By Vali Mitsakis
A briefing organized by Department of Public Information of the United Nations with a panel speaking about the seventy years of the United Nations.
While I was walking towards the conference room where the celebration was being held, I couldn’t help myself from thinking ‘What’s next?” I knew that I was going to hear a panel speak about the accomplishments and shortcoming of the United Nations in the 70 years of its existence as well as the successes and failures of the Millennium Development Goals and the hopes for the Sustainable Development Goals.
However, I couldn’t stop thinking about an issue that should be in the forefront especially in a year such as 2015. I kept thinking of how throughout the 70 years of the existence of United Nations there have been EIGHT males and ZERO female Secretary Generals, of how women compose almost 50% of the world’s population and of how women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, who was one of the most important advocates for the creation of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have been instrumental for the successes of the United Nations.
Thus, in my opinion, the most important part of the celebration was a question regarding the possibility of a woman being elected Secretary General in the coming election and the possibility of the women’s organization that was represented on the panel to lobby for the election of a woman Secretary General. Most panelists said that a woman should be considered for this position. The representative of the women’s organization said that her organization will try to lobby in favor of a woman Secretary General.
The truth is that it is time for a woman to head the United Nations. It is time for a woman to preside over the international community because then we would actually be able to say that 20 years after the 4th Conference on Women in Beijing, women have truly been able to break through the “glass ceiling” that many of us have and might have to face in our lives.