UN cast as villain after making Wonder Woman an ambassador

AS A superhero battling to save us all, Wonder Woman might have expected a warm welcome from the workers for world peace at the United Nations.

But the cartoon heroine, on her official appointment as UN ambassador for women’s empowerment, was given the cold shoulder by her new colleagues.

More than 1,000 UN staff members have signed a petition calling on Ban Ki-moon to reconsider the fictitious superhero’s role, saying it was an affront to all the real women working hard to improve the lives of women and girls.

“The bottom line appears to be that the United Nations was unable to find a real life woman that would be able to champion the rights of all women.” the authors of the petition wrote.

Yesterday Gal Gadot, the star of a new Wonder Woman film, and Lynda Carter, who played the superhero on American television from 1975-79, were at the UN for the ceremony.

But signatories of the petition, from countries including Mexico, Austria, Afghanistan, Burma and the UK, disagreed with the choice of an ambassador described as “a large-breasted, white woman of impossible pro- portions, scantily clad in a shimmery, thigh-baring body suit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots.” With the UN still struggling to deal with allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, and the US election dominated by Donald Trump’s boasts about groping women, the authors wrote: “It is alarming that the United Nations would consider using a character with an overtly sexualized image at a time when the headline news in the United States and the world is the objectification of women and girls.” It also came as the United Nations this month rejected seven female candidates for secretary-general, choosing instead António Guterres of Portugal. Stephane Dujarric, a UN spokesman, said it had listened to concerns and had changed the Wonder Woman campaign to reflect them. He said the campaign would now “bring a celebration of real-life women and girls making a difference every day into the core messaging”. But Anne Marie Goetz, an academic and a former adviser to the UN, who had campaigned for a first female secretary-general, called the choice “disgusting.” She suggested that Wonder Woman should use her “lasso of truth” to expose the United Nations’ “hypocrisy.”