. |
A subsequent district attorney reversed Mr. Castor's decision and charged the comedian with assaulting Ms. Constand after all, using his testimony in the civil case as evidence in his trial in 2015. |
Does the ruling mean Mr. Cosby didn't commit a crime? |
No. It just means that he cannot be prosecuted for it. |
Justice Wecht acknowledged that the court's decision to bar prosecution on those particular charges was "both severe and rare," but he said it was necessary. Even though society has a strong interest in prosecuting crimes, he wrote, it has an even stronger interest "in ensuring that the constitutional rights of the people are vindicated." |
What has the reaction been like to the ruling? |
Andrea Constand, who brought the charges against Mr. Cosby that had led to his conviction, called the ruling "disappointing" and said she worried it could discourage other women from pursuing prosecutions in cases of sexual assault. |
"We urge all victims," Ms. Constand said in a statement made jointly with her lawyers, "to have their voices heard." |
Victoria Valentino, another of Mr. Cosby's accusers, said that she was "overwhelmed and devastated." |
In a statement, the National Organization for Women denounced Mr. Cosby's release, saying that "the judicial system in America" had "failed survivors again." |
Meanwhile, Mr. Cosby posted a picture of himself on Twitter, with a fist raised above his head and his eyes closed, with the comment: "I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence." |
In Her Words is written by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Maura Foley. |
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