The UN is putting divisive activism ahead of the rights of women
Perhaps UN Women UK couldn’t find any candidates of the traditional, biologically female kind for the role of “UK Champion”. How else are we to explain the selection of Munroe Bergdorf, the divisive transgender activist and model who infamously dubbed the suffragettes “white supremacists”? The move makes an absolute mockery of an organisation that is supposed to focus on women and girls, and the unique difficulties that they face.
On being appointed late last year, Bergdorf said: “I will use this role to further advocate for the progress, safety, inclusion and empowerment of ALL women and girls, of all communities and identities.” It’s hard not to be a little sceptical about this.
Just look at Bergdorf ’s track record; in 2018, on the day of the Women’s March, the activist warned prospective attendees ahead of the event that to “centre reproductive systems” at the demonstrations was “reductive and exclusionary”. In the same year, Bergdorf wrote a piece confidently declaring that women were getting feminism wrong. Singled out for particular criticism was a “well-intentioned yet misguided symbol of women’s equality”: “the pink pussy hat”, which was deemed to be insufficiently trans-inclusive.
As for uniting communities, Bergdorf ’s first major controversy ignited in 2017, when the model briefly became the face of L’oréal only to fall immediately into a race row after saying “white people’s entire existence is drenched in racism”. It’s difficult to see how on earth Bergdorf is an appropriate choice for a role that is, at least in theory, tied to sex-based oppression.
As Fair Play for Women has pointed out, from female genital mutilation to rape as a war crime, from pregnancy to forced marriage, many of the issues women’s groups are concerned about are “inextricably linked with our female biology. How can this person be a champion of women if these issues are deemed unmentionable?”
Then again, perhaps it’s not much of a surprise after all. The wider UN has in recent weeks shown itself to be unwilling – or incapable – of standing up unequivocally for the rights of women. It took fully 57 days to condemn the acts of sexual violence that Hamas committed against Israeli women on October 7.
The Jewish Chronicle has alleged that Bergdorf was rather swifter in responding, reporting that, just hours after the October 7 attack, the activist’s Instagram story informed the world that “much of what’s happening in occupied Palestine will be in future history books as an example of a revolutionary struggle”.
Together with Bergdorf ’s well-known views on sex and gender, this would be disqualifying from many roles. It is, however, perfectly in keeping with the disgraceful, spineless stance the UN has chosen to take in Gaza.
It is hard not to suspect that Bergdorf ’s priorities may lie in supporting the fashionable causes that they have devoted their previous activism to, and less to the women that their new role is meant to champion. The reputation of UN Women UK has been sullied. Like its namesake, it appears to be less interested in defending human dignity and the rights of women than in signalling support for divisive activism.