The Women Behind the UN: Profiles of Early Female Influencers on the Founding of the United Nations
By Allison Hastings-Wottowa, Women in Model UN Resource Staffer
Many of us may know that Eleanor Roosevelt was an essential contributor to the establishment of the United Nations; however, few might be aware of the coalition of incredible women who were critical to the formation of the UN’s foundational principles. It is here that we recognize and appreciate these lesser known women and their contributions to the advancement of global human rights, particularly women’s rights.
Minerva Bernardino (Dominican Republic)
Minerva Bernardino was one of only four women to sign the United Nations Charter and worked closely alongside her colleague Bertha Lutz to ensure that sex was included in the Charter. Bernardino was also the one who originally proposed adding “equal rights of men and women” and “human beings” instead of “men” to the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1946 she was a delegate to the first UN General Assembly where she co-authored an “Open Letter to the Women of the World” with four other women, including Eleanor Roosevelt, encouraging women to take a leading role in the political sphere.
Bernardino’s feminist activism began in her early years, serving as a prominent member of the Accion Dominicana Feminista (AFD), a group which was later successful in helping to secure Dominican women’s suffrage in the 1940s. In 1935 she started her work for the Inter-American Commission on Women (IACW) — the world’s first regional body dedicated to furthering women’s rights — in Washington DC. In the 1940s she became the official Dominican representative to the organization, and later went on to become vice chairman and chairman from 1946–1949. In 1950 she was appointed the permanent Dominican representative to the UN, where she attended 15 General Assemblies, and served as vice president of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1951 and then president in 1953. Furthermore, Bernardino was the first female vice chairman of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and UN Children’s Fund) UNICEF. She represented the Dominican Republic at the UN until 1971, becoming the Dominican ambassador to the Netherlands until 1976.
Bertha Lutz (Brazil)
Bertha Lutz was another one of the only four female signatories of the UN Charter in 1945, and is credited as the most influential woman to advocate for the inclusion of anti-sex based discrimination in the Charter’s creation. She was also instrumental in the inclusion of “sex” in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Alongside Minerva Bernardino, she was key in including gender equality in the preamble, as well as Article II, which states that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” She was also the most prominent founder of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1946. And in 1964 she led the Brazilian delegation to the Inter-American Commission in Montevideo.
Before becoming a feminist activist, Lutz received a degree in biology and zoology from the Sarbonne in Paris in 1918, leading her to significant amount of time throughout her professional career publishing research on the natural sciences. While still in Paris, Lutz published a feminist manifesto in the French magazine Revista da Semana, calling for women’s suffrage and the promotion of female education and professional careers. Upon her return to Brazil, Lutz founded the League for Intellectual Emancipation of Women and was appointed to represent Brazil to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Female International Council. In 1922 she founded the Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women (BFAW) — an organization dedicated to granting Brazilian suffrage to women and allied with the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance. BFAW achieved their goal in 1932, though it is important to note that voting rights were only granted to literate women.
Hansa Jivraj Mehta (India)
Hansa Mehta was a prominent Indian freedom fighter who was a trailblazer in both the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as well as the first Indian Constituent Assembly and Constitution. Alongside Minerva Bernardino, she is the reason the UDHR’s language was changed from “all men are created equal” to “all human beings.” In 1946 Hansa represented India on the Nuclear Sub-Committee on the status of women in 1946. She then served on the UN Human Rights Commission from 1947–1948, and became vice chairman in 1950. She was also an executive board member of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Within her own country, Hansa Mehta was a prominent academic and freedom fighter. Originally a professor of philosophy at Baroda College, Hansa worked to increase opportunities for women in academia and study abroad. Outside of her research, she was a grassroots organizer who led numerous women’s rights and anti-British rule protests. She was also elected to the Bombay Congress Committee where she continued to organize, which eventually led to her arrest in 1932. Furthermore, in 1945 Hansa became president of the All India Women’s Conference. Following independence, Hansa was one of 15 female Constituent Assembly members who worked on the Indian Constitution. She also spent time advocating for women’s marriage and divorce rights. Additionally, Hansa was a member of the Advisory Committee and Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights. Later, she continued her career in academia, becoming the first woman in India to lead a co-ed university, becoming the vice-chancellor of Baroda University. Throughout her career Hansa wrote a total of 15 books, about women’s issues, religion, civil rights, among others.
Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah (Pakistan)
Begum Ikramullah served as a Pakistani delegate to the United Nations several times. However, she was most notably involved in the drafting of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention Against Genocide — both of which are central to modern international norms on human rights and nonviolence. She was also important to the post-colonial and post-partition Pakistani government.
Ikramullah was the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD from the University of London. She began her career in politics and activism in the Muslim Women Student’s Federation and the All-India Muslim League’s sub-committee on women. Following her involvement in these organizations, she was later elected to the Indian Constituent Assembly in 1946 as a representative of the Muslim League, though because of her Muslim League status, she was not granted voting rights within the council. Later, in 1947 she became one of two female representatives to the first Constituent Assembly in Pakistan. Finally, Ikramullah went on to become the Pakistani Ambassador to Morocco from 1964 to 1967. Ikramullah was not only a women’s and human rights activist, a diplomat and a politician, but she was also a prolific writer about a multitude of topics, such as the Pakistani-Indian partition, Islam, and human rights.
Virginia Gildersleeve (United States)
Virginia Gildersleeve was the only woman nominated by President Roosevelt to represent the United States at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draft the UN Charter, because of her leading role in the founding of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES), a US naval reserve in WWII. She was extremely influential in the writing of the Charter’s preamble, writing “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetimes has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person…”. Gildersleeve also played a key role in the naming of the United Nations itself.
In line with her position as the Dean of Barnard College (a women’s college in New York) and founder of the International Federation of University Women, Gildersleeve was a founder of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). She was in fact the one who ensured that UNESCO included education in its mission. In 1946 Gildersleeve was a member of the US mission to Japan, and in 1947 was appointed alternate delegate to the UN General Assembly, but was unfortunately too sick to fill the role. Her passions were often related to the Middle East, as she was a staunch critic of the Zionist movement, advocating instead that countries should share the responsibility of accepting Jewish refugees, rather than invade Palestine.
