Gender "Equality" at UN: Three Out of 71 General Assembly Presidents & Zero Out of Nine Secretary-Generals

"The United Nations has frequently been accused of vociferously preaching gender empowerment and women's rights to the outside world - but failing miserably to practice what it preaches in its own political backyard.

The charge is usually made against the 193-member General Assembly, which has elected only three women as presidents – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969) and Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006).

And that's three out of 71 Presidents, 68 of whom were men.

The 15-member Security Council's track record is probably worse because it has continued to elect men as UN Secretaries-General, rubber-stamped by the General Assembly, and most recently late last year– despite several outstanding women candidates.

And that's zero out of nine male UN chiefs (Trygve Lie of Norway, Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, U. Thant of Burma (now Myanmar), Kurt Waldheim of Austria, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, Kofi Annan of Ghana, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea and, currently, Antonio Guterres of Portugal).

The two highest ranking political positions at the UN– one of them with the status of a head of state in terms of diplomatic protocol– have long been identified as the intellectual birth right of men.

The General Assembly, the highest policy making body at the United Nations, and the Security Council, the most powerful veto-wielding body in the Organization, have continued to overwhelmingly opt for men over women during the 71-year existence of the world body.

And still, both UN organs continue to relentlessly-and hypocritically– pay lip service to the cause of women's rights and gender empowerment in the endless debates on life's inequalities..."