The United Nations Has a Women’s Leadership Problem

In a 2020 New York Times interview, Antonio Guterres, the current United Nations secretary-general, likened gender inequality to a “straitjacket” — specifically one that he had to act to decisively break — and acknowledged that even the U.N. was “very strongly male dominated.” Yet, despite his feminist outlook, Guterres is a symbol of an organization that remains patriarchal and male-dominated, in which systemic gender discrimination and disproportionate male representation stymie feminism on the world stage.

Architectural metaphors highlight the institutional barriers to women’s leadership best: sticky floors, glass ceilings, career labyrinths, invisible barriers of bias. Even on the supposedly gender-neutral capitalistic “ladder,” women are confronted with a new behemoth to slay at each rung. We are well acquainted with this reality in the corporate world, but we need to face a harder truth: Women still struggle for equal and fair representation in leadership positions even in our “most inclusive” multilateral institutions that champion gender equality.

The United Nations, a peace-keeping, intergovernmental organization, is one of those institutions. According to the UN Secretariat Gender Parity Dashboard, while women compose nearly 57% of entry-level P-2 positions, they comprise only 38% of D-2 positions, the highest level of employment in the U.N.

The 2016 U.N. secretary-general election showed the hurdles for gender parity at the top of the organization. Despite widespread cries for a woman secretary-general in 2016 and the trending hashtag #SheforSG, Antonio Guterres won the election against seven highly qualified women. As Argentina’s foreign minister and leading candidate from the 2016 UNSG election, Susana Malcorra described, “it’s not a glass ceiling, it’s a steel ceiling.” Unsurprisingly, the female candidates were uniformly ranked lower than their male counterparts in polls conducted by the Security Council. Here lies the primary limitation to gender equality in the U.N.: women aren’t given a fighting chance.

Regardless of Guterres’ capacity and qualifications for the role, comparisons of his suitability against female opponents reproduced gendered power relations that are endemic to the U.N. As former UN Women Chief Adviser on Peace and Security Anne Marie Goetz suggested, “Gender bias interferes with how ‘experience, vision, and versatility’ is assessed.” This bias leads to challenges for equally qualified women candidates for senior positions under the U.N. system.

The U.N. also lacks descriptive representation, as it is overwhelmingly eurocentric in its selectivity for women staff. According to data by NYU’s Center for International Cooperation, as of 2020, only 5.29% of senior leadership appointments in the U.N. are composed of African women, 3.60% are women from the Asia-Pacific region, and 3.55% are Latin American and Caribbean women. Women of color face additional obstacles to representation in the U.N. This “white-washed” feminism is a critical flaw to the U.N.’s approach to gender equality; the U.N.’s feminism must redirect toward intersectionality.

These disparities are all the more confounding given that the U.N.’s work itself is undeniably ambitious in the arena of gender equity; it has espoused policies centered around women’s empowerment internationally for generations. From Article 8 of the U.N. Charter, which inhibits gender discrimination in the U.N.’s subsidiary organs, to Article II of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ explicit defense of women’s rights, the U.N. has made legislative efforts to be gender inclusive in its core documents.

Not only did the U.N. create an entity dedicated entirely to ensuring just standards for gender equality globally (UN Women), but gender equality also permeates the commitments and initiatives of other departments and is evident across the organization’s multilateral efforts. Peacekeeping, a primary U.N. sector, has attempted to tackle the roots of oppressive norms and constructs in conflict zones via Resolution 1325. Adopted by the Security Council in 2000, the resolution reaffirms the importance of women in peacebuilding, security, humanitarian responses, negotiations, and conflict resolution.

Ultimately, the structural flaws of the organization perpetuate gender discrimination within it — the U.N. approaches gender inclusion and reform through top-down and legislative efforts, which are insufficient.

Perhaps now more than ever before is the best time for the U.N. to fully address this issue. Women-led countries’ success with the pandemic could spur the prioritization of women politicians in leadership positions across the globe. In a recent study, the correlation between national female leadership and their effectiveness in handling the COVID-19 pandemic confirmed the media headlines. Countries led by women, such as Denmark and New Zealand, have had systematically better COVID-19 outcomes with fewer COVID-related deaths. They have acted efficiently and effectively in implementing social distancing restrictions and unifying their country around a comprehensive plan of attack against the virus. As Margaret Thatcher said in a speech to the National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds Conference in 1965, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”

What’s more, women’s leadership is becoming more desirable against mounting evidence of hypermasculine leadership breeding negative consequences of international gravity, including but not limited to during the pandemic. For example, Trump’s nonchalant, “macho” approach to the severity of the pandemic led to public opinion that undermined its gravity.

As new empirical evidence for the need for women in leadership positions arises, feminists across the globe anxiously await the domino effect we may witness with the U.N. and gender disparity in leadership. Who knows, maybe COVID-19 will be the trigger to finally see a woman secretary-general?