The first week of March is supposed to be a big week for women around the world. With the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women convening at the U.N. the same week as International Women’s Day. celebrations are under way from the land of Tina Brown and Nick Kristof all the way to the Kalahari.

The theme of this year’s event is the “elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.” That sounds about right, but if the past is prologue, the week will pass as an expensive orgy of earnestness by day, and a Babel of networking by night, chiefly benefiting the airlines ferrying delegations in and out of JFK, and hotels and restaurants in the East 40s. Broadway shows might see a jump in ticket sales.

To roam the ballrooms and conference halls of this gas-fest means scuttling from one event to the next, sliding into chairs before daises of well-meaning NGOs and academics discussing the status of women, without ever talking about the elephant in the room, which is that feminists have been in retreat globally for at least two decades.   Read More