HIS 344 Department of History

March 2010 University of Toronto

The Divided Decade:

How the UN Decade for Women (1975-1985) Became a
Cold War Battleground

Submitted to:
HIS 344 – Conflict and Cooperation in the International System
Department of History
University of Toronto

March 2010

1
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
→ INTRODUCING THE TOPIC

One might forgive a student of Cold War history for assuming that Cold War politics was

devoid of women, since the leaders of the Cold War's two 'superpower' states, the United States

and Russia, were almost all men. In many ways, the presence of a mere handful of female heads

of state, including Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Benazir Bhutto, served to highlight

how exceptional it was for women to take charge of state politics. A closer look, however,

reveals the many roles taken up by women in Cold War politics. In the early days of the United

Nations, female activists played a role in creating the UN Commission on the Status of Women

(hereafter CSW), which succeeded in pushing women's issues on to the global political agenda. 1

One of its most notable accomplishments was the declaration of the UN Decade for Women,

from 1975-1985. The Decade (as it is referred to colloquially) featured three UN-sponsored

global conferences, which took place in Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, and Nairobi

in 1985.

The leaders of the American women's movement and delegations envisioned the

conferences as organized forums for discussing what they considered to be universal women's

issues, such as development, literacy, and domestic violence. 2 However, the actual conference

proceedings were highly politicized. 3 Ideological differences fuelled many heated debates, as

delegates from the Eastern bloc and the Group of 77 developing nations (hereafter G77) insisted

that the concerns of the West were merely symptoms of much broader problems, and that

dramatic social and economic change were necessary pre-requisites for women's liberation. 4

1 Winslow, Women, Politics, and the United Nations, 14.

2 Galey and Paolo, “Report of Congressional Staff Advisors to the Nairobi Conference to the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives,” 8-9.
3 Ibid., 11.
4 Ghodsee, “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism, and Cold War
Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's Movement,” 1.

2
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
→ ARTICULATING THE THESIS AND POINTING TO THE ARGUMENT

I suggest in this paper that external political developments during the Cold War, as well

as Cold War-influenced ideological differences between regional delegations, dramatically

impacted the extent to which the American delegation was able to implement its vision and

accompanying agenda for the UN Decade for Women and its conferences. These conclusions

carry with them a number of important implications for the study of Cold War history, since they

demonstrate the remarkable degree to which Cold War politics, ideology, and tension pervaded a

diverse variety of forums. In the case of the UN Decade for Women, what was intended to be a

space for discourse around women's issues from a female-centric lens of analysis wound up

being a recapitulation of state-centric Cold War discourse.

→ DEFINING KEY TERMS AND SETTING PARAMETERS

For the purposes of this paper, “politicization” will be understood to be the tendency for

discourse at the conferences to extend beyond narrower “women's issues,” as defined by the

West, toward broader and more contentious social, economic, and political issues. In addition, I

will generally be analyzing regional women's movements as homogenous groups, subject to

influence by Western, Eastern, and G77 politics and ideologies. This approach is admittedly

simplistic, since regional women's movements were anything but homogenous, and much debate

and conflict occurred even within individual women's organizations. However, I feel it is

appropriate for the purposes of this paper, since the divisions between delegations in the UN

conferences generally occurred along the lines of Cold War blocs.

→ CREATING “SIGNPOSTS” AND EXPLAINING THE ARGUMENT

The extent to which the Western delegation was able achieve its vision for the UN

3
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
Decade for Women - a de-politicized discussion of issues relevant exclusively to women –

increased significantly over the course of the three conferences. The outcomes of the first and

second conferences, Mexico in 1975 and Copenhagen in 1980, generally reflected Soviet and

G77 views, and were accordingly dominated by calls for dramatic social and economic change,

as well as criticism of Israel and other American allies. The outcome of the final conference,

Nairobi in 1985, was much more reflective of the Western agenda for women's issues. This

section of my paper seeks to assess the role played by Cold War political developments in

shaping these results. My analysis will proceed to outline the major events and documents of the

three conferences and suggesting parallel events in the Cold War, such the re-invigoration of

Cold War tensions under US President Ronald Reagan that could have acted as influences.

→ PROVIDING CONTEXT, EXPLAINING THE TOPIC, RAISING KEY ISSUES

The UN Decade for Women began as a Romanian proposal to the CSW for 1975 to be

designated as International Women's Year. This proposal was supported by Western delegates,

who perceived an opportunity for focused discussion of universal women's issues, but the

proposal was initially opposed by delegates from the Soviet Union. 5 In previous CSW

discussions, the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc had proclaimed their moral and legal

superiority in the realm of women's issues, claiming that sex inequality had been vanquished by

Communism, and that Soviet women were in all ways equal to men. 6 Tatiana Nikolaeva, the

head Soviet delegate to the CSW, led a filibuster to counter the IWY proposal, fearing that a truly

international conference would diminish the USSR's “ideological monopoly” on women's

5 Meeting in Mexico: The Story of the World Conference of the International Women's Year, 17.
6 Ghodsee, “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism, and Cold War
Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's Movement,” 4.

4
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
issues. 7 The filibuster ultimately failed to stifle the proposal, forcing the Soviet delegation to

switch strategies and become highly involved in planning the 1975 conference for International

Women's Year, to be held in Mexico City, in order to influence its discussion and outcomes. 8

The potential for the Soviet Union to influence the agenda at the conference in Mexico

troubled United States security officials. As the American delegation began to prepare for the

Mexico conference, the National Security Council (NSC) opposed requests for First Lady Betty

Ford to attend, fearing that her presence would lend legitimacy to a potentially pro-Communist

and anti-American agenda. A series of memos, written in the months preceding the Mexico

conference by NSC advisers Horan and Low to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, reflect the

NSC's growing apprehensions about the First Conference on Women. One memo, dated 16 May

1975, insists that “it has been our experience with recent international meetings in Mexico that

the Soviets and Cubans have been given free reign to influence events usually leading to anti-

American speeches and resolutions.” 9 The NSC's fears that the Eastern bloc would push dialogue

toward broader economic and social debates were serious enough that they ultimately persuaded

Kissinger to stop the First Lady from attending the Conference. 10 Crucially, the threat to the

American vision for the conference in Mexico was perceived by American security officials as

being tied to the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

As the 1975 conference in Mexico began, it became apparent that the NSC's fears were

well-founded. The opening ceremony for the First Conference on Women was marked by critical

dialogue, which confirmed that the Western vision of a de-politicized conference would face

7 Ramos Shahini, “The UN, Women, and Development: The World Conferences on Women,” 30.
8 Ghodsee, “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism, and Cold War
Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's Movement,” 4.
9 Harold Horan and Stephen Low to Henry Kissinger, 9 June 1975, National Security Council, “White House
Proposal that Mrs. Ford Visit Mexico City to Attend IWY Conference,”, 3164.
10 Ghodsee, “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism, and Cold War
Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's Movement,” 4.

5
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
strong opposition. For instance, President Luis Echeverria of Mexico welcomed the conference's

delegates with a speech that referred to the Non-Aligned proposition for a New International

Economic Order (NIEO), declaring that the movement for women's equality was necessarily tied

to the movement for global structural change.11 He went on to insist that the Western feminist

movement's goal of equal rights was inherently misguided, since the pre-requisite for ending the

oppression of women was “the liberation of all people from institutions and patterns of conduct

imposed in the interests of the great majority.” 12

[Multiple pages deleted for the sake of brevity – CS]

→ WRAPPING UP: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS AND EXTENDING THE ANALYSIS

My analysis in this paper demonstrates a number of parallels and correlations between

proceedings in the UN Decade for Women conferences and external Cold War political

developments and ideologies. Though I have suggested a number of causal factors, including the

hand-picking of conference delegates by states, as well as the generalized coercion of women's

movements by the state, it is difficult to isolate these developments to a few factors, especially

given the extensive variation between and within regional women's groups. Moreover, a relative

dearth of non-Western sources on the subject of the UN Decade for Women inevitably biases any

analysis of the Decade towards a Western-based lens. Further analysis of the UN Decade for

Women would necessarily require a broader range of analytical lenses, in order to fully

appreciate the narratives underlying the conference's often intense debate.

Francis Fukuyama, in his article The End of History?, wrote in 1989 that “the century that

began full of self-confidence in the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy seems at its

close to be returning full circle to where it started: not to an 'end of ideology' or a convergence

11 Meeting in Mexico: The Story of the World Conference of the International Women's Year, 9.
12 Ibid.

6
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
between capitalism and socialism, as earlier predicted, but to an unabashed victory of economic

and political liberalism.” 13

Though Fukuyama's “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism” was, if

anything, short lived, his analysis has interesting implications for the changes that occurred

during and after the UN Decade for Women. Though economic and political liberalism may not

have 'won' decisively in global politics, it may indeed have 'won' in the realm of global

feminism. Ghodsee argues that the legacy of the United States' actions in Nairobi has been far-

reaching, as demonstrated by the fact that in the 1990s women's organizations and NGOs around

the world adopted a Western feminist framework. 14 Ghodsee attributes this development to the

inflow of American aid to the Eastern bloc and the developing world in the 1990s, part of which

was designated for the growth of pro-West civil society organizations. 15

The homogenization of women's organizations throughout the world has certainly helped

to streamline discussion at global women's conferences, as demonstrated by the relative absence

of politicization at the 1995 Conference in Beijing, mentioned above. However, it is worth

asking whether the absence of debate about controversial but fundamental questions, such as the

origins of inequality or the relationship between women and politics, has diminished the value

of using global meetings to discuss women's issues. The arguments posed by Soviet and G77

women regarding the origins of oppression, though radical, are worth considering in a thorough

discussion of issues faced by women, because they may hold insight into the means to address

persistent forces of patriarchy and inequality throughout the world. In the absence of such

discussion, it is possible that global actions to address gender inequality may be mere panaceas,

13 Fukuyama, “The End of History?,” 3.

14 Ghodsee, “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism, and Cold War
Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's Movement,” 9.
15 Ibid., 9.

7
HIS 344 Department of History
March 2010 University of Toronto
rather than broader solutions.

→ PROFESSIONALISM: A WELL-WRITTEN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Cited

Afshar, Haleh. “Women and the politics of fundamentalism in Iran.” In Women and Politics in
the Third World, edited by Haleh Afshar. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Brozan, Nadine. “Maureen Reagan Assesses Nairobi.” The New York Times. New York, August
1, 1985, East Coast edition.

Buckley, Mary. “Soviet Interpretations of the Woman Question.” In Soviet Sisterhood.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Fascell, Dante. Department of State Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1984 and 1985, 1983.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d098:HR02915:@@@L&summ2=m&.

Fraser, Arvonne. The U.N. Decade for Women : Documents and Dialogue. Boulder: Westview
Press, 1987.

Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?.” The National Interest (Summer 1989): 3-18.

Galey, Margaret, and Bernadette Paolo. “Report of Congressional Staff Advisors to the Nairobi
Conference to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives.” US
Government Printing Office, 1986.

Ghodsee, Kristen. “Revisiting the UN Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism,
Capitalism, and Cold War Politics in the Early Years of the International Women's
Movement.” Women's Studies International Forum 33 (2010): 3-12.

Glavanis-Grantham, Kathy, and Haleh Afshar. “The women's movement, feminism, and the
national struggle in Palestine: unresolved contradictions.” In Women and Politics in the
Third World, 171-186. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Holland, Barbara. Soviet Sisterhood. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Holt, Alix. “The First Soviet Feminists.” In Soviet Sisterhood. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1985.

Horan, Harold, and Steven Low to Kissinger, Henry. National Security Council. White House
Proposal that Mrs. Ford Visit Mexico City to Attend IWY Conference. Memo, June 9,
1975.
[ETC…]