March 7, 2020

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres at the UN Headquarters in New York. CityChang W. Lee/The New York Times

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Francesca Donner

“We have a male-dominated world, and many men don’t even realize this.”

— António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations

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The secretary general of the United Nations doesn’t just call himself a feminist. Since becoming the world’s top diplomat in 2017, António Guterres has worn that title like a badge.

He does not shy away from terms more commonly found in feminist parlance — “mansplaining,” “patriarchy” and “male-dominated world,” among them. And in a recent speech, he did not put too fine a point on his views about gender inequality.

“Stupid,” he branded it, and an obstacle to peace and security.

Still, despite broad calls for the U.N. to be overseen by a woman when Mr. Guterres was seeking the job (at the time of his election, more than half the 13 candidates were women), in the end member states went with him. And so whatever his views, Mr. Guterres remains both symbol and product of a male-dominated organization.

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His focus on gender, however, is a “radical step forward from what we’ve seen in the past,” said Lyric Thompson, the director of policy and advocacy at the International Center for Research on Women, a Washington-based advocacy group that has closely tracked the secretary general’s tenure and suggests improvements.

Under Mr. Guterres’s watch, the U.N. has achieved gender parity at the most senior levels of management, two years ahead of a schedule that he himself set, and he has plans to bring parity to all levels of the organization by 2028.

For positions that the secretary general has the power to fill, Mr. Guterres demands candidate rosters that are equally split by gender, and for positions he doesn’t directly appoint, like the U.N.’s representatives around the world, he asks that hiring managers do the same. He is the first secretary general to have a dedicated gender adviser on his executive team.

In response to allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation inside the organization, and at the hands of the U.N.’s peacekeepers and agencies, he set up an internal, all-female sexual harassment investigation team (or “brigade,” as he calls it); appointed a victim’s rights advocate to his cabinet; and set up so-called immediate response teams to speed up the process of starting an investigation.

Critics say Mr. Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal, hasn’t done enough to push for gender equality in countries where progress has stalled, or even been reversed. Three years into his term, the U.N. has failed to bolster financing for on-the-ground programs for gender equality and for U.N. Women, its sole agency dedicated to gender issues.

More broadly, Mr. Guterres has been criticized for not calling out serious human rights abuses in specific countries. “He speaks almost invariably in broad generalities,” Human Rights Watch said in 2019.

Mr. Guterres sat down with The New York Times in his office at the U.N. to discuss his record on gender.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

You’ve described yourself several times as a feminist. What, exactly, makes you a feminist?

I started my social work as a volunteer in the slums of Lisbon. And it was clear to me that in situations of dramatic poverty, women were paying the highest price. Family violence was extremely common and alcoholism was prevalent and women became victimized in many, many circumstances.

Then when I was in my political life, I felt the huge pushback of men in relation to women’s participation. That’s when we established quotas in my party and tried to establish them in Parliament. But we were defeated.

When I was prime minister, we tried to put family violence very strongly on the agenda [but] there was a huge pushback from society, which was a demonstration of a male-dominated culture.

Then when I came to the United Nations, I detected that even this organization was very strongly male dominated. And I understood that I had to act decisively to break this kind of straitjacket.

You beat out seven women to become secretary general. Has that colored your tenure?

No. But what was clear to me is that there were some structural issues that would need to be a very strong priority: gender, inequality and climate change. I mean, this seems to permeate all areas of activity.

What do you think is the greatest barrier to gender equality?

The fact that we have a male-dominated world, and many men don’t even realize this. Many men take for granted the world as it is, and they look at gender equality as almost an aberration. I just read a very interesting essay on mansplaining, which means when men explain to women how things should be. Many men just think that it’s normal.

If you look at situations like rape, women are victims of rape first and then they are victims of rape in their families or in their societies. And then if they go to court, even in a country like the U.S., the court procedures are such that it is another shock, another humiliation. You still have 34 countries in the world where rape within marriage is legal.

This patriarchal structure of society is still deeply rooted and needs to be very strongly shaken. That’s why I don’t like to say the “empowerment of women” because it looks like men are empowering women. Women need to be able to take power.

In the spirit of gender equality, we’re going to ask you a few questions that female leaders get asked all the time. First, how do you balance work and life?

This should not be a female leader question. It should be an everybody question. But it is true that in our societies, much of the efforts of managing home affairs, I would say, still fall on the women.

Read the full interview here.

What else is happening

Here are three articles from The Times you may have missed.

Senator Amy Klobuchar in Iowa in Feb.Pete Marovich for The New York Times

“They ended up not choosing the women but that doesn’t mean the women are going to go away.” Senator Amy Klobuchar, in an interview with The Times after dropping out of the race, explained her decision to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden, the weirdness of the campaign trail and the pure joy of shopping for yams. [Read the story]
“Look up here! I’m talking to you!” Five female directors, acutely aware of Hollywood’s tendency to objectify female characters, are taking steps to avoid that trap in their own work. [Read the story]
“I know this is a bit of a leap, because there’s never been a leader who looks or sounds like me.” Lisa Nandy, a mixed-race scion of a leftist family from northern England, is hoping to become the new face of Britain’s opposition political party. [Read the story]

Women You Should Know: Gertrude Benham

via Ray Howgego

For Women’s History Month, we’ll be highlighting the lives of remarkable women you may not know, but should. Follow along on Instagram for more.

The intrepid mountaineer Gertrude Benham climbed more than 300 peaks in her lifetime. Her travels included seven journeys around the globe and at least three treks on foot across Africa.

One of her most harrowing treks was in 1909, when she and her porters hiked up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. When they set out, a passing unit of German soldiers warned her that the climb hadn’t been completed “by any Britisher, man or woman, and very seldom by anyone else.” Her porters later turned back after passing a heap of skeletons. So she finished the climb on her own.

“I am never lonely,” she told The Daily News in 1928. “How can I be when there is so much to see and admire in the world?”

Today’s In Her Words is written by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Francesca Donner. Additional research was done by Sharon Attia. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

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