Diplomacy: too important to be left to men?

• Author: Arystanbekova, Akmaral
• Position: First Person

Of the delegates from 50 countries who signed the Charter of the United Nations in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, four were women: Virginia Gildersleeve (United States), Bertha Lutz (Brazil), Wu Yi-fang (China) and Minerva Bernardino (Dominican Republic). I happened to meet Ms. Bernardino, a woman of quite venerable age, at UN Headquarters in New York when she was given an award from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute by then United States First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ms. Bernardino had been her country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations for many years. "I used to be a fighter for women's rights", she said in her address. "I still am." She had been an active participant in the movement for women's right to vote in Latin America, and continued to fight for equal rights within the newly founded world Organization, considering that it was essential that international texts stress not only human rights but also equality between men and women.

Kathleen Telsch recalled in her book, A Global Affair: An Inside Look at the United Nations, "Once, the person presiding a General Assembly session addressed the women delegates as `Dear Ladies', instead of `Distinguished Delegates'. Before he could finish what he was saying, Ms. Bernardino had asked for the floor on a procedural motion. `You can call us ladies when you offer us a cup of coffee or tea, or ask us out to lunch; here, in this room, we are not ladies, we are delegates, and should be addressed accordingly'," she countered.

There have been women who have clearly left their mark on the history of the United Nations. Above all, there was Eleanor Roosevelt, who is linked to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But only two women have been elected President of the General Assembly: the first, at the eighth session in 1953, was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India, whose name figured on the short-list for the post of Secretary-General when Trygve Lie resigned in October 1952. In 1969, the Permanent Representative of Liberia, Angie E. Brooks, was elected President of the twenty-fourth Assembly session.

As the first Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan, I became only the fourth woman among 176 ambassadors. The other three represented Liechtenstein, Jamaica and Canada. When I appeared with Louise Frechette, then Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, she invariably observed: "You see before you exactly half of the women ambassadors to the United Nations". And since I was the only woman ambassador from Asia, the Chinese Ambassador often said to me, "You represent all the women in Asia, including the women of China". Claudia Fritsche, Ambassador of Liechtenstein, like me, had no co-workers, and we jokingly called ourselves a "one-person mission", although you could not hope to find a more informed person than her among the United Nations Ambassadors. Later, Trinidad and Tobago and Finland appointed women Permanent Representatives.

It seems to me that there was a fundamental turning-point in the early 1990s when a growing number of women were appointed Permanent Representatives to the United Nations; both objective circumstances and the personal abilities of women ambassadors played a part in this. On 1 February 1993, Madeleine Albright took up her duties as Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations. On that occasion, the Russian Ambassador, Yuli Vorontsov, gave a lunch for the Permanent Representatives of the Member States of the UN Security Council. He said he invited me as the representative not only of my country but also of the women ambassadors to the United Nations. When I met Ms. Albright for the first time, I said: "There are six women ambassadors here, you will be the seventh--we do hope that we will work well together." She thanked me and replied: "Please tell our colleagues that I will soon be inviting you all to my first official lunch at the United Nations." And she kept her word, hosting two weeks later a friendly lunch in honour of women ambassadors. She had invited the media, and The International Herald Tribune carried a large photograph of us. I received a letter from someone in France who had rather liked the look of me! One of our male colleagues remarked he had intended to send this clipping to his own country, but on reflection had decided against it, worried that he might be replaced by a woman!

Claudia Fritsche continued the initiative of regular lunches; and I hosted a lunch in the building of the Permanent Mission of Russia, where the Mission of Kazakhstan was housed at that time. Yuli Vorontsov genuinely wanted to attend, but we had a rule that we did not invite men. Thus, the famous group of women ambassadors to the United Nations, which we called the G-7, from "Girls-7" was created. We agreed that we would support each other and work together to further the advancement of women in the United Nations and the provision of genuine equality through the activities of the Organization. Gradually, with the arrival of new...