Youth Blog

Taking in his fellow panelists, Alexander De Croo wryly quipped, “as much as I like you
all in this room, there is one problem, there are almost no men.”

Mr. De Croo – former prime minister of Belgium and now the administrator of the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – had a point. Men were outnumbered nearly
four-to-one at the event his department was facilitating, "Advancing Women’s Access to Justice:
Building Justice Systems That Deliver for all Fragile Contexts.” An event exploring issues
pertaining to women’s access to justice at the United Nations’ 70th Commission on the Status of
Women (CSW70) in New York these past two weeks (March 9-19). However, that does not
solve the issue - why were there not a copious amount of men engaging in the CSW70? Are
women and girl’s issues not worth fighting for?

Had Mr. De Croo ventured to Campaign Life Coalition’s pro-life event “The Human Cost
of IVF- Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Reproductive Technologies,” hosted by
competition (Conference on the State of Women and Family - CSWF), he would have been
astounded to discover the equity on display among the panelists – fully fifty percent of panelists
were male. The missing men had been found!

This wasn’t just a contrivance such as Justin Trudeau’s 2015 cabinet parity either. This
truly reflects the balanced leadership of the pro-life, pro-family movement in North America.
Anyone involved in this movement knows intuitively that this is so. Men naturally have the
desire to protect that which is worth defending.

It is worth mentioning that CSWF came into existence as a response to the United
Nations denying Pro-life, Pro-family, non governmental organizations (NGO) the right to host
events with the other NGOs at the CSW.

How have the champions of equity at the UN failed so spectacularly to deliver a balance
such as the pro-life, pro-family movement has? Problems affecting the whole human family –
need engagement from men and women to truly create meaningful, lasting, holistic solutions.
Indeed, this year, the CSW70 was searching for solutions for women and girls. However,
in this quest to do so, have they forgotten about the strengths of an entire population of our
species? Perhaps the solutions to many issues affecting the human family are in not only
empowering women, but also empowering men. For example, what if there was a cultural shift
from viewing children as a problem that abortion or contraception could solve, to a common
understanding that they are an undeserved gift. A gift that is worth defending, with men in the
picture. Men being held accountable and responsible for fathering their children. 

The question arises, whether a top down approach is more effective than a grassroots
one? Equity from above in conformity with ideology seems not to be yielding the results the
progressives hope for. It’s across the aisle, in the pro-life, pro-family camp, that their ideal of
men and women collaborating to bring about change for women and girls is actually getting
traction.

If true equity and lasting solutions are what the UN wants, they would be well-advised to
take note of what is happening in their perceived opposition. The answers they would hear could
prove quite transformative. In fact, the UN would be better off joining forces with pro-life and
pro-family organizations