United Nations,the Struggle for Gender Equity,and Queering Global Science

Perspective

There are large disparities in gender diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in science, engineering, and medicine around the world (Brusman, 2020; Özdemir, 2023), not to mention in science communication (Roberson and Orthia, 2021). Over the past 2 decades, the institutions of global governance, including the United Nations (UN), joined the gender turn in women’s rights (Coburn, 2021). UN Women is the UN “entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women” (UN Women, 2025a). UN Women defines the concept of gender as a “cross-cutting socio-cultural variable,” while noting, “gender roles are learned through socialization processes; they are not fixed but are changeable. Gender systems are institutionalized through education systems, political and economic systems, legislation, and culture and traditions.” (UN Women, 2025b).

Statistics Canada frames gender as a multi-dimensional concept referring to “an individual’s personal and social identity as a man, woman, or nonbinary person (a person who is not exclusively a man or a woman) [..] A person’s gender may change over time.” (Statistics Canada, 2021).

Gender is a signifier of asymmetries in power, health, and education outcomes; access to equitable employment; and in other dimensions of quotidian life (Scott, 1986). Moreover, queer and transgender scientists face systemic inequities in their career trajectories. For example, in a recent call for queer- and trans-inclusive faculty hiring, Weissman and colleagues note:

In this overarching context, as we begin a new year, let’s take a look at the brief history of a prominent global governance institution, UN Women.

UN Women was established on July 2, 2010, in the overarching context of a gender turn to accelerate gender equality across the UN and the member states. The UN Women was formed by a merger of the four prior UN entities, namely, the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, the UN International Training and Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, and the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (UN Women, 2011). UN Women is headquartered in New York City with operations across the member states worldwide. UN Women provides support to the UN Member States in setting standards, norms, and policies for gender equality and translating the policies into real-life practices in the UN Member States. UN Women reported a total revenue exceeding US$500 million by the end of its first decade of operation in 2020.

UN Women does not exist in a vacuum, even within the highly bureaucratic and siloed structure of the UN. The UN Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Core Group was established in 2008 “to work within the United Nations framework on ensuring universal respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, specifically LGBTI persons.” (https://unlgbticoregroup.org/home/lgbti-milestones-at-the-united-nations/). The UN launched the Free & Equal global campaign against transphobia and homophobia in 2013 (https://www.unfe.org/). UN Women’s predecessor organization, UNIFEM, had been significant in leading women’s rights from mid-1980 to 2010.

There are many strands of feminism and feminist theory that differ in their approaches to resisting patriarchy and achieving gender equality. It is interesting to note that the types of gender equity arguments taken up by UN Women are more along the lines of liberal feminist concepts rather than queer feminist theoretical frames that demand structural and systemic change. UN Women tends to focus on (1) economic growth framed around market mechanisms while lacking rigorous critiques of marketplace economics, such as the ways in which health as a universal human right is undermined when healthcare becomes a market commodity; (2) promotion of legal and normative reforms in Member States to stop violence against women; and (3) budgeting and planning reforms for empowerment of women and girls.

Unpaid labor at home is one of the salient focus areas in feminist theory and praxis. Most of the annual reports of UN Women include a discussion to redress the issue of unpaid home labor. Nicola J. Smith suggests that the separation of unpaid feminized work at home versus masculinized paid work outside the home has been a foundational pillar of marketplace economics (Smith, 2020). This separation continues to reproduce the gender equity gaps across generations. The corollary here is that if the global gender equity is to be redressed, there is a need to adopt an intersectional feminist lens whereby structural racism, living legacies of colonialism, leaving human rights subject to influences by market mechanisms, patriarchy, and other systemic forms of oppression are held to account.

Charlotte Bunch offers a detailed account of the large gaps in gender integration at the UN (Bunch, 2018). Bunch notes the petitions in 2006 made by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and activists outside of the UN responding to the gender-related institutional gaps at the UN as catalysts for the establishment of UN Women as a crosscutting and integrative entity in 2010.

The idea of temporal and spatial gender variability is not new and has been part of queer theory in particular. Queer theory is a strand of social theory that emerged in the 1990s and continues to shape feminist analyses. Queer theory can be defined as an “anti-normative” approach to sex and gender that questions the gender binary, gender essentialism, and the categorical/exclusive definitions of gender and sexuality (Özdemir, 2023). Moreover, queer theory is not limited to studies of gender and sexuality. When used as a verb, “queering,” its meaning broadens so as to mean critical examination of the unchecked assumptions and norms in a given field of scholarly inquiry.

Subscribing to gender binary and gender essentialism in the global gender equity discourse has multipronged costs and adverse effects on diverse persons and communities (Hyde et al., 2019). These range from gender stereotypes that prevent girls and boys from pursuing careers where they would have been successful to subtle or outright discrimination at work, in education, at home, and in other contexts. Akwugo Emejulu further unpacks the unchecked binaries and binary regimes that cause women’s disempowerment in a recent interview: “hegemonic ideas of masculinity and femininity alienate us from ourselves because we’re trying to perform impossible ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman.” (https://lesglorieuses.fr/akwugo-emejulu/). As summarized by an interdisciplinary collective of scholars, the gender binary is challenged by converging evidence from several disciplines such as genetics, psychology, neuroscience, and endocrinology (Hyde et al., 2019). Gender essentialism and the gender binary are coproduced, and are sharply opposed to delivering a truly global, inclusive, and broadly framed gender equity.

Moreover, it is important to go beyond inclusion by addressing long-standing injustices such as the living legacies of colonialism, structural racism, and patriarchy. Liza Brusman rightly observes that “when the “inclusion” doesn’t come with real support, it’s easy to feel like we’re only included to check diversity boxes.” (Brusman, 2020). The UN Women and its global mission for gender DEI would also be well served by broadening its theoretical gaze beyond the gender binary and considering the rich body of scholarship in transgender studies (Stryker and Whittle, 2006).

DEI inequities in science, engineering, medicine, and society are real, harmful to individuals and communities, and hinder science. Going forward amid uncertainty and polycrisis in world affairs and global governance, the systemic gaps in gender equity in everyday laboratory life and on the streets ought to be remedied in order for global science and planetary health to be just, responsible, and innovative.