United Nations Commission on the Status of Women

Hi All,

I'm in New York right now for the 53rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. I'm representing Cancer Schmancer, which is partnering with women, delegates, and organizations from around the world to ensure that men and women become equal partners and share responsibilities when it comes to the health and well-being of their families. I wish I could have brought you all to the conference, but instead I’ll bring the conference to you! Here’s the speech I gave yesterday at the United Nations Global Women’s Status Conference.

You can read the transcript below.

Today we stand in the great halls of the United Nations to discuss the status of women globally. The very necessity of such a conference expresses our status in and of itself.

Here we are in the beginning of the 21st century. We stand on the precipice of a new dawn. This is the hour to shape the times we live, into “The Century of the Woman and the Years of Enlightenment.”

There is neither inequality nor injustice imposed on women that does not also and effectively cast its shadow of disparity on the very men who impose it. Man and woman are like two sides of the same coin, the head and tail of a snake or night and day; they are one in the same and cannot exist without the other.

There is, to varying degrees, a global lack of appreciation for the woman: her power, her intelligence, her strengths and her abilities. Women are not the weaker sex.

We are neither better nor worse, weaker nor stronger, but rather the other half; necessary in every way. Women today are living in a man’s world. But it needs to become a Shared World. There is a Swedish proverb that says “To share happiness is to double the happiness and to share hardship is to half the hardship.”

Any version of yin and yang other than balance becomes a world out of balance.

If the pendulum swings too far in one direction versus another, we create a reality of extremes and these extremities are what we experience today.

Mother Teresa once said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each-other.”

The indignities and atrocities imposed upon women under the guise of political or religious beliefs must be re-evaluated and re-interpreted.

Both man and woman must force ourselves to see through a different lens if there is to be any hope for a more peaceful and loving world.

We humans are part of a great interwoven fabric of life all existing together on the same head of a pinpoint.

We must become the brethren of shepherds we were intended to be, who care-take with love and benevolence.

To quote Albert Schweitzer, “Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace.”

The woman is the caregiver to the child, the spouse and the elders in almost every home worldwide. She is the very glue that holds family together and every nation’s greatest natural resource. She is a magnificent and poetic creation of being, from which all human life begins.

If humanity turns it’s back on it’s softer, rounder, more sensitive and nurturing side, than we can only conclude that we are a self loathing species doomed to spin out of control until we ultimately self-destruct. But as Thomas Paine said in 1778, “We have the power to start the world again.”

And so we must try to start anew, because the way of the world today, has gone awry.

As the President and Visionary of The Cancer Schmancer Movement I see whole families destroyed because of the profound loss of their mother, sister or daughter due to late stage diagnosis of women’s cancers. If every woman we loved was diagnosed in Stage 1 almost everyone of them would live. This has become my life mission to ensure that no woman will ever again die from cancer due to the very avoidable late stage diagnosis.

All over the world women continue to subscribe to the Victorian sensibility that if you can grin and bear it do so because your family comes first.

Well Cancer Schmancer’s revolutionary and progressive thinking tells women that when she puts her family first, she’s really putting them last because she’s useless to them if she’s six feet under.

Just like the woman who is instructed on an airplane to put her breathing mask on first before her child, so must we make our own health a priority; not because we’re selfish but because we’re selfless. Women satisfy so many different roles in everyday life, at all costs we must keep her alive.

I was appointed by the US State Dept. as Public Diplomacy Envoy of Women’s Health Issues.

It is my vision to unite women around the globe through the commonality of health, gender and social oppression into a sisterhood that overrides borders and religious differences. I believe with every fiber of my being that this is a certain path towards a shift of the negative paradigm existing in our world today.

But this feat cannot be accomplished with out the support of our enlightened brothers without whom The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the early 20th century could not have been victorious in getting women the vote and voice in the United States government.

So now dear husband, son, father, and friend, we women turn to you once again to stand by our side and show your brothers the light. As Martin Luther King said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

There is a cancer in the world today that’s spreading like wildfire; It’s called intolerance and oppression. We cannot slip down this slope into another dark ages. That would be too scary and cold a place to be when there is so much potential for goodness, hope and optimism. For all the magnificent colors in the world, why should we see everything in black and white?

To quote Helen Keller, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to uncharted lands or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."

Take control of your body, Stage 1 is the Cure! Women are amazing creatures and when empowered with knowledge we are unstoppable! Anyone who ever tells you that you’re too small and insignificant to make a difference never slept in a bed with a mosquito!

Don’t give up, never give up! Chinese proverb says-“With Time and Patience the Mulberry Bush becomes a Silk Gown…”