The Long March to Beijing:  the United Nations and the Women’s Revolution

Vol. 1.  The Vienna Period

Preface

PART ONE.  NAIROBI AND BEFORE

Chapter One.  Women and the United Nations:  starting the march

1. Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter

2. The Commission on the Status of Women

3. United Nations office of women’s affairs?

4.  Marching forward, but slowly, 1948-1968

Dag Hamarskjold speaks on women

No big women’s human rights convention, but some little ones

Technical assistance:  an opening to development

5.  On to Mexico City, 1968-1975

Reviving the issue of women in the United Nations

Women and the second development decade

A step towards a United Nations office for women

International Women’s Year

Chapter Two.  Mexico City to Nairobi:  the United Nations Decade for Women 1976-1985

1. Drafting the women’s Magna Carta

2. Preparing for Copenhagen

3. Moving to Vienna

3. Copenhagen

4. Picking up the pieces after Copenhagen

5. Preparing for Nairobi

Chapter Three.  Nairobi

1. Women in politics

2. Women in the economy

3. Violence against women

4. Groups of women

5. Who is responsible?

PART TWO

WHAT DO WE DO NEXT?

Introduction

Chapter Four:  Spinning wheels.

1. The 40th General Assembly

2. The 1986 session of the Commission

Chapter Five.  The 1987 session of the Commission on the Status of Women

PART THREE BEGINNING TO MARCH SOMEWHERE (1987-1990)

Chapter Six.  Equipping the Secretariat: The Division for the Advancement of Women in 1987 and 1988

1.  Who we were

2.  Becoming the Division for the Advancement of Women

3.  Smaller is not more beautiful:  the retrenchment exercise

4.  Coping with CEDAW

5.  The rhythm of the march

Chapter Seven.  The intergovernmental process

1.  The General Assembly in 1987

2.  The Commission consolidates: the 1988 Session

Miss Anstee sets the tone

Enlargement of the Commission: First Act

The Commission defends itself and its secretariat

The limits of program planning

Getting an overdraft account

Structuring the review and appraisal process

3.  The 1989 Session of the Commission

Expansion of the Commission:  Chapter Two

Chapter Eight.  Violence against women

1.  The expert group meeting on violence against women in the family and society, 1986

2.  Priority theme on violence at the 1988 Commission on the Status of Women

3.  Drafting the Declaration on Violence against Women

4.  Elimination of violence against women as a priority theme in 1994

Chapter Nine.  National machinery and gender statistics

1.  Exploring national machinery as a priority theme, 1988

2.  The rise of gender statistics

Chapter Ten.  Women and the global economic crisis

1.  Exploring the negative effects of the global economic crisis:  discovering the positive

2. World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, round two

Chapter Eleven.  Women and politics:  defining the critical mass

1. Why are women not elected to public office?

2. Exploring the ‘critical mass’

3. Testing affirmative action for women in decision-making in neutral territory:  the United Nations Secretariat

4. Targeting the critical mass

Chapter Twelve.  Women and society

1. Women’s role in the family

2. A new social contract

3. Family planning and abortion: first glimpses

4. Sharing of domestic and parental responsibilities

Chapter Thirteen.  Women's human rights... and the AIDS pandemic

PART Four. Taking stock of the march

Chapter Fourteen.  The first review and appraisal, 1990

1. Making a wake-up call:  the Secretary-General’s report

2. The 1990 extended session of the Commission

Reforming the Communications procedure

Negotiating the recommendations and conclusions

Part Five.  THE MARCH TO BEIJING BEGINS (1991-1993)

Chapter Fifteen.  The Intergovernmental process

1.  The 1991 session of the Commission

Deciding on the structure of the conference

A name for the conference

The venue issue:  stage one

Communications held hostage

2.  The 1992 session of the Commission

Intersessional events:  the postponement of the Interregional Consultation on Women in Political Life

Intersessional events:  a new Secretary-General and other changes

Dramatis personae at the 36th session

The resource issue

Organizational issues

The decision for Beijing and the NGO question

Dispensing with the Interregional Consultation on Women in Public Life

The Platform

What kind of a Secretary-General for the Conference?

3.  The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

4.  The General Assembly in 1992

Chapter Sixteen.  Groups of women

1. Women with disabilities

2. Migrant women

3. Elderly women/young women

4. Refugee and displaced women

5. Female Heads of Household

6. Unity in diversity

Chapter Seventeen.  Countries in transition, gender and development and affirmative action, or not

1.  The countries in transition

2.  Discovering Gender and development

3. Affirmative action, or not

PART SIX.  The end of the Vienna Period (1993)

1. The system-wide medium-term plan

2. The priority themes

Legal literacy

Women in extreme poverty

Women in the peace process

Chapter Eighteen.  Structuring the Platform I: the 1993 Commission session

1. The dramatis personae

2. The structure of the Platform

3. The NGO Issue

4. Deciding on an inter-sessional working group on the Platform

5. Protecting the Division

Chapter Nineteen.  The World Conference on Human Rights

1. Women’s human rights emerge in Geneva

2. The Commission on the Status of Women pronounces

3. The battle is joined and largely won:  the fourth meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the human rights conference

4. The human rights conference:  majesty and pettiness

Chapter Twenty. The Division moves back to New York

1. Opening Pandora’s Box: the UNIFEM/INSTRAW merger

2. The first planning mission to China

3.  The End of the Vienna Period